Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Title : Engineered context-sensitive agonism – tissue-selective drug signaling through a G protein-coupled receptor

efficacy e) Recommended section: Cellular and Molecular This article has not been copyedited and formatted. The final version may differ from this version. ABSTRACT Drug discovery strives for selective ligands to achieve targeted modulation of tissue function. Here we introduce engineered context-sensitive agonism as a post-receptor mechanism for tissue-selective drug action through a G protein-coupled receptor. Acetylcholine M 2-receptor activation is known to mediate, among other actions, potentially dangerous slowing of the heart rate. This unwanted side effect is one of the main reasons that limit clinical application of muscarinic agonists. Herein we show that dualsteric (orthosteric/allosteric) agonists induce less cardiac depression ex vivo and in vivo than conventional full agonists. Exploration of the underlying mechanism in living cells employing cellular dynamic mass redistribution identified context-sensitive agonism of these dualsteric agonists. They translate elevation of intracellular cAMP into a switch from full to partial agonism. Designed context-sensitive agonism opens an avenue towards post-receptor pharmacological selectivity, which even works in target tissues operated by the same subtype of pharmacological receptor. This article has not been copyedited and formatted. The final version may differ from this version.
Involving Service Users with Intellectual Disability in Research: Experiences from the STOP Diabetes Study

The involvement of service users (people who use health and social care services) in research is central to UK policies, is an integral component of many research funding programs and improves the quality and uptake of research. People with intellectual disability are often excluded from research involvement. The purpose of this article is to describe how adult service users with intellectual disability were involved in the early stages of a diabetes screening study conducted in Leicestershire, UK. People who volunteered were involved in five key areas: publicity, study documentation and process development, acceptability of measures, recruitment of research staff, and training of staff. Service users helped with logo selection, publicity materials, designing art work, raising awareness of the study, study documents, rehearsing clinics, and recruiting and training research staff. Our findings demonstrate that with careful planning adults with intellectual disability can meaningfully be involved and benefit from involvement in research. We look forward to continued involvement with service users with intellectual disability in future research studies.
Stabilizing cognition: An STS approach to the Sloan Foundation Report

Critics of the cognitive revolution have argued that the movement should be better understood as a socio-rhetorical phenomenon that only changed the language used by psychologists. In this article I adopt the concept of factish as a way to reconcile these criticisms with the changes brought about by information processing theory in psychology and other cognitive disciplines. My main argument is that contemporary cognition is a kind of factish that from the beginning was institutionalized in a way that allowed multiple performances. I turn to the Sloan Foundation Report of 1978 as a way to discuss the institutionalization of cognition. As we will see in the reading, institutionalization was only possible through an oscillation between convergence and multiplicity. I conclude that a definitive consensus or a single approach to cognition doesn’t represent a possible—or desirable—final goal for the multidisciplinarity of cognitive sciences.
Identification of Group Interaction Literature Review

Time series signals are recognized by extracting a multiplicity of candidate feature vectors characterizing an individual time series signal without fixing a boundary for the individual time series signal, and calculating similarity values for each of the multiplicity of candidate feature vectors and the reference patterns stored in the recognition dictionary, from which one reference pattern for which the similarity value is greater than a prescribed threshold value is selected as a recognition result. New reference patterns to be stored in the recognition dictionary are learned by artificially synthesizing signal patterns with variations for learning; extracting feature vectors for learning from the recognition results and the similarity values obtained by the recognizing step from the signal patterns with variations for learning; and obtaining new reference patterns from the feature vectors for learning extracted by the extracting step.
Automatic Error Detection and Reduction for an Odometric Sensor based on Two Optical Mice

In this paper, we present a dead reckoning sensor to support reliable odometry on mobile robots. This sensor is based on a pair of optical mice rigidly connected to the robot body and its main advantages are 1) this localization system is independent from the kinematics of the robot, 2) the measurement given by the mice is not subject to slipping, since they are independent from the traction wheels, nor to crawling, since they measure displacements in any direction 3) it is a low-cost solution with a precision comparable to classical shaft encoders. Since we have redundant measures it is possible to detect non-systematic errors; in this paper, an automatic procedure to reduce non-systematic errors of the sensor is presented and validated with experimental results on a real mobile robot.
Robust Preconditioning of Large , Sparse , Symmetric Eigenvalue

Iterative methods for solving large, sparse, symmetric eigenvalue problems often encounter convergence diiculties because of ill-conditioning. The Generalized Davidson method is a well known technique which uses eigenvalue preconditioning to surmount these diiculties. Preconditioning the eigenvalue problem entails more subtleties than for linear systems. In addition, the use of an accurate conventional preconditioner (i.e., as used in linear systems) may cause deterioration of convergence or convergence to the wrong eigenvalue. The purpose of this paper is to assess the quality of eigenvalue preconditioning and to propose strategies to improve robustness. Numerical experiments for some ill-conditioned cases connrm the robustness of the approach.
Automata Theory Meets Barrier Certificates: Temporal Logic Verification of Nonlinear Systems

We consider temporal logic verification of (possibly nonlinear) dynamical systems evolving over continuous state spaces. Our approach combines automata-based verification and the use of so-called barrier certificates. Automata-based verification allows the decomposition the verification task into a finite collection of simpler constraints over the continuous state space. The satisfaction of these constraints in turn can be (potentially conservatively) proved by appropriately constructed barrier certificates. As a result, our approach, together with optimization-based search for barrier certificates, allows computational verification of dynamical systems against temporal logic properties while avoiding explicit abstractions of the dynamics as commonly done in literature.
Energy conservation of bidirectional cellular relay network over Rayleigh fading channel

In this paper, we investigate the energy minimization problem while satisfying the transmission rate requirements in a bidirectional cellular relay network, where a group of mobile users communicate with a base station (BS) across a relay node. We consider a comprehensive power consumption model which includes the power of all components in the radio frequency (RF) transmission, and adopt the Rayleigh fading channel model. We show that the energy minimization problem of the bidirectional cellular relay network can be formulated as a sum of fractional programming problem. Furthermore, we derive the sufficient condition that guarantees the problem to be convex. In the case that the energy minimizing problem is not convex, we decompose it into several sub-problems, and propose an iterative algorithm to solve it. Simulation results show that the iterative algorithm is fast and can achieve an average energy reduction of 65%, compared with the maximum power transmission policy.
Nonlinear state estimating using Adaptive Particle Filter

It is well known the standard particle filter has a good effect when the observation accuracy is low. However, if the observation accuracy is high, the likelihood distribution may become aiguilles-like and locate at the tail of the prior distribution curve; this will make the filter diverge. To solve the problem, a kind of adaptive particle filter is proposed in this paper. The adaptive particle filter has a higher filtering stability by changing the likelihood distribution according to the Statistic characteristic of the observation noise and enlarging the overlap of the prior distribution and the likelihood distribution. A simulation is developed in nonlinear and non-Gaussian integrated navigation system in this paper. The simulation has been done in the condition that the observation accuracy went from low to high. The simulation result indicates that the adaptive particle filter has a high filtering precision and stability even if the observation accuracy is high.
FIR System Identification Using Feedback

This paper describes a new approach to finite-impulse (FIR) system identification. The method differs from the traditional stochastic approximation method as used in the traditional least-mean squares (LMS) family of algorithms, in which we use deconvolution as a means of separating the impulse-response from the system input data. The technique can be used as a substitute for ordinary LMS but it has the added advantages that can be used for constant input data (i.e. data which are not persistently exciting) and the stability limit is far simpler to calculate. Furthermore, the convergence properties are much faster than LMS under certain types of noise input.
Degeneracies and scaling relations in general power-law models for gravitational lenses

ABSTRA C T The time-delay in gravitational lenses can be used to derive the Hubble constant in a relatively simple way. The results of this method are less dependent on astrophysical assumptions than in many other methods. For systems with accurately measured positions and time-delays, the most important uncertainty is related to the mass model used. Simple parametric models like isothermal ellipsoidal mass distributions seem to provide consistent results with a reasonably small scatter when applied to several lens systems. We discuss a family of models with a separable radial power law and an arbitrary angular dependence for the potential ca r b FOuU. Isothermal potentials are a special case of these models with ba 1. An additional external shear is used to take into account perturbations from other galaxies. Using a simple linear formalism for quadruple lenses, we can derive H0 as a function of the observables and the shear. If the latter is fixed, the result depends on the assumed power-law exponent according to H0/O2 2 bU/b. The effect of external shear is quantified by introducing a ‘critical shear’gc as a measure for the amount of shear that changes the result significantly. The analysis shows that in the general case H0 and gc do not depend on the position of the lens galaxy. Spherical lens models with images close to the Einstein radius with fitted external shear differ by a factor of b/2 from shearless models, leading to H0/ 2 2 b in this case. We discuss these results and compare them with numerical models for a number of real lens
Why do occupations dominated by women pay less? How ‘female-typical’ work tasks and working-time arrangements affect the gender wage gap among higher education graduates

Even though women today constitute the majority of higher education graduates, they still earn considerably less than their male counterparts. Previous research demonstrates that occupational sex segregation is important for understanding the gender wage gap, since occupations dominated by women pay less; yet less is known about why this is the case. This article explores two possible mechanisms: the devaluation of ‘female-typical’ work tasks and working-time arrangements. Hypotheses are tested by applying OLS regression and Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition analyses to the log hourly wages of a representative sample of German higher education graduates from 2001. Results confirm that occupational overtime increases and occupational part-time work decreases wages, indicating that occupations dominated by women pay less due to their ‘female-typical’ working-time arrangements. However, inconsistent with the devaluation thesis, tasks like teaching/educating increase wages for women, too, which speaks against a general lower value of ‘female-typical’ tasks, at least among the highly qualified.
Glucose-6-phosphate-dependent phosphoryl flow through the Uhp two-component regulatory system.

Expression of the UhpT sugar-phosphate transporter in Escherichia coli is regulated at the transcriptional level via the UhpABC signalling cascade. Sensing of extracellular glucose 6-phosphate (G6P), by membrane-bound UhpC, modulates a second membrane-bound protein, UhpB, resulting in autophosphorylation of a conserved histidine residue in the cytoplasmic (transmitter) domain of the latter. Subsequently, this phosphoryl group is transferred to a conserved aspartate residue in the response-regulator UhpA, which then initiates uhpT transcription, via binding to the uhpT promoter region. This study demonstrates the hypothesized transmembrane signal transfer in an ISO membrane set-up, i.e. in a suspension of UhpBC-enriched membrane vesicles, UhpB autophosphorylation is stimulated, in the presence of [gamma-(32)P]ATP, upon intra-vesicular sensing of G6P by UhpC. Subsequently, upon addition of UhpA, very rapid and transient UhpA phosphorylation takes place. When P approximately UhpA is added to G6P-induced UhpBC-enriched membrane vesicles, rapid UhpA dephosphorylation occurs. So, in the G6P-activated state, UhpB phosphatase activity dominates over kinase activity, even in the presence of saturating amounts of G6P. This may imply that maximal in vivo P approximately UhpA levels are low and/or that, to keep sufficient P approximately UhpA accumulated to induce uhpT transcription, the uhpT promoter DNA itself is involved in stabilization/sequestration of P approximately UhpA.
Dynamically reducing overestimated design margin of MultiCores

MultiCore processor is one of the promising techniques to satisfy computing demands of the future consumer devices. However, MultiCore processor is still threatened by increasing energy consumption due to PVT (Process-Voltage-Temperature) variations. They require large design margins in the supply voltage, resulting in large energy consumption. The combination of DVS (Dynamic voltage scaling) technique and Canary FF (flip-flop), named Canary-DVS, has been proposed to eliminate the overestimated voltage margin but has only been evaluated under the assumption of typical delay. This paper considers C2C (Core-to-Core) variations and evaluates how Canary-DVS eliminates the energy waste under the practical assumption of delay variations. We adopt Canary-DVS to a commercial processor, Toshiba's quad-core Media embedded Processor (MeP). From Monte Carlo simulations, it is found that energy is reduced by 18.6% on average and there are not any noticeable discrepancies from the typical situations, when 0.064 of σ/μ value is assumed in gate delay.
Folklore epistemology: how does traditional folklore contribute to children’s thinking and concept development?

ABSTRACT This research utilised a ‘stimulated recall’ methodology [Calderhead, J. 1981. “Stimulated Recall: A Method for Research on Teaching. ” British Journal of Educational Psychology 51: 211–217] to explore the potential of African folklore, specifically Ghanaian folk stories in the development of children’s reflective thinking about social life. The research was based on Ghanaian folklore for children, which is popularly known as ‘By the Fireside Stories’, encapsulated traditionally as Anansesem or Spider stories among the Akan of Ghana. Data were collected through storytelling to a group of children and inviting them to recall their concurrent thinking during and after the storytelling. The children’s cognitive recall processes were stimulated by questions and story character dramatisation recorded on a digital video recorder and played back to the children. Findings showed major contributions to children’s learning and development related to imagination, concept formation and thinking, and beyond the self in social relationship. This paper draws attention to how traditional oral storytelling can be an important part of early childhood education to develop children’s reflective thinking about social life.
On the Security of TLS Renegotiation ( full version )

The Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol is the most widely used security protocol on the Internet. It supports negotiation of a wide variety of cryptographic primitives through different cipher suites, various modes of client authentication, and additional features such as renegotiation. Despite its widespread use, only recently has the full TLS protocol been proven secure, and only the core cryptographic protocol with no additional features. These additional features have been the cause of several practical attacks on TLS. In 2009, Ray and Dispensa demonstrated how TLS renegotiation allows an attacker to splice together its own session with that of a victim, resulting in a man-in-the-middle attack on TLS-reliant applications such as HTTP. TLS was subsequently patched with two defence mechanisms for protection against this attack. We present the first formal treatment of renegotiation in secure channel establishment protocols. We add optional renegotiation to the authenticated and confidential channel establishment model of Jager et al., an adaptation of the Bellare–Rogaway authenticated key exchange model. We describe the attack of Ray and Dispensa on TLS within our model. We show generically that the proposed fixes for TLS offer good protection against renegotiation attacks, and give a simple new countermeasure that provides renegotiation security for TLS even in the face of stronger adversaries.
The Replacement Attack

Billions of dollars allegedly lost to piracy of multimedia have recently triggered the industry to rethink the way music and movies are distributed. As encryption is vulnerable to rerecording, currently all copyright protection mechanisms tend to rely on watermarking. A watermark is an imperceptive secret hidden in a host signal. In this paper, we analyze the security of multimedia copyright protection systems that use watermarks by proposing a new breed of attacks on generic watermarking systems. A typical replacement attack relies upon the observation that multimedia content is often highly repetitive. Thus, the attack procedure replaces each signal block with another, perceptually similar block computed as a combination of other similar blocks found either within the same media clip or within a library of media clips. Assuming the blocks used to compute the replacement are marked with distinct secrets, we show that if the computed replacement block is at some minimal distance from the original marked block, a large portion of the embedded watermark is removed. We describe the logistics of the attack and an exemplary implementation against a spread-spectrum data hiding technology for audio signals.
Noise estimation using a constrained sequential HMM IN log-spectral domain

How to utilize the time correlation of speech/nonspeech presence is a crucial problem faced by noise estimators. The popular technique of exploiting such correlation is to smooth noisy spectra by using a temporal recursive filter with a time-varying smoothing factor. But this technique cannot warrant the statistical optimality. In theory, hidden Markov model (HMM) is more desirable than this technique. It can give an elaborate description of speech/nonspeech transition. Moreover, some theoretical frameworks, such as maximum likelihood (ML), are available for optimal estimation. This paper presents a constrained sequential HMM to model the time correlation of speech/nonspeech presence of an individual log-power sequence. Its parameter set is on-line adapted to varying signals based on a ML framework. We compared its performance with that of well-established algorithms by speech enhancement experiments. The results confirmed its promising performance.
Visual and analytical extensions for the table lens

Many visualization approaches teach us that ease of use is the key to effective visual data analysis. The Table Lens is an excellent example of a simple, yet expressive visual method that can help in analyzing even larger volumes of data. In this work, we present two extensions of the original Table Lens approach. In particular, we extend the Table Lens by Two-Tone Pseudo Coloring (TTPC) and a hybrid clustering. By integrating TTPC into the Table Lens, we obtain visual representations that can communicate larger volumes of data while still maintaining precision. Secondly, we propose to integrate a data analysis step that implements a hybrid clustering based on self-organizing maps and hierarchical clustering. The analysis step helps to extract and communicate complementary structural information about the data and also serves to drive interactive information drill-down.
USTC at NTCIR-12 STC Task

In this paper, we describe the system submitted by USTC team for the Short Text Conversation (STC) task of the NTCIR-12. We proposed transition-p2c, encoder-decoder-Reverse and joint-Train models for the STC task and submitted 5 oﬃcial runs. The transition-p2c model provides transition probability between post and comment in word’s level which complements the TF-IDF feature. The encoder-decoder-Reverse and joint-Train model provide semantic similarity between post and comment. With the help of these models, we achieved 0.2867 on Mean nDCG@1, 0.4509 on Mean P+ and 0.4181 on Mean nERR@10.
Mobile Robotics at FEE CTU

In this paper, we describe concepts and main ideas of the labs of the Mobile Robotics course at Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague. Besides, we present our gained experience from three years of teaching of the course. We consider the students’ contact with real hardware and real sensor data as the most important part of mobile robotics as the mobile robot can quickly lose information about its position in contrast to stationary robotic manipulators. Thus, the autonomous navigation is a crucial problem. Moreover, a computer simulation cannot substitute complexity of reality, such as noise, imperfect measurements and random events. To achieve our desired pedagogical goals we have decided to develop a new small platform that will be based mostly on off-the-shelf components and it will have sufficient computation power to use the Player robotic framework. The labs are organized into four consecutive assignments with increasing complexity and a final assignment that combines particular students’ results from the previous tasks. The final assignment is to create an algorithm that navigates the mobile robot in order to create a topological map of the environment and reuse this map for later navigation.