Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Coincident Activation of Metabotropic Glutamate Receptors and NMDA Receptors (NMDARs) Downregulates Perisynaptic/Extrasynaptic NMDARs and Enhances High-Fidelity Neurotransmission at the Developing Calyx of Held Synapse

NMDA receptors (NMDARs) are usually downregulated in developing central synapses, but underlying mechanisms and functional consequences are not well established. Using developing calyx of Held synapses in the mouse auditory brainstem, we show here that pairing presynaptic stimulation with postsynaptic depolarization results in a persistent downregulation in the summated amplitude of NMDAR-mediated EPSCs (NMDAR-EPSCs) during a train of stimuli (100/200 Hz, 100 ms) at both 22°C and 35°C. In contrast, the amplitude of single NMDAR-EPSCs or AMPA receptor-mediated EPSCs in the same synapses is not significantly altered, implying a preferential downregulation of perisynaptic/extrasynaptic NMDARs. Induction of this downregulation is blocked by antagonists for NMDARs or group I metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs), suggesting that coincident activation of these two receptors is required. When the postsynaptic neuron is loaded with the fast Ca2+ buffer BAPTA or depolarized to +60 mV to reduce the driving force for Ca2+ influx, downregulation of the summated NMDAR-EPSCs is abolished, indicating Ca2+ plays a critical role in the induction. The expression of this downregulation depends on ongoing synaptic activity, and is attenuated by a dynamin peptide (D15) that blocks clathrin-dependent internalization. We further demonstrated that the same induction paradigm specifically reduces NMDAR-dependent plateau potential and aberrant spike firings during repetitive activity. Together, our results suggest that coincident activation of mGluRs and NMDARs during intense synaptic activity may lead to selective endocytosis of NMDARs in the perisynaptic/extrasynaptic domain, and implicate that mGluRs are potentially important for gating development of high-fidelity neurotransmission at this synapse.
Control of Prosthetic Hands via the Peripheral Nervous System

This paper intends to provide a critical review of the literature on the technological issues on control and sensorization of hand prostheses interfacing with the Peripheral Nervous System (i.e., PNS), and their experimental validation on amputees. The study opens with an in-depth analysis of control solutions and sensorization features of research and commercially available prosthetic hands. Pros and cons of adopted technologies, signal processing techniques and motion control solutions are investigated. Special emphasis is then dedicated to the recent studies on the restoration of tactile perception in amputees through neural interfaces. The paper finally proposes a number of suggestions for designing the prosthetic system able to re-establish a bidirectional communication with the PNS and foster the prosthesis natural control.
Momentum in Style Portfolios: Risk or Inefficiency?

Momentum is a pervasive asset-pricing anomaly that has been shown to exist in a number of markets and asset classes. Three possible explanations for momentum have emerged in the literature; risk, positive autocorrelation and negative cross-serial correlation. Lewellen (2002) adds to this literature by providing evidence of strong momentum returns in style portfolios that can be explained by negative cross-serial correlation. However, a critique of this explanation by Chen and Hong (2002) argues that it is driven by the methodology used to decompose momentum returns and the in-sample negative autocorrelation within the market. Our paper examines style momentum in a market that exhibits positive auto-correlation across our sample period. We use an alternative empirical framework and test whether style momentum may be explained by different phenomena when the formation and investment periods are varied. We report no evidence to support negative cross-serial correlation but evidence to support momentum in style portfolios that can be explained by autocorrelation over short horizons, supporting the under-reaction hypothesis. However, we show that autocorrelation decreases when longer periods are used to form portfolios, resulting in expected returns substantively explaining returns over a 12-month horizon.
Blind Estimation of a Class of Under-Determined Convolutive MIMO Systems Using Parafac Decomposition of Output Tensors

We consider the problem of frequency domain identification of a convolutive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system driven by white, mutually independent unobservable inputs. In particular, we improve upon a method recently proposed that uses PARAFAC decomposition of a tensor that is formed based on third-order statistics of the system output. The approach utilizes only one slice of the output tensor to recover one row of the system response matrix. We here propose an approach that fully exploits the information in the output tensor. As a result, the proposed method not only achieves lower error values but also becomes applicable to a class of MIMO systems with more inputs than outputs. We also show how by using higher order statistics, i.e., fourth- or sixth-order statistics, or pairs of third or Fourth-order tensors, one can further expand the class of under-determined systems that are identifiable.
An interface management framework for multihomed terminal

In this paper, we propose a framework to enhance user perceived quality in a multihomed terminal. Based on the observed Media Independent Handover parameters from all the interfaces, the terminal is made aware of the performance of the different access networks and it can intelligently select the interface to send out the data packets. Several schemes, for the purpose of load balancing, are defined as policies to govern the terminal's outbound packet transmission over multiple network interfaces. Simulation results show that the proposed hybrid load balancing scheme outperforms the round robin schemes in terms of throughput, end-to-end delay, inter-packet delay variation and packet loss. The novel feature of this framework lies in the ability to intelligently exploit the multiple interfaces in data transmission to greatly enhance user's perceived quality from the use of Media Independent Handover parameters.
Shark detection using optical image data from a mobile aerial platform

Sharks are one of the major predators in the ocean. In particular, the great white shark is a primary threat to swimmers. This work proposes an automatic method for the recognition of deformable submerged objects (i.e. sharks) from aerial images of the coast line in an uncontrolled environment. It focuses on great white shark recognition in the surf zone of coastal areas. As the images were taken in an uncontrolled environment and the object shapes of interest are deformable, it is not easy to distinguish sharks from shark-like objects such as dolphins. In this paper, we propose two feature extraction methods that are based on the object's shape: the fish shape feature and shape profile methods. All feature extraction methods are applied to a new image database that contains aerial views of sharks and shark-like objects. The classifiers that are used in our proposed methods are the Support Vector Machine (SVM) and the feed-forward backpropagation neural network.
Spatial Correlation and Time Delay Estimation

To find the position of an acoustic source in a room, a set of relative delays among different microphone pairs has to be determined. The generalized cross-correlation method is the most popular to do so and is well explained in a landmark paper by Knapp and Carter. In this technical memorandum, we show how we can take advantage of the redundancy when more than two microphones are available. It is believed that the redundancy will help to better cope with noise and reverberation. The idea of cross-correlation coefficient between two random signals is generalized to the multichannel case by using the notion of spatial prediction. The multichannel spatial correlation matrix is then deduced and it is shown how it can be used for time delay estimation.
Fixed-gain/adaptive control for simultaneous rejection of broadband and sinusoidal disturbances

In this paper we experimentally investigate the feasibility of using a hybrid fixed-gain/adaptive control architecture for simultaneous rejection of broadband and sinusoidal disturbances. The motivation for this study comes from active noise control (ANC) applications in which the disturbance has both broadband and sinusoidal components, for example, wind noise and engine noise in an aircraft cabin. The advantage of this approach is that it improves performance while reducing real-time computational load. The experiment is carried out on a three dimensional acoustic space contained in a steel drum, on which speakers and microphones are mounted as actuators and sensors respectively. A fixed-gain H<z optimal (LQG) controller is used to attenuate the broadband component of the noise while a low-order extended ARMARKOV adaptive controller (EAAC) is used to attenuate a tonal disturbance of unknown frequency.
A Generative Approach for Multi-Document Summarization using the Noisy Channel Model

Multi-document summarization is the automatic prod uction of a unique summary from a collection of texts. This task has become ve ry important, since it assists the information processing in days where the amount of information is growing considerably. In this paper, we propose a statistical generative approach for multi -document summarization. In particular, we formulate the multi-document summarization task usi ng a Noisy-Channel model. This approach is novel for multi-document summarization and it ex plores the process of summarization through the analysis of factors, such as redundancy , complementarity and contradiction. In this work, we model these factors using the Cross-docume nt Structure Theory.
The Gut Microbial Community of Antarctic Fish Detected by 16S rRNA Gene Sequence Analysis

Intestinal bacterial communities are highly relevant to the digestion, nutrition, growth, reproduction, and a range of fitness in fish, but little is known about the gut microbial community in Antarctic fish. In this study, the composition of intestinal microbial community in four species of Antarctic fish was detected based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing. As a result, 1 004 639 sequences were obtained from 13 samples identified into 36 phyla and 804 genera, in which Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Firmicutes, Thermi, and Bacteroidetes were the dominant phyla, and Rhodococcus, Thermus, Acinetobacter, Propionibacterium, Streptococcus, and Mycoplasma were the dominant genera. The number of common OTUs (operational taxonomic units) varied from 346 to 768, while unique OTUs varied from 84 to 694 in the four species of Antarctic fish. Moreover, intestinal bacterial communities in individuals of each species were not really similar, and those in the four species were not absolutely different, suggesting that bacterial communities might influence the physiological characteristics of Antarctic fish, and the common bacterial communities might contribute to the fish survival ability in extreme Antarctic environment, while the different ones were related to the living habits. All of these results could offer certain information for the future study of Antarctic fish physiological characteristics.
Cryptosporidiosis in broiler chickens in Zhejiang Province, China: molecular characterization of oocysts detected in fecal samples

Cryptosporidium is one of the most important parasites in poultry, and this pathogen can infect more than 30 avian species. The present study investigated the infection rate of Cryptosporidium among broiler chicken flocks. A total of 385 fecal samples from broiler chickens in 7 regions of Zhejiang Province collected from November 2010 to January 2012 were examined by microscopy. Thirty-eight (10%) samples were positive for Cryptosporidium infection, and 3 genotypes (Cryptosporidium baileyi, Cryptosporidium meleagridis, and avian genotype II) were identified by PCR and sequencing. A phylogenetic tree of the isolates was analyzed. These results suggest that cryptosporidiosis is widespread in poultry in Zhejiang Province, and is a potential threat to public health as well as the economy. This is the first report about the infection rate and molecular characterization of Cryptosporidium in broiler chickens in Zhejiang.
Characterization of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains from Vietnamese patients by Southern blot hybridization

A total of 41 Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains from patients of Vietnamese origin were analyzed by Southern blot hybridization with two different probes, IS6110 (Otal, I., et al., J. Clin. Microbiol. 29:1252-1254, 1991; Ross, B. C., et al., J. Clin. Microbiol. 30:942-946, 1992; Thierry, D., et al., J. Clin. Microbiol. 28:2668-2673, 1990; van Soolingen, D., et al., J. Clin. Microbiol. 29:2578-2586, 1991) and pTBN12 (Ross, B. C., et al., J. Clin. Microbiol. 30:942-946, 1992). The restriction fragment patterns of nine of these strains were virtually identical when the pTBN12 probe was used; five strains had a single copy of IS6110, and four strains failed to hybridize with the IS6110 probe. This relatively high frequency of strains with no or one copy of IS6110 suggests that the usefulness of IS6110 for epidemiological study may be limited in certain populations.
Cyber Disease Monitoring with Distributed Hash Tables : A Global P 2 P Intrusion Detection System

Traffic anomalies and distributed attacks are commonplace in today’s networks. Single point detection is often insufficient to determine the causes, patterns and prevalence of such events. Most existing distributed intrusion detection systems (DIDS) rely on centralized fusion, or distributed fusion with unscalable communication mechanisms. In this paper, we propose to build a distributed IDS based on the emerging decentralized location and routing infrastructure: distributed hash table (DHT). We embed the intrusion symptoms into the DHT dimensions so that alarms related to the same intrusion (thus with similar symptoms) will be routed to the same sensor fusion center (SFC) while evenly distributing unrelated alarms to different SFCs. This is achieved through careful routing key design based on: 1) analysis of essential characteristics of three common types of intrusions: DoS attacks, port scanning and virus/worm infection; and 2) distribution and stability analysis of the popular port numbers and those of the popular source IP subnets in scans. We further propose several schemes to distribute the alarms more evenly across the SFCs. Evaluation based on one month of DShield firewall logs (600 million scan records) collected from over 2200 worldwide providers show that the resulting system, termed Cyber Disease DHT (CDDHT), can effectively fuse related alarms while distributing unrelated ones evenly among the SFCs.
A wi-fi based occupancy sensing approach to smart energy in commercial office buildings

Buildings account for a considerable part of energy consumption. Prior research has shown that much energy could be saved by using occupancy based building automation techniques. One of the remaining challenges is how to collect real-time occupancy information that is practically accurate yet without incurring high deployment costs. We will demonstrate a prototype system that is being experimented in a typical IT office building. Our system derives coarse-grained occupancy information by sniffing wi-fi signals and fine-grained information by wi-fi based indoor positioning. The synthesized information provides sufficient accuracy for zone-based HVAC and lighting control. Due to wide-spread usage of wireless APs and mobile devices in IT buildings today, the deployment cost of our system is low.
CRYPTANALYSIS OF CRYPTMT : EFFECT OF HUGE PRIME PERIOD AND MULTIPLICATIVE FILTER

CryptMT (Cryptographic Mersenne Twister) is an 8-bit pseudorandom integer generator for a stream cipher. It combines an F2-linear generator of period 219937 − 1 and a multiplicative filter with 32-bit memory. We analyze its security against some standard cryptanalytic attacks for filter generators. It is proved that CryptMT has strong resistance against them: CryptMT has a period of 219937 − 1, the correlations among the consecutive 624-bytes of outputs are of order 2−19937, the algebraic degree of the output bits with respect to the bits in Key and IV is expected to near to the size of Key and IV. The Key size and IV size are variable, up to 2048-bit for each. We claim that CryptMT has the same security level with the minimum of the key size and the IV size. CryptMT is 1.5–2.0 times faster than the optimized AES CTR mode with 256-bit security level.
8 A . 2 PRE-OPERATIONAL ASSIMILATION TESTING OF THE DEFENSE METEOROLOGICAL SATELLITE PROGRAM ( DMSP ) SPECIAL SENSOR MICROWAVE IMAGER / SOUNDER ( SSMI / S )

On October 18, 2003, the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) successfully launched the DMSP F16 satellite with the first Special Sensor Microwave Imager Sounder (SSMI/S) instrument aboard. The SSMI/S is a conically-scanning passive microwave radiometer that includes seven temperature-sounding channels with weighting functions peaking below 30 km (channels 1-7), and six peaking between 30 km and 80 km (channels 19-24) (Fig. 1).
THE TEMPORAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEV GAMMA-RADIATION FROM MKN 501 IN 1997. I. DATA FROM THE STEREOSCOPIC IMAGING ATMOSPHERIC CHERENKOV TELESCOPE SY STEM OF HEGRA

During 1997, the BL Lac Object Mkn 501 was the brightest known object in the TeV γ-ray sky. The emission was characterized by dramatic variations in intensity with a mean flux exceeding by a factor of three the steady γ-ray flux of the Crab Nebula. The stereoscopic HEGRA system of 4 Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes, with an energy threshold of about 500 GeV, an angular resolution of 0.1, an energy resolution of 20%, and a flux sensitivity ν Fν at 1 TeV of 10 −11 ergs/cmsec ≃ 1/4 Crab for 1 hour of observation time (S/ √ B=5σ), has been used in 1997 for a comprehensive study of the spectral and temporal characteristics of the TeV γ-ray emission from Mkn 501 on time scales of several hours or less. In this paper (Part I) the γ-ray fluxes and spectra on a diurnal basis during the period March to October 1997 are presented. Furthermore, the correlation of the TeV emission with the flux measured by the RXTE All Sky Monitor in the energy range from 2 to 12 keV are studied. Finally the implications of these results on the physics of relativistic jets in BL Lac objects are briefly discussed. The companion paper (Part II) describes the results from the stand alone telescopes CT1 and CT2. Send offprint requests to: Henric Krawczynski, email adress: Henric.Krawczynski@mpi-hd.mpg. de
Millimeter-wave spotlight circular synthetic aperture radar (scsar) imaging for Foreign Object Debris on airport runway

Foreign Object Debris (FOD) on airport runway is one of the greatest threats to aviation safety. The major characteristics of FOD are diversity and smallness. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has a natural advantage in high resolution imaging, and is, therefore, very suitable for small and weak targets imaging on airport runway. Firstly, a new millimeter-wave FOD imaging system called Spotlight Circular Synthetic Aperture Radar (SC-SAR) is introduced in this paper. The SC-SAR system not only can solve the practical limitations for ground-based applications but also fully exploit the advantage of existing ground-based SAR systems for FOD imaging. Secondly, based on the geometry and imaging principle of SC-SAR, the adjusted version of the Range-Doppler imaging formula was presented. Finally, the simulation results validate feasibility of SC-SAR imaging system and algorithm.
Emerging attacks on VANET security based on GPS Time Spoofing

Car2X communication is about to enter the mass market in upcoming years. So far all realization proposals heavily depend on the global positioning system for providing location information and time synchronization. However, studies on security impact of this kind of data input have focused on the possibility to spoof location information. In contrast, attacks on time synchronization have not received much attention so far. Thus, an analysis of the attack potential on vehicular ad-hoc network (VANET) realizations in regard to spoofed time information is provided in this work. Thereby, we show that this kind of attack allows for severe denial of service attacks. Moreover, by such attacks one can violate the non-repudiation feature of the security system by offering the possibility to misuse authentication features. Additionally, a sybil attack can be performed and reliability of the basic data sets of time and position inside VANET messages is highly questionable considering the outlined attacks. Mechanisms to avoid or limit the impact of outlined security flaws are discussed. An evaluation of the possibility to carry out the described attacks in practice using a current Car2X hardware solution is provided.
Role of transcription-factor Kar 4 in regulating downstream events in the yeast pheromone response pathway

197 M+M word count: 1646 Intro. , Results and Discussion word count: 5034 AC CE PT ED Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology and/or the Listed Authors/Institutions. All Rights Reserved. Mol. Cell. Biol. doi:10.1128/MCB.00439-06 MCB Accepts, published online ahead of print on 13 November 2006
An overview of search methodologies in Semantic Web

Several researches in Semantic Web are based on information search centered meaning. The common purpose of these researches is to improve current information search and retrieval methods. The last few years have seen a various number of developed semantic search systems. The requirement of a complete survey in this field is one of the main purpose of this paper. The approaches, methodologies and objectives of some recognized projects and their corresponding practical systems are exploited to constitute this overall view of semantic search. In this paper, we present and compare various research directions in semantic search. Further, we give discussion with regards to future research in this area.
MHD Two-Fluid Flow and Heat Transfer between Two Inclined Parallel Plates in a Rotating System

Two-phase magnetohydrodynamic convective flow of electrically conducting fluid through an inclined channel is studied under the action of a constant transverse magnetic field in a rotating system. The fluids in the two phases are steady, incompressible, laminar, immiscible, and electrically conducting, having different densities, viscosities, and thermal and electrical conductivities. The transport properties of both the fluids are assumed constant. The bounding infinite inclined parallel plates are maintained at different constant temperatures, making an angle ϕ with the horizontal. Approximate solutions for velocity and temperature distributions are obtained by using a straightforward regular perturbation technique. An in-depth study has been done on the effects of rotation parameter, Hartmann number, inclination angle, the ratio of electrical conductivities, and viscosities of two fluids on the flow. It is observed that the effect of increasing rotation is to decrease the primary velocity. Further it is noticed that as the rotation increases, the secondary velocity increases for smaller rotation, while for larger rotation it decreases. It is also found that the temperature distribution decreases as the rotation increases.