Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A fly's view of neuronal remodeling

Developmental neuronal remodeling is a crucial step in sculpting the final and mature brain connectivity in both vertebrates and invertebrates. Remodeling includes degenerative events, such as neurite pruning, that may be followed by regeneration to form novel connections during normal development. Drosophila provides an excellent model to study both steps of remodeling since its nervous system undergoes massive and stereotypic remodeling during metamorphosis. Although pruning has been widely studied, our knowledge of the molecular and cellular mechanisms is far from complete. Our understanding of the processes underlying regrowth is even more fragmentary. In this review, we discuss recent progress by focusing on three groups of neurons that undergo stereotypic pruning and regrowth during metamorphosis, the mushroom body γ neurons, the dendritic arborization neurons and the crustacean cardioactive peptide peptidergic neurons. By comparing and contrasting the mechanisms involved in remodeling of these three neuronal types, we highlight the common themes and differences as well as raise key questions for future investigation in the field. WIREs Dev Biol 2016, 5:618–635. doi: 10.1002/wdev.241
Stellar Content and Recent Star Formation History of the Local Group Dwarf Irregular Galaxy IC 1613

We present resolved-star VI photometry of the Local Group dwarf irregular galaxy IC 1613 reaching I ∼ 23.5, obtained with the wide-field camera at the 2.5 m Isaac Newton Telescope. A fit to the stellar density distribution shows an exponential profile of scale length 2.9′ ± 0.1′ and gives a central surface brightness μV,0 = 22.7 ± 0.6. The significant number of red giant branch (RGB) stars present in the outer part of our images (r > 16.5′) indicates that the galaxy is actually more extended than previously estimated. A comparison of the color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) as a function of galactocentric distance shows a clear gradient in the age of its population, the scale length increasing with age, while we find no evidence of a metallicity gradient from the width of the RGB. We present quantitative results of the recent star formation history from a synthetic CMD analysis using IAC-STAR. We find a mean star formation rate of (1.6 ± 0.8) × 10-3 M⊙ yr-1 kpc-2 in the central r ≲ 2.5′ for the last 300 Myr.
Ways of Reasoning and Ways of Inferencing

This paper reports on research in intercultural psychology to argue the case for the role that different ways of knowing might have on education. Evidence is summarised that suggests that Asian students make subtlety different inferences than their western counterparts, and that this has not been given serious consideration in the educational literature, despite its importance for the enterprise of teaching and learning.
Cohort selection for text-dependent speaker verification score normalization

In this paper a speaker dependent cohort selection for T-norm score normalization is proposed in the context of text-dependent speaker verification. The goal of the proposed technique is to find a set of cohort speakers who are close to the target speaker. In order to properly select the subset of speakers for the normalization, a distance between each target speaker model and the the available normalization models is computed and the nearest models are chosen to represent the cohort set for that target model. The proposed system is evaluated on Part1 of the RSR2015 database. With the proposed normalization method a relative improvement of 71% in terms of the Equal Error Rater (EER) is achieved.
An 82%-efficient multiphase voltage-regulator 3D interposer with on-chip magnetic inductors

This paper presents a three-dimensional (3D) fully integrated high-speed multiphase voltage regulator. A complete switched-inductor regulator is integrated with a four-plane NoC in a two-high chip stack combining integrated magnetics, through-silicon vias (TSVs), and 45-nm SOI CMOS devices. Quasi-V2 hysteretic control is implemented over eight injection-locked fixed-frequency phases to achieve fast response, steady-state regulation, and fixed switching frequency. Peak efficiency of 82% for conversion from 1.66 V to 0.83 V is observed at a 150 MHz per-phase switching frequency. This is the first demonstration of high-speed voltage regulation using on-chip magnetic-core inductors in a 3D stack and achieves sub-μs dynamic supply voltage scaling for high-density embedded processing applications.
A unified framework for mean square stability of Kalman filters with intermittent observations

This paper presents a unified framework for analysis of the stability of the expected error covariance (EEC) of Kalman filters subject to intermittent observations. A brief literature review summarizing some of the most important results in the area is provided. We state a method in the most general form, making no assumptions on the network model and only minor assumptions on the system. Then, as we adopt particular network models and assume some particular system structures, we recover most of the known results in the literature, which can be seen as a special case of our approach. Tight necessary and sufficient conditions for the EEC to be bounded are given for most cases, except for general degenerate systems, where only sufficient conditions are given in a closed form.
pyDVS: An extensible, real-time Dynamic Vision Sensor emulator using off-the-shelf hardware

Vision is one of our most important senses, a vast amount of information is perceived through our eyes. Neuroscientists have performed many studies using vision as input to their experiments. Computational neuroscientists have typically used a brightness-to-rate encoding to use images as spike-based visual sources for its natural mapping. Recently, neuromorphic Dynamic Vision Sensors (DVSs) were developed and, while they have excellent capabilities, they remain scarce and relatively expensive. We propose a visual input system inspired by the behaviour of a DVS but using a conventional digital camera as a sensor and a PC to encode the images. By using readily-available components, we believe most scientists would have access to a realistic spiking visual input source. While our primary goal is to provide systems with a live real-time input, we have also been successful in transcoding well established image and video databases into spike train representations. Our main contribution is a DVS emulator framework which can be extended, as we demonstrate by adding local inhibitory behaviour, adaptive thresholds and spike-timing encoding.
Reduction of Inflammatory Response in the Mouse Brain With Adenoviral-Mediated Transforming Growth Factor-&bgr;1 Expression

Background and Purpose — Chemokines have been shown to play an important role in leukocyte and monocyte/macrophage infiltration into ischemic regions. The purpose of this study is to identify whether overexpression of the active human transforming growth factor-&bgr;1 (ahTGF-&bgr;1) can downregulate expression of monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1), macrophage inflammatory protein-1&agr; (MIP-1&agr;), and intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) and reduce ischemic brain injury. Methods — Overexpression of transforming growth factor-&bgr;1 (TGF-&bgr;1) was achieved through adenoviral gene transfer. Five days after adenoviral transduction, the mouse underwent 30 minutes of middle cerebral artery occlusion followed by 1 to 7 days of reperfusion. TGF-&bgr;1, MCP-1, MIP-1&agr;, and ICAM-1 were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and immunohistochemistry. Infarct areas and volumes were measured by cresyl violet staining. Results — MCP-1 and MIP-1&agr; expression is increased after middle cerebral artery occlusion, and double-labeled immunostaining revealed that MCP-1 is colocalized with neurons and astrocytes. Viral-mediated TGF-&bgr;1 overexpression was significantly greater at measured time points, with a peak at 7 to 9 days. The expression of MCP-1 and MIP-1&agr;, but not ICAM-1, was reduced in the mice overexpressing ahTGF-&bgr;1 (P <0.05). Furthermore, infarct volume was significantly reduced in the mice overexpressing ahTGF-&bgr;1 (P <0.05). Conclusions — This study demonstrates that MCP-1 and MIP-1&agr; expressed in the ischemic region may play an important role in attracting inflammatory cells. The reduction of MCP-1 and MIP-1&agr;, but not ICAM-1, in the mice overexpressing ahTGF-&bgr;1 suggests that the neuroprotective effect of TGF-&bgr;1 may result from the inhibition of chemokines during cerebral ischemia and reperfusion.
Research on Uyghur Broadcast News Continues Speech Sensitive-Word Spotting System

In this paper we introduce research and implementation of HMM based Uyghur Broadcast News Sensitive-word Spotting System uses MATLAB. Our system has three advantages described below: First, the speech corpus is very small because it has finite number sensitive-word. Second, the broadcast news word pronunciation is clear and the property of word speed is regular, so this is benefit to improve the recognition rate. Third, in our system, we used whole-word models as the basic speech unit, because whole words have the property that their acoustic representation is well defined and it is easer to segmentation of the beginning and the end of the word.
Factorizations and physical representations

A Hilbert space in M dimensions is shown explicitly to accommodate representations that reflect the decomposition of M into prime numbers. Representations that exhibit the factorization of M into two relatively prime numbers: the kq representation (Zak J 1970 Phys. Today 23 51), and related representations termed q1q2 representations (together with their conjugates) are analysed, as well as a representation that exhibits the complete factorization of M. In this latter representation each quantum number varies in a subspace that is associated with one of the prime numbers that make up M.
Multiphase Flow Modeling of Biofuel Production Processes Multiphase Flow 2011

proceedings. Since changes may be made before publication, this preprint should not be cited or reproduced without permission of the author. This document was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, or any of their employees, makes any warranty, expressed or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for any third party’s use, or the results of such use, of any information, apparatus, product or process disclosed in this report, or represents that its use by such third party would not infringe privately owned rights. The views expressed in this paper are not necessarily those of the United States Government or the sponsoring agency. INL/CON-11-21680 PREPRINT
Dealing with edge effects in least-squares image deconvolution problems

It is well-known that when an astronomical image is collected by a telescope, the measured intensities at pixels near the edge of the image may depend on the intensity of the object outside of the field of view (FOV) of the instrument. This makes the deconvolution of astronomical images troublesome. Standard approaches for solving this problem artificially extend the object outside the FOV via the imposition of boundary conditions (BCs). Unfortunately, in many instances the artificially extended object has little in common with the object itself outside of the FOV. This is most pronounced in the case of objects close to the boundary of the image and/or extended objects not completely contained in the image domain. In such cases, an inaccurate extension of the image outside of the FOV can introduce non-physical edge effects near the boundary that can degrade the quality of the reconstruction. For example, if the BCs used result in an extended image that is discontinuous at the boundary, these edge effects take the form of ripples (Gibbs oscillations). In this paper, we extend to least-squares (LS) algorithms a method recently proposed by Bertero & Boccacci (2005, A&A, 437, 369) in the context of the Richardson-Lucy (RL) algorithm for the restoration of images contaminated by Poissonian noise. The most important characteristic of the proposed approach is that it does not impose any kind of artificial BCs and is therefore free from edge effects. For this reason it can be considered the natural method for the restoration of images via LS algorithms.
An Indole-3-Acetic Acid Carboxyl Methyltransferase Regulates Arabidopsis Leaf Developmentw⃞

Auxin is central to many aspects of plant development; accordingly, plants have evolved several mechanisms to regulate auxin levels, including de novo auxin biosynthesis, degradation, and conjugation to sugars and amino acids. Here, we report the characterization of an Arabidopsis thaliana mutant, IAA carboxyl methyltransferase1-dominant (iamt1-D), which displayed dramatic hyponastic leaf phenotypes caused by increased expression levels of the IAMT1 gene. IAMT1 encodes an indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) carboxyl methyltransferase that converts IAA to methyl-IAA ester (MeIAA) in vitro, suggesting that methylation of IAA plays an important role in regulating plant development and auxin homeostasis. Whereas both exogenous IAA and MeIAA inhibited primary root and hypocotyl elongation, MeIAA was much more potent than IAA in a hypocotyl elongation assay, indicating that IAA activities could be effectively regulated by methylation. IAMT1 was spatially and temporally regulated during the development of both rosette and cauline leaves. Changing expression patterns and/or levels of IAMT1 often led to dramatic leaf curvature phenotypes. In iamt1-D, the decreased expression levels of TCP genes, which are known to regulate leaf curvature, may partially account for the curly leaf phenotype. The identification of IAMT1 and the elucidation of its role in Arabidopsis leaf development have broad implications for auxin-regulated developmental process.
Rationale-Based Monitoring for Planning in Dynamic Environments

We describe a framework for planning in dynamic environments. A central question is how to focus the sensing performed by such a system, so that it responds appropriately to relevant changes, but does not attempt to monitor all the changes that could possibly occur in the world. To achieve the required balance, we introduce rationale-based monitors, which represent the features of the world state that are included in the plan rationale, i.e., the reasons for the planning decisions so far made. Rationale-based monitors capture information both about the plan currently under development and the alternative choices that were found but not pursued. We discuss the plan transformations that may result from the firing of a rationale-based monitor, for example when an alternative choice is detected. We have implemented the generation of and response to rationale-based monitoring within the Prodigy planner, and we describe experiments that show the feasibility of our approach.
QFD : an interactive algorithm for the prioritization of product ’ s technical design characteristics

The paper is concerned with the problem of the `̀ prioritization’ ’ of technical design characteristic s of a product. An interactive algorithm has been developed with the aim to better support the engineering design process by means of quality function deployment (QFD). The algorithm tries to soften customer approach to QFD in those situations in which customers are not able to give a `̀ significant’ ’ evaluation of the relative importance of their requirements . The method allows determining a ranking order of design characteristic s without the artificia l conversion of symbols contained in the relationshi p matrix, and without the use of explicit information concerning the relative degree of importance of customer requirements. A simple numerical applicatio n is also provided. Received October 1999 Revised June 2000 Accepted February 2001 prioritization order of technical characteristics, which does not reflect his own real intentions (see methods based on the analytic hierarchy process (Akao, 1990; Dyer, 1990; Saaty, 1990)). With the aim to better support and facilitate the engineering design process, the paper presents an interactive algorithm, which tries to soften customers’ approach to QFD. More in detail, it allows determining a ranking order of design characteristics without the artificial conversion of symbols contained in the relationship matrix, and without explicitly knowing the relative degree of importance of customer
A novel decomposed FIR zero-forcing filterbanks equalizer for OFDM systems

In this paper, a novel decomposed FIR zero-forcing (ZF) filterbanks equalizer is devised for OFDM systems with cyclic-prefix. It can be realized with a simple cascade configuration of inter-block-interference suppression, by the oblique projector (as pre-processor), followed by ISI cancellation using the zero-order FIR ZF filterbanks equalizer. By comparing with the unified solution in A. Scaglione et al. (1999), under the same assumptions and conditions, our proposed equalizing scheme could achieve the same BER performance as in A. Scaglione et al. (1999), and the transceiver design could be of complexity reduction. However, under the situation of block data symbol length is smaller than the channel order, if the decomposed ZF equalizer is with the same order as the unified ZF equalizer, the performance improvement could be achieved, significantly.
Chromosomal instability correlates with poor outcome in patients with myelodysplastic syndromes irrespectively of the cytogenetic risk group

Chromosomal instability (CIN), defined by an elevated frequency of the occurrence of novel chromosomal aberrations, is strongly implicated in the generation of aneuploidy, one of the hallmarks of human cancers. As for aneuploidy itself, the role of CIN in the evolution and progression of malignancy is a matter still open to debate. We investigated numerical as well as structural CIN in primary CD34‐positive cells by determining the cell‐to‐cell variability of the chromosome content using fluorescence‐in situ‐hybridization (FISH). Thereby, CIN was measured in 65 patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) and control subjects. Among MDS patients, a subgroup with elevated levels of CIN was identified. At a median follow‐up of 17.2 months, all patients within this ‘high CIN’ subgroup had died or progressed to AML, while 80% of MDS patients with normal CIN levels had stable disease (P < 0.001). Notably, there was no statistically significant difference between ‘normal CIN’ and ‘high CIN’ MDS patients regarding established risk factors. Hence, elevated CIN levels were associated with poor outcome, and our method provided additional prognostic information beyond conventional cytogenetics. Furthermore, in all three MDS patients for whom serial measurements were available, development of AML was preceded by increasing CIN levels. In conclusion, elevated CIN levels may be valuable as an early indicator of poor prognosis in MDS, hence corroborating the concept of CIN as a driving force in tumour progression.
MediaWorm: A QoS Capable Router Architecture for Clusters

With the increasing use of clusters in real-time applications, it has become essential to design high-performance networks with quality-of-service (QoS) guarantees. We explore the feasibility of providing QoS in wormhole switched routers, which are widely used in designing scalable, high-performance cluster interconnects. In particular, we are interested in supporting multimedia video streams with CBR and VBR traffic, in addition to the conventional best-effort traffic. The proposed MediaWorm router uses a rate-based bandwidth allocation mechanism, called Fine-Grained VirtualClock (FGVC), to schedule network resources for different traffic classes. Our simulation results on an 8-port router indicate that it is possible to provide jitter-free delivery to VBR/CBR traffic up to an input load of 70-80 percent of link bandwidth and the presence of best-effort traffic has no adverse effect on real-time traffic. Although the MediaWorm router shows a slightly lower performance than a pipelined circuit switched (PCS) router, commercial success of wormhole switching, coupled with simpler and cheaper design, makes it an attractive alternative. Simulation of a (2/spl times/2) fat-mesh using this router shows performance comparable to that of a single switch and suggests that clusters designed with appropriate bandwidth balance between links can provide required performance for different types of traffic.
Optimizing TTL Caches under Heavy-Tailed Demands

In this paper we analyze the hit performance of cache systems that receive file requests with general arrival distributions and different popularities. We consider timer-based (TTL) policies, with differentiated timers over which we optimize. The optimal policy is shown to be related to the monotonicity of the hazard rate function of the inter-arrival distribution. In particular for decreasing hazard rates, timer policies outperform the static policy of caching the most popular contents. We provide explicit solutions for the optimal policy in the case of Pareto-distributed inter-request times and a Zipf distribution of file popularities, including a compact fluid characterization in the limit of a large number of files. We compare it through simulation with classical policies, such as least-recently-used and discuss its performance. Finally, we analyze extensions of the optimization framework to a line network of caches.
Event Object Boundaries in RDF Streams

The amount of information available as online streams is increasing steadily. A number of RDF stream processing systems have been developed in an attempt to leverage existing Semantic Web technologies, and to support typical stream operations, but very little attention has been paid to the way in which event objects (i.e. data records representing events) are streamed. In this position paper, we present the issue of respecting event object boundaries in RDF streams, and discuss some pros and cons of the various solutions.
Postoperative Atrial Fibrillation

Postoperative atrial fibrillation (POAF) is common among surgical patients and associated with a worse outcome. Pathophysiology of POAF is not fully disclosed, and several perioperative factors could be involved. Direct cardiac stimulation from perioperative use of catecholamines or increased sympathetic outflow from volume loss/anaemia/pain may play a role. Metabolic alterations, such as hypo-/hyperglycaemia and electrolyte disturbances, may also contribute to POAF. Moreover, inflammation, both systemic and local, may play a role in its pathogenesis. Strategies to prevent POAF aim at reducing its incidence and ameliorate global outcome of surgical patients. Nonpharmacological prophylaxis includes an adequate control of postoperative pain, the use of thoracic epidural analgesia, optimization of perioperative oxygen delivery, and, possibly, modulation of surgery-associated inflammatory response with immunonutrition and antioxidants. Perioperative potassium and magnesium depletion should be corrected. The impact of those interventions on patients outcome needs to be further investigated.