Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evolution of Models of Working Memory and Cognitive Resources

The goal of this article is to trace the evolution of models of working memory and cognitive resources from the early 20th century to today. Linear flow models of information processing common in the 1960s and 1970s centered on the transfer of verbal information from a limited-capacity short-term memory store to long-term memory through rehearsal. Current conceptions see working memory as a dynamic system that includes both maintaining and manipulating information through a series of interactive components that include executive control and attentional resources. These models also reflect the evolution from an almost exclusive concentration on working memory for verbal materials to inclusion of a visual working memory component. Although differing in postulated mechanisms and emphasis, these evolving viewpoints all share the recognition that human information processing is a limited-capacity system with limits on the amount of information that can be attended to, remain activated in memory, and utilized at one time. These limitations take on special importance in spoken language comprehension, especially when the stimuli have complex linguistic structures or listening effort is increased by poor acoustic quality or reduced hearing acuity.
A low-cost implementation of Trivium

This paper describes the implementation of two Trivium cores on a single chip. The cores are realized in a 5-metal 0. 35μm AMIS technology. The chip is currently being manufactured. The first core on the chip is an automatically placed and routed standard cell core. The second one is a custom design using dynamic logic and CMOS flipflops. The goal of this paper is to evaluate and compare the size of the cores based on the lay-out results. The lay-out of the custom design shows a significant size reduction compared to the standard cell design.
Induction of a novel isoform of the lncRNA HOTAIR in Claudin‐low breast cancer cells attached to extracellular matrix

Elevated overexpression of the lncRNA HOTAIR mediates invasion and metastasis in breast cancer. In an apparent paradox, we observed low expression of HOTAIR in the invasive Claudin‐low MDA‐MB‐231 and Hs578T cells in two‐dimensional culture (2D). However, HOTAIR expression exhibited robust induction in laminin‐rich extracellular matrix‐based three‐dimensional organotypic culture (lrECM 3D) over that in 2D culture. Induction of HOTAIR required intact ECM signaling, namely integrin α2 and SRC kinase activity. Moreover, invasive growth was suppressed by HOTAIR‐specific siRNA. Induction of HOTAIR in lrECM 3D culture resulted from the activation of a novel isoform of HOTAIR (HOTAIR‐N) whose transcription is started from the first intron of the HOXC11 gene. The HOTAIR‐N promoter exhibited increased trimethylation of histone H3 lysine 4, a histone marker of active transcription, and binding of BRD4, a reader of transcriptionally active histone markers. Inhibition of BRD4 substantially reduced the expression of HOTAIR in lrECM 3D culture. In summary, our results indicate that HOTAIR expression is activated by BRD4 binding to a novel HOTAIR‐N promoter in Claudin‐low breast cancer cells that are attached to ECM. Induction of HOTAIR is required for invasive growth of Claudin‐low breast cancer cells in lrECM 3D culture.
Novel FR-900493 Analogues That Inhibit the Outgrowth of Clostridium difficile Spores

The spectrum of antibacterial activity for the nucleoside antibiotic FR-900493 (1) can be extended by chemical modifications. We have generated a small focused library based on the structure of 1 and identified UT-17415 (9), UT-17455 (10), UT-17460 (11), and UT-17465 (12), which exhibit anti-Clostridium difficile growth inhibitory activity. These analogues also inhibit the outgrowth of C. difficile spores at 2× minimum inhibitory concentration. One of these analogues, 11, relative to 1 exhibits over 180-fold and 15-fold greater activity against the enzymes, phospho-MurNAc-pentapeptide translocase (MraY) and polyprenyl phosphate-GlcNAc-1-phosphate transferase (WecA), respectively. The phosphotransferase inhibitor 11 displays antimicrobial activity against several tested bacteria including Bacillus subtilis, Clostridium spp. , and Mycobacterium smegmatis, but no growth inhibitory activity is observed against the other Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. The selectivity index (Vero cell cytotoxicity/C. difficileantimicrobial activity) of 11 is approximately 17, and 11 does not induce hemolysis even at a 100 μM concentration.
Gas-assisted injection molded polypropylene: The skin-core structure

In this article, gas penetration-induced skin-core structure of isotactic polypropylene(iPP), which is molded by gas-assisted injection molding at different gas pressures, was investigated. For comparison, the counterpart was also molded by conventional injection molding (CIM) using the same processing parameters but without gas penetration. They were characterized via PLM, DSC, and SEM. And the crystal morphology at different gas pressures was principally concerned. For the GAIM parts, highly oriented structure is formed in the skin zone, and much less oriented structure in the inner zone (near the gas channel surface). Furthermore, it is suggested that the naked shish structure can be developed in the skin zone of GAIM part, which is molded at higher gas pressures, and shish-kebab structure is mainly formed in the skin zone of that, which is molded at lower gas pressure. However, for the CIM part, from the skin to the core zone, the dominant morphological feature is spherulite. In a word, the presence of gas penetration notably enhances the oriented structure formation and gives rise to the skin-core structure. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2008. © 2008 Society of Plastics Engineers
An Intelligent Ensemble Based Systems for Breast Cancer Diagnosis

For accurate classification, we have proposed a technique based on ensemble classifiers. In the feature space, the distribution of data can be different in different regions. In the proposed technique, we split the input data into different blocks and generate classifiers on each block. For combination, we have used different rules among the classifiers. We have compared the performance of our proposed ensemble classifiers with the individual classifiers. As a result, we have found that our method improve performance. The paper provides the implementation details along with the corresponding results for all the assessed classifiers. Several comparative studies have been carried out concerning diagnosis problem demonstrating the superiority of the proposed algorithm in terms of sensitivity, specificity and accuracy Keywordsbreast cancer, ensemble classifier, support vector machine
microRNA-135b expression silences Ppm1e to provoke AMPK activation and inhibit osteoblastoma cell proliferation

Forced-activation of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) can possibly inhibit osteoblastoma cells. Here, we aim to provoke AMPK activation via microRNA silencing its phosphatase Ppm1e (protein phosphatase Mg2+/Mn2+-dependent 1e). We showed that microRNA-135b-5p (“miR-135b-5p”), the anti-Ppm1e microRNA, was significantly downregulated in human osteoblastoma tissues. It was correlated with Ppm1e upregulation and AMPKα1 de-phosphorylation. Forced-expression of miR-135b-5p in human osteoblastoma cells (MG-63 and U2OS lines) silenced Ppm1e, and induced a profound AMPKα1 phosphorylation (at Thr-172). Osteoblastoma cell proliferation was inhibited after miR-135b-5p expression. Intriguingly, Ppm1e shRNA knockdown similarly induced AMPKα1 phosphorylation, causing osteoblastoma cell proliferation. Reversely, AMPKα1 shRNA knockdown or dominant negative mutation almost abolished miR-135b-5p's actions in osteoblastoma cells. Further in vivo studies demonstrated that U2OS tumor growth in mice was dramatically inhibited after expressing miR-135b-5p or Ppm1e shRNA. Together, our results suggest that miR-135b-induced Ppm1e silence induces AMPK activation to inhibit osteoblastoma cell proliferation.
Time Implicit High-Order Discontinuous Galerkin Method with Reduced Evaluation Cost

An efficient and robust time integration procedure for a high-order discontinuous Galerkin method is introduced for solving nonlinear second-order partial differential equations. The time discretization is based on an explicit formulation for the hyperbolic term and an implicit formulation for the parabolic term. The procedure uses an iterative algorithm with reduced evaluation cost. The size of the linear system to be solved is greatly reduced thanks to partial uncoupling in space between low-order and high-order degrees of freedom. Numerical examples are presented for the nonlinear convection-diffusion equation in one and two dimensions including steady and unsteady flow problems. The performance of the present method is investigated in terms of CPU time and compared to a fully implicit method. A von Neumann stability analysis is carried out in order to determine the stability and damping properties of the method. Besides a fairly reduced CPU effort, numerical results demonstrate better convergence properties of the present algorithm when compared to the fully implicit method.
Insights into the robustness of control point configurations for homography and planar pose estimation

In this paper, we investigate the influence of the spatial configuration of a number of $n \geq 4$ control points on the accuracy and robustness of space resection methods, e.g. used by a fiducial marker for pose estimation. We find robust configurations of control points by minimizing the first order perturbed solution of the DLT algorithm which is equivalent to minimizing the condition number of the data matrix. An empirical statistical evaluation is presented verifying that these optimized control point configurations not only increase the performance of the DLT homography estimation but also improve the performance of planar pose estimation methods like IPPE and EPnP, including the iterative minimization of the reprojection error which is the most accurate algorithm. We provide the characteristics of stable control point configurations for real-world noisy camera data that are practically independent on the camera pose and form certain symmetric patterns dependent on the number of points. Finally, we present a comparison of optimized configuration versus the number of control points.
DNN-Based Speech Synthesis Using Speaker Codes

Deep neural network (DNN)-based speech synthesis can produce more natural synthesized speech than the conventional HMMbased speech synthesis. However, it is not revealed whether the synthesized speech quality can be improved by utilizing a multi-speaker speech corpus. To address this problem, this paper proposes DNN-based speech synthesis using speaker codes as a method to improve the performance of the conventional speaker dependent DNN-based method. In order to model speaker variation in the DNN, the augmented feature (speaker codes) is fed to the hidden layer(s) of the conventional DNN. This paper investigates the effectiveness of introducing speaker codes to DNN acoustic models for speech synthesis for two tasks: multi-speaker modeling and speaker adaptation. For the multi-speaker modeling task, the method we propose trains connection weights of the whole DNN using a multi-speaker speech corpus. When performing multi-speaker synthesis, the speaker code corresponding to the selected target speaker is fed to the DNN to generate the speaker’s voice. When performing speaker adaptation, a set of connection weights of the multi-speaker model is re-estimated to generate a new target speaker’s voice. We investigated the relationship between the prediction performance and architecture of the DNNs through objective measurements. Objective evaluation experiments revealed that the proposed model outperformed conventional methods (HMMs, speaker dependent DNNs and multi-speaker DNNs based on a shared hidden layer structure). Subjective evaluation experimental results showed that the proposed model again outperformed the conventional methods (HMMs, speaker dependent DNNs), especially when using a small number of target speaker utterances. key words: speech synthesis, acoustic model, deep neural network, speaker codes
Putting the chicken before the egg price: An ex post analysis of California's battery cage ban

California legislation outlawed the use and sale of battery cages for egg-laying hens in 2015. While a number of ex ante studies projected the effects of the housing prohibitions, the ultimate ex post effects are unknown. Using a price series reported by the USDA, we study the movement of daily egg prices in California and the United States before and after the law’s implementation. Depending on the methods used, we find that Californians now pay between $0.48 and $1.08 more for a dozen eggs. The estimates suggest an annual reduction in California consumer surplus of between $400 million and $850 million.
Template matching approach for Handwritten Kannada Numeral Recognition

In this paper we propose a simple template matching method based on correlation co-efficient to recognize the hand written Kannada numerals. In this, hand written Kannada numeral documents are scanned to preprocessors to eliminate noise. By applying line segmentation each numeral is extracted. And then each segmented object is calculated between the each numeral under consideration and stored numeral image data. A high correlation coefficient will indicate the successful match between the numeral under consideration and stored numeral. References Gorman L. O. , Kasturi R. : Document image analysis, IEEE Computer Society Press (1995). Choudary B. B. , Pal U. : An OCR system to read to Indian languages scripts: Bangla and Devanagari. In: Fourth Int. Conf. Doc. Ana. Rec. , PP. 1011-1015 (1997). Sinha R. M. K. , Mahabala H. : Machine recognition of Devanagari script. IEEE Trans.
Spliceosomal protein U1A is involved in alternative splicing and salt stress tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana

Abstract Soil salinity is a significant threat to sustainable agricultural production worldwide. Plants must adjust their developmental and physiological processes to cope with salt stress. Although the capacity for adaptation ultimately depends on the genome, the exceptional versatility in gene regulation provided by the spliceosome-mediated alternative splicing (AS) is essential in these adaptive processes. However, the functions of the spliceosome in plant stress responses are poorly understood. Here, we report the in-depth characterization of a U1 spliceosomal protein, AtU1A, in controlling AS of pre-mRNAs under salt stress and salt stress tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana. The atu1a mutant was hypersensitive to salt stress and accumulated more reactive oxygen species (ROS) than the wild-type under salt stress. RNA-seq analysis revealed that AtU1A regulates AS of many genes, presumably through modulating recognition of 5′ splice sites. We showed that AtU1A is associated with the pre-mRNA of the ROS detoxification-related gene ACO1 and is necessary for the regulation of ACO1 AS. ACO1 is important for salt tolerance because ectopic expression of ACO1 in the atu1a mutant can partially rescue its salt hypersensitive phenotype. Our findings highlight the critical role of AtU1A as a regulator of pre-mRNA processing and salt tolerance in plants.
Diverse Sensitivity Thresholds in Dynamic Signaling Responses by Social Amoebae

Dictyostelium cells with increased responsiveness to chemoattractant may promote propagation of the initial signal across the cell population. Genetically Identical, But Not Equally Sensitive Individual cells of the social amoeba Dictyostelium can organize to form multicellular ensembles, a process in which the chemoattractant cAMP (cyclic adenosine monophosphate) triggers production of phosphatidylinositol 3,4,5-trisphosphate (PIP3) to induce polarization of the chemotaxing cells. Cell population responses have generally been averaged; however, Wang et al. found that not all cells in a group of genetically identical Dictyostelium cells produced PIP3 in response to cAMP and that more cells produced PIP3 as the cAMP concentration increased. Furthermore, modeling and experiments suggested that an amplification step occurred downstream of an adaptive signaling network and that different cells had different amplification thresholds. Different sensitivities and thresholds for signal amplification may enable highly responsive individual cells to promote chemotaxis of an entire population of Dictyostelium cells and, thus, mediate collective behavior. The complex transition from a single-cell to a multicellular life form during the formation of a fruiting body by the amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum is accompanied by a pulsatile collective signaling process that instigates chemotaxis of the constituent cells. Although the cells used for the analysis of this phenomenon are normally genetically identical (isogenic), it is not clear whether they are equally responsive to the waves of the signaling stimulus, nor is it clear how responses across the population influence collective cell behavior. Here, we found that isogenic Dictyostelium cells displayed differing sensitivities to the chemoattractant cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP). Furthermore, the resulting signaling responses could be explained by a model in which cells are refractory to further stimulation for 5 to 6 min after the initial input and the signaling output is amplified, with the amplification threshold varying across the cells in the population. This pathway structure could explain intracellular amplification of the chemoattractant gradient during cell migration. The new model predicts that diverse cell responsiveness can facilitate collective cell behavior, specifically due to the presence of a small number of cells in the population with increased responsiveness that aid in propagating the initial cAMP signaling wave across the cell population.
TEXT messages to improve MEDication adherence and Secondary prevention (TEXTMEDS) after acute coronary syndrome: a randomised clinical trial protocol

Background Identifying simple, low-cost and scalable means of supporting lifestyle change and medication adherence for patients following a cardiovascular (CV) event is important. Objective The TEXTMEDS (TEXT messages to improve MEDication adherence and Secondary prevention) study aims to investigate whether a cardiac education and support programme sent via mobile phone text message improves medication adherence and risk factor levels in patients following an acute coronary syndrome (ACS). Study design A single-blind, multicentre, randomised clinical trial of 1400 patients after an ACS with 12 months follow-up. The intervention group will receive multiple weekly text messages that provide information, motivation, support to adhere to medications, quit smoking (if relevant) and recommendations for healthy diet and exercise. The primary endpoint is the percentage of patients who are adherent to cardioprotective medications and the key secondary outcomes are mean systolic blood pressure (BP) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Secondary outcomes will also include total cholesterol, mean diastolic BP, the percentage of participants who are adherent to each cardioprotective medication class, the percentage of participants who achieve target levels of CV risk factors, major vascular events, hospital readmissions and all-cause mortality. The study will be augmented by formal economic and process evaluations to assess acceptability, utility and cost-effectiveness. Summary The study will provide multicentre randomised trial evidence of the effects of a text message-based programme on cardioprotective medication adherence and levels of CV risk factors. Ethics and dissemination Primary ethics approval was received from Western Sydney Local Health District Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC2012/12/4.1 (3648) AU RED HREC/13/WMEAD/15). Results will be disseminated via peer-reviewed publications and presentations at international conferences. Trial registration number ACTRN12613000793718; Pre-results.
DIANA-mirExTra v2.0: Uncovering microRNAs and transcription factors with crucial roles in NGS expression data

Differential expression analysis (DEA) is one of the main instruments utilized for revealing molecular mechanisms in pathological and physiological conditions. DIANA-mirExTra v2.0 (http://www.microrna.gr/mirextrav2) performs a combined DEA of mRNAs and microRNAs (miRNAs) to uncover miRNAs and transcription factors (TFs) playing important regulatory roles between two investigated states. The web server uses as input miRNA/RNA-Seq read count data sets that can be uploaded for analysis. Users can combine their data with 350 small-RNA-Seq and 65 RNA-Seq in-house analyzed libraries which are provided by DIANA-mirExTra v2.0. The web server utilizes miRNA:mRNA, TF:mRNA and TF:miRNA interactions derived from extensive experimental data sets. More than 450 000 miRNA interactions and 2 000 000 TF binding sites from specific or high-throughput techniques have been incorporated, while accurate miRNA TSS annotation is obtained from microTSS experimental/in silico framework. These comprehensive data sets enable users to perform analyses based solely on experimentally supported information and to uncover central regulators within sequencing data: miRNAs controlling mRNAs and TFs regulating mRNA or miRNA expression. The server also supports predicted miRNA:gene interactions from DIANA-microT-CDS for 4 species (human, mouse, nematode and fruit fly). DIANA-mirExTra v2.0 has an intuitive user interface and is freely available to all users without any login requirement.
The equivalence between the DHP and DLP for elliptic curves used in practical applications

We re-examine the reduction of Maurer and Wolf of the Discrete Logarithm problem to the Diffie–Hellman problem. We give a precise estimate for the number of operations required in the reduction and use this to estimate the exact security of the elliptic curve variant of the Diffie–Hellman protocol for various elliptic curves defined in standards.
Ergodic Secrecy Sum-Rate for Multiuser Downlink Transmission via Regularized Channel Inversion: Large System Analysis

In this letter, we study the ergodic secrecy sum-rate of a multiuser downlink system achievable by using the regularized zero-forcing precoding based on imperfect channel estimation. The channels between the base station and users are modeled as fading channels with different spatial correlations and line-of-sight components. By using the limiting distribution of a new class of random matrix, we derive a large-system approximation of the ergodic secrecy sum-rate in the multiuser downlink system. The large-system approximation provides a reliable performance prediction, which enables us to identify the optimal regularization parameter efficiently.