Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Cleavage Product GLP-1(9-36) Amide Rescues Synaptic Plasticity and Memory Deficits in Alzheimer's Disease Model Mice

Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) is an endogenous intestinal peptide that enhances glucose-stimulated insulin secretion. Its natural cleavage product GLP-1(9-36)amide possesses distinct properties and does not affect insulin secretion. Here we report that pretreatment of hippocampal slices with GLP-1(9-36)amide prevented impaired long-term potentiation (LTP) and enhanced long-term depression induced by exogenous amyloid β peptide Aβ(1–42). Similarly, hippocampal LTP impairments in amyloid precursor protein/presenilin 1 (APP/PS1) mutant mice that model Alzheimer's disease (AD) were prevented by GLP-1(9-36)amide. In addition, treatment of APP/PS1 mice with GLP-1(9-36)amide at an age at which they display impaired spatial and contextual fear memory resulted in a reversal of their memory defects. At the molecular level, GLP-1(9-36)amide reduced elevated levels of mitochondrial-derived reactive oxygen species and restored dysregulated Akt–glycogen synthase kinase-3β signaling in the hippocampus of APP/PS1 mice. Our findings suggest that GLP-1(9-36)amide treatment may have therapeutic potential for AD and other diseases associated with cognitive dysfunction.
A Novel Motion Field Anchoring Paradigm for Highly Scalable Wavelet-Based Video Coding

Existing video coders anchor motion fields at frames that are to be predicted. In this paper, we demonstrate how changing the anchoring of motion fields to reference frames has some important advantages over conventional anchoring. We work with piecewise-smooth motion fields, and use breakpoints to signal discontinuities at moving object boundaries. We show how discontinuity information can be used to resolve double mappings arising when motion is warped from reference to target frames. We present an analytical model that allows to determine weights for texture, motion, and breakpoints to guide the rate-allocation for scalable encoding. Compared with the conventional way of anchoring motion fields, the proposed scheme requires fewer bits for the coding of motion; furthermore, the reconstructed video frames contain fewer ghosting artefacts. The experimental results show the superior performance compared with the traditional anchoring, and demonstrate the high scalability attributes of the proposed method.
Measuring small subgroup attacks against Diffie-Hellman

Several recent standards, including NIST SP 80056A and RFC 5114, advocate the use of “DSA” parameters for Diffie-Hellman key exchange. While it is possible to use such parameters securely, additional validation checks are necessary to prevent well-known and potentially devastating attacks. In this paper, we observe that many Diffie-Hellman implementations do not properly validate key exchange inputs. Combined with other protocol properties and implementation choices, this can radically decrease security. We measure the prevalence of these parameter choices in the wild for HTTPS, POP3S, SMTP with STARTTLS, SSH, IKEv1, and IKEv2, finding millions of hosts using DSA and other non-“safe” primes for Diffie-Hellman key exchange, many of them in combination with potentially vulnerable behaviors. We examine over 20 open-source cryptographic libraries and applications and observe that until January 2016, not a single one validated subgroup orders by default. We found feasible full or partial key recovery vulnerabilities in OpenSSL, the Exim mail server, the Unbound DNS client, and Amazon’s load balancer, as well as susceptibility to weaker attacks in many other applications.
How Materiality Enables and Constrains Framing Practices: Affordances of a Rheumatology E-Service

Framing has been presented as a way for micro-level actors to change and diffuse innovations. However, most framing studies have given primacy to language, whereas the role of material artifacts has been largely ignored. The aim of this study is to conceptualize and illustrate how the materiality of technology enables and constrains framing practices. We use empirical data about the development and diffusion of an e-service in the Swedish rheumatology setting from 2000 to 2014. Our results show how three different material features of the technology (data content, user rights, and system integration) initially afforded two different framings of the technology: normalizing and radicalizing framings. The material features, however, lost their ability to afford radicalizing framings over time, along with changes in the collective-action frames governing the field studied.
An approach for metabonomics data analysis applied on the plasma of RAC water extract administered reserpine induced spleen deficiency rats

Data sets in metabonomics or metabolic profiling experiments are becoming increasingly complex, which is hard to analyze without appropriate methods. The use of chemometric tools, such as orthogonal signal correction (OSC), principal component analysis (PCA), partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), (orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) make the data dimension and interpretation much easier. Here a system method based on PCA, OSC-PLS-DA for metabonomic data analysis was showed; Furthermore, U-plot, as a visualized tool was used for the biomarkers discovery. As an example, dataset from RAC water extract administrated spleen deficiency rats plasma collected by LC/MS/MS was used to demonstrate this method. As a result, PCA was an useful tool for metabonomic dataset dimension reduction, OSC is an powerful data filter, U-plot based on OSC-PLS-DA was proved to be an effective, time saving tool for data interpretation and biomarkers discovery. In conclusion, the a system method shown by this paper is suitable for the matabonomic study.
A Distributed Algorithm for Underlay Aware and Available Overlay Formation in Event Broker Networks for Publish/Subscribe Systems

Event broker networks are basically overlay networks formed over the underlying physical network. In modern distributed applications, ensuring high availability in the face of the runtime failures is a major issue. This paper presents an asynchronous distributed algorithm for constructing and maintaining an underlay aware overlay which ensures high availability in the presence of node and link failures in the underlying physical network. We prove theoretically that our algorithm is correct. The time complexity of the algorithm is estimated to be O(diameter*degree)2 of the network and the message complexity is O(diameter*degree). A model for availability of an underlay aware overlay network and a classification of available overlays are the other important contributions of this paper.
Examining Community of Inquiry Model in Influencing E-learning Usage among Female Students

This study explores the relationship between online social games and the e-learning usage by investigating the impact of social and cognitive presence on e-learning usage among female students through playing online social games. The use of online social games tools is noticed to be high among female students. Meanwhile, an e-learning environment that has the features of social network tools such as games has great potential to innovate and stimulate the continual usage of e-learning among students, by fostering social interaction and knowledge sharing among the students, especially among female students to be able to facilitate social interaction, since female students are more comfortable sharing ideas among their peers. The findings of this study revealed that, cognitive presence has positive significant impact on e-learning usage. Meanwhile, social presence does not have a significant impact on e-learning usage.
Multiresolution fragile watermarking using complex chirp signal for content integrity verification

This paper proposes a wavelet-domain multiresolution fragile watermarking scheme using an improved quantization-index-modulation (QIM) embedding technique. A secure embedding zone is exploited in our proposed scheme to reduce the false detection rate of Kundur's scheme. The frequency modulated (FM) complex chirp signal is employed as watermark. Both the real and the imaginary parts of the chirp signal are embedded simultaneously in a hierarchical manner. Unlike the conventional schemes, the proposed scheme does not require the original watermark for content integrity verification. The blind authentication process allows embedding of arbitrary FM chirp watermarks.
K-optimal Randomization Tests for Association in Practical Metric Spaces Using Nearest Neighbor Methods

K -Optimal Randomization Tests for Association in Practical Metric Spaces Using Nearest Neighbor Methods James MacQueen University of California, Los Angeles Jan Stallaert University of Texas, Austin Abstract Let X i Y i , i = 1 2 ::: N be pairs of random variables, each X i in M 1 , each Y i in M 2 , where M 1 and M 2 are metric spaces with distances d 1 and d 2 , respectively. It is desired to test the hypothesis H 0 that the Y i are identically distributed and independent of the X i . Let S i be the set of K nearest neighbors of X i in distance d 1 and let V i be the 1 P average of the distances d 2 ( Y j Y k ) such that X j and X k are in S i . Then V = N V i will tend to be small if there is an association between the X i and the Y i and V can be used to test H 0 . An approximate randomization test based on the normal approximation to V was proposed by MacQueen (1991a). This was found to work in a wide range of situations but a satisfactory objective method for the choice of K was not established. This paper provides a practical objective method of choosing K which is part of a new test. The test statistic p is de ned as the minimum over K = 2 3 : : : N ; 1 of the signi cance probabilities of the above test. This test statistic being generally too di cult to obtain exactly, is evaluated approximately by taking the minimum over the normal approximation estimates p K of the signi cance probabilities p K for each K . The resulting test statistic p = min K p K is then evaluated by approximate randomization based on a sample of random pairings of the X i and the Y i , getting p for each and then calculating an approximate signi cance probability p as the proportion of these less than or equal to p from the original data. Because p is an unbiased estimate of the true signi cance probability and can be made as accurate as desired by increasing the number of random pairings, it can be used as a measure of strength in the usual way, and if a formal procedure is desired, rejecting H 0 if p will accomplish this with a Type I error of not more than + , with small. The test is applied to a variety of simulated data sets of quite di erent kinds and found to be a practical and convincing test. In the multivariate situation the test performs respectably well in comparison to the F test when all the assumptions of this test are in e ect. Keywords: Association Metric Space Randomization Test
Identification of Protein Network Alterations upon Retinal Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury by Quantitative Proteomics Using a Rattus norvegicus Model

Retinal ischemia is a common feature associated with several ocular diseases, including diabetic retinopathy. In this study, we investigated the effect of a retinal ischemia and reperfusion (I/R) injury on protein levels via a quantitative shotgun strategy using stable isotope dimethyl labeling combined with LC-MS/MS analysis. Based on the relative quantitation data of 1088 proteins, 234 proteins showed a greater than 1.5-fold change following I/R injury, 194 of which were up-regulated and 40 were down-regulated. Gene ontology analysis revealed that after I/R injury, there was an increase in the metabolic-process related proteins but a decline in cell communication, system process and transport-related proteins. A ribosome protein network and a secreted protein network consisting of many protease inhibitors were identified among the up-regulated proteins, despite a suppression of the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway following the I/R injury. A synaptic-related protein network was found to be significantly down-regulated, implicating a functional reduction of neurons following a retinal I/R injury. Our results provide new systems-biology clues for the study of retinal ischemia.
Predictive torque and flux control for the synchronous reluctance machine

This paper presents a predictive torque and flux control algorithm for the synchronous reluctance machine. The algorithm performs a voltage space phasor pre-selection, followed by the computation of the switching instants for the optimum switching space phasors, with the advantages of inherently constant switching frequency and time equidistant implementation on a DSP based system. The criteria used to choose the appropriate voltage space phasor depend on the state of the machine and the deviations of torque and flux at the end of the cycle. The model of the machine has been developed on a d-q frame of coordinates attached to the rotor and takes into account the magnetic saturation in both d-q axes and the cross saturation phenomenon between both axes. Therefore, a very good approximation of this effect is achieved and the performance of the machine is improved. Several simulations and experimental results using a DSP and a commercially available machine show the validity of the proposed control scheme.
Differential leg function in a sprawled-posture quadrupedal trotter

SUMMARY Legs of sprawled-posture, quadrupedal trotting geckos (Hemidactylus garnotii) each functioned differently during constant average-speed locomotion. The center of mass decelerated in the first half of a step and accelerated in the second half, as if geckos were bouncing in fore–aft and side-to-side directions. Forelegs decelerated the center of mass only in the fore–aft direction. Hindlegs provided all the acceleration in the latter half of the step. Lateral ground reaction forces were always directed toward the midline and exceeded the magnitude of fore–aft forces. The differential leg function of sprawled-posture geckos resembled sprawled-posture hexapods more than upright-posture quadrupeds. The pattern of leg ground reaction forces observed may provide passive, dynamic stability while minimizing joint moments, yet allow high maneuverability. Integrating limb dynamics with whole body dynamics is required to resolve the trade-offs, if any, that result from stable sprawled-posture running with differential leg function.
Model-based character recognition in low resolution

We propose a combined character separation and recognition approach for low-resolution images of alphanumeric text. By synthesising the image formation process a set of low-resolution templates is created for each character. Cluster algorithms and normalised cross-correlation are then applied to match these templates and thereby allowing both character separation and recognition to be achieved at the same time. Thus characters are recognised using their low-resolution appearance only without applying image enhancement methods. Experiments showed that this approach is able to recognise low-resolution alphanumeric text of down to 5 pixels in size.
Efficient Elastic Net Regularization for Sparse Linear Models

We extend previous work on efficiently training linear model s by applying stochastic updates to non-zero features only, lazily bring ing weights current as needed. To date, only the closed form updates for the l1, l1, and the rarely used l2 norm have been described. We extend this work by showing the proper closed form updates for the popular l 2 and elastic net regularized models. We show a dynamic programming algorithm to calculate the proper elastic net update with only one constant-time subproblem computation per update. Our algorithm handles both fixed and decreasing learning rates and we derive th e result for both stochastic gradient descent (SGD) and forward backward splitting (FoBoS) . We empirically validate the algorithm, showing that on a bag-of-words dataset with 260, 941 features and 88 nonzero features on average per example, our method trains a logistic regression classifier with elastic net reg ularization 612 times faster than an otherwise identical implementation with dense updates.
Dielectric resonator antennas with band rejection and frequency reconfigurability

In this paper, two types of reconflgurable Dielectric Resonator Antennas (DRAs) are presented. The designs are based on rotating a Dielectric Resonator (DR), placed on the patch of the antenna, using a DC stepper motor connected to the DR to reconflgure the notch frequency, in the flrst, and the resonance frequency in the second design. The attained results are a UWB DRA with a reconflgurable notch in the 3.2{5.1GHz range that prevents interference to many narrowband systems in this range, and a DRA with a reconflgurable resonance frequency suitable for microwave and WiMAX applications. The characteristics of the designed antennas are investigated using HFSS and experimentally verifled. The computed and measured results are in good agreement, and the antennas meet their design criteria.
Creation and evolution of magnetic helicity

Projecting a non-Abelian SU(2) vacuum gauge field - a pure gauge constructed from the group element U - onto a fixed (electromagnetic) direction in isospace gives rise to a nontrivial magnetic field, with nonvanishing magnetic helicity, which coincides with the winding number of U. Although the helicity is not conserved under Maxwell (vacuum) evolution, it retains one-half its initial value at infinite time.
SUMOylation by Pias1 Regulates the Activity of the Hedgehog Dependent Gli Transcription Factors

Background Hedgehog (Hh) signaling, a vital signaling pathway for the development and homeostasis of vertebrate tissues, is mediated by members of the Gli family of zinc finger transcription factors. Hh signaling increases the transcriptional activity of Gli proteins, at least in part, by inhibiting their proteolytic processing. Conversely, phosphorylation by cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) inhibits Gli transcriptional activity by promoting their ubiquitination and proteolysis. Whether other post-translational modifications contribute to the regulation of Gli protein activity has been unclear. Methodology/Principal Findings Here we provide evidence that all three Gli proteins are targets of small ubiquitin-related modifier (SUMO)-1 conjugation. Expression of SUMO-1 or the SUMO E3 ligase, Pias1, increased Gli transcriptional activity in cultured cells. Moreover, PKA activity reduced Gli protein SUMOylation. Strikingly, in the embryonic neural tube, the forced expression of Pias1 increased Gli activity and induced the ectopic expression of the Gli dependent gene Nkx2.2. Conversely, a point mutant of Pias1, that lacks ligase activity, blocked the endogenous expression of Nkx2.2. Conclusions/Significance Together, these findings provide evidence that Pias1-dependent SUMOylation influences Gli protein activity and thereby identifies SUMOylation as a post-translational mechanism that regulates the hedgehog signaling pathway.
An Evaluation Model for Web Services

The evaluation for Web Services is essential to select Web services from many candidates, but current evaluation models evaluate Web services only by common service attributes, which can not meet the requirements of end users. We propose an evaluation model for Web Services, which customizes reasonable attributes in different domains as evaluation factors, and computes the weights of evaluation factors using a machine learning algorithm. The model is implemented in Web service quality evaluation system (WS-QES), which can provide more accurate, reasonable results to end users
Monetary disequilibria and the euro/dollar exchange rate

Although stable money demand functions are crucial for the monetary model of the exchange rate, empirical research on exchange rates and money demand is more or less disconnected. This paper tries to fill the gap for the euro/dollar exchange rate. We investigate whether monetary disequilibria provided by the empirical literature on US and European money demand functions contain useful information about exchange rate movements. Our results suggest that the empirical performance of the monetary exchange rate model improves when insights from the money demand literature are explicitly taken into account.
A novel criterion for overlapping communities detection and clustering improvement

In community detection, the theme of correctly identifying overlapping nodes, i.e. nodes which belong to more than one community, is important as it is related to role detection and to the improvement of the quality of clustering: proper detection of overlapping nodes gives a better understanding of the community structure. In this paper, we introduce a novel measure, called cuttability, that we show being useful for reliable detection of overlaps among communities and for improving the quality of the clustering, measured via modularity. The proposed algorithm shows better behaviour than existing techniques on the considered datasets (IRC logs and Enron e-mail log). The best behaviour is caught when a network is split between micro-communities. In that case, the algorithm manages to get a better description of the community structure.
Techniques to Reduce Synchronization in Distributed Parallel Logic Simulation

As the complexity of chip designs increase, simulation time also increases. Unit and variable delay simulation takes the most simulation time in IC design process; however, parallel processing performs inefficiently due to large amount of synchronization. In this paper, techniques to reduce the number of synchronization points in synchronous designs are proposed, and a partitioner to partition designs along flip-flop boundaries is also proposed so that these techniques can be employed on real designs.
Yao ’ s Garbled Circuits : Recent Directions and Implementations

Secure function evaluation, or how two parties can jointly compute a function while keeping their inputs private, is an active field in cryptography. In 1986 Andrew Yao presented a solution to the problem called garbled circuits, based on modeling the problem as a series of binary gates and encrypting the result tables. This approach was initially treated as theoretically interesting but too computationally expensive for practical use. However, in the decades since Yao published his solution, a great deal of work has gone into both optimizing the protocol for practical use, and further securing the protocol to make it useful in untrusted scenarios. This paper provides a thorough explanation of Yao’s original protocol and its security characteristics. The paper then details additions to the protocol to both secure it against untrusted parties and to make it practical for computation. Implementations of Yao’s protocol are also discussed, though the paper’s emphasis is on the underlying enabling improvements to the protocol.
STOCHASTIC SUBGRADIENT APPROACH FOR SOLVING LINEAR SUPPORT VECTOR MACHINES – AN OVERVIEW

This paper is an overview of a recent approach for solving linear support vector machines (SVMs), the PEGASOS algorithm. The algorithm is based on a technique called the stochastic subgradient descent and employs it for solving the optimization problem posed by the soft margin SVM a very popular classifier. We briefly introduce the SVM problem and one of the widely used solvers, SVM light, then describe the PEGASOS algorithm and present some experiments. We conclude that the algorithm efficiently discovers suboptimal solutions to large scale problems within a