Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Biophysical information representation in temporally correlated spike trains

Spike trains commonly exhibit interspike interval (ISI) correlations caused by spike-activated adaptation currents. Here we investigate how the dynamics of adaptation currents can represent spike pattern information generated from stimulus inputs. By analyzing dynamical models of stimulus-driven single neurons, we show that the activation states of the correlation-inducing adaptation current are themselves statistically independent from spike to spike. This paradoxical finding suggests a biophysically plausible means of information representation. We show that adaptation independence is elicited by input levels that produce regular, non-Poisson spiking. This adaptation-independent regime is advantageous for sensory processing because it does not require sensory inferences on the basis of multivariate conditional probabilities, reducing the computational cost of decoding. Furthermore, if the kinetics of postsynaptic activation are similar to the adaptation, the activation state information can be communicated postsynaptically with no information loss, leading to an experimental prediction that simple synaptic kinetics can decorrelate the correlated ISI sequence. The adaptation-independence regime may underly efficient weak signal detection by sensory afferents that are known to exhibit intrinsic correlated spiking, thus efficiently encoding stimulus information at the limit of physical resolution.
XIAO: tuning code clones at hands of engineers in practice

During software development, engineers often reuse a code fragment via copy-and-paste with or without modifications or adaptations. Such practices lead to a number of the same or similar code fragments spreading within one or many large codebases. Detecting code clones has been shown to be useful towards security such as detection of similar security bugs and, more generally, quality improvement such as refactoring of code clones. A large number of academic research projects have been carried out on empirical studies or tool supports for detecting code clones. In this paper, we report our experiences of carrying out successful technology transfer of our new approach of code-clone detection, called XIAO. XIAO has been integrated into Microsoft Visual Studio 2012, to be benefiting a huge number of developers in industry. The main success factors of XIAO include its high tunability, scalability, compatibility, and explorability. Based on substantial industrial experiences, we present the XIAO approach with emphasis on these success factors of XIAO. We also present empirical results on applying XIAO on real scenarios within Microsoft for the tasks of security-bug detection and refactoring.
In vivo Toxicity Studies of Pristine Carbon Nanotubes: A Review

Discovered in 1991(Iijima, 1991), carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have attracted considerable attention in many fields of science and technology because of their unique structural, mechanical, and electronic properties. Their potential seemed paramount in the fields of materials science, including conductive and high-strength composites, energy storage and energy conversion devices, sensors, field emission displays and radiation sources, hydrogen storage, nanometer-sized semiconductor devices, probes and interconnects (Dresselhaus et al., 2004). Thus their studies progressed rapidly during the last two decades.
HiNextApp: A Context-Aware and Adaptive Framework for App Prediction in Mobile Systems

A variety of applications (App) installed on mobile systems such as smartphones enrich our lives, but make it more difficult to the system management. For example, finding the specific Apps becomes more inconvenient due to more Apps installed on smartphones, and App response time could become longer because of the gap between more, larger Apps and limited memory capacity. Recent work has proposed several methods of predicting next used Apps (here in after appprediction) to solve the issues, but faces the problems of the low prediction accuracy and high training costs. Especially, applying app-prediction to memory management (such as LMK) and App prelaunching has high requirements for the prediction accuracy and training costs. In this paper, we propose an app-prediction framework, named HiNextApp, to improve the app-prediction accuracy and reduce training costs in mobile systems. HiNextApp is based on contextual information, and can adjust the size of prediction periods adaptively. The framework mainly consists of two parts: non-uniform bayes model and an elastic algorithm. The experimental results show that HiNextApp can effectively improve the prediction accuracy and reduce training times. Besides, compared with traditional bayes model, the overhead of our framework is relatively low.
Sulfatides Partition Disabled-2 in Response to Platelet Activation

Background Platelets contact each other at the site of vascular injury to stop bleeding. One negative regulator of platelet aggregation is Disabled-2 (Dab2), which is released to the extracellular surface upon platelet activation. Dab2 inhibits platelet aggregation through its phosphotyrosine-binding (PTB) domain by competing with fibrinogen for αIIbβ3 integrin receptor binding by an unknown mechanism. Methodology/Principal Findings Using protein-lipid overlay and liposome-binding assays, we identified that the N-terminal region of Dab2, including its PTB domain (N-PTB), specifically interacts with sulfatides. Moreover, we determined that such interaction is mediated by two conserved basic motifs with a dissociation constant (Kd) of 0.6 µM as estimated by surface plasmon resonance (SPR) analysis. In addition, liposome-binding assays combined with mass spectroscopy studies revealed that thrombin, a strong platelet agonist, cleaved N-PTB at a site located between the basic motifs, a region that becomes protected from thrombin cleavage when bound to sulfatides. Sulfatides on the platelet surface interact with coagulation proteins, playing a major role in haemostasis. Our results show that sulfatides recruit N-PTB to the platelet surface, sequestering it from integrin receptor binding during platelet activation. This is a transient recruitment that follows N-PTB internalization by an actin-dependent process. Conclusions/Significance Our experimental data support a model where two pools of Dab2 co-exist at the platelet surface, in both sulfatide- and integrin receptor-bound states, and their balance controls the extent of the clotting response.
Novel schemes for nonlinear acoustic echo cancellation based on filter combinations

Nonlinear acoustic echo cancellers (NLAEC) are becoming increasingly important in hands-free applications. However, in some situations, an NLAEC is inferior to a linear AEC, especially when the channel generates a negligible (or no) nonlinear echo. In general, the ratio of the linear to nonlinear echo signal power is unknown a priori, and will vary over time, thus making it difficult to know if an NLAEC would improve or degrade the cancellation. In this paper, we present two novel solutions to this problem based on the adaptive combination of linear and nonlinear echo cancellers. Both solutions perform efficiently regardless of the level of nonlinear echo. The benefits and robustness of both schemes are illustrated by experiments using Laplacian colored noise and speech input signals.
A Novel Cascaded H Bridge 127 Multilevel Inverter Using Reduced Switches In Medium Voltage Drive Applications

In this paper a new topology has been introduced for implementing the three phase 127 level cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverter. In order to achieve high power at high power quality, such a converter is inevitable. The major advantages of the proposed topology are improved power quality with lesser number of switches. This leads to lesser complexity of the control circuitry, reduction in switching harmonics and reduction in the cost. Also here the number of voltage sources required is very less compared to conventional methods. This method gives THD of output voltage about 14.05%. Output of the proposed three phase 127-level inverter has been verified by MATLAB simulation results. In particular, the application of the proposed multilevel converter is discussed for induction motor drives through analysis and simulation in MATLAB. Keywords—drive; H-bridge; three phase; multilevel; inverter; THD; MATLAB
Robust Inference of Principal Road Paths for Intelligent Transportation Systems

Over the last few years, electronic vehicle guidance systems have become increasingly more popular. However, despite their ubiquity, performance will always be subject to availability of detailed digital road maps. Most current digital maps are still inadequate for advanced applications in unstructured environments. Lack of up-to-date information and insufficient refinement of the road geometry are among the most important shortcomings. The massive use of inexpensive Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers, combined with the rapidly increasing availability of wireless communication infrastructure, suggests that large amounts of data combining both modalities will be available in the near future. The approach presented here draws on machine-learning techniques and processes logs of position traces to consistently build a detailed and fine-grained representation of the road network by extracting the principal paths followed by the vehicles. Although this work addresses the road-building problem in dynamic environments such as open-pit mines, it is also applicable to urban environments. New contributions include a fully unsupervised segmentation method for sampling roads and inferring the network topology, which is a general technique for extracting detailed information about road splits, merges, and intersections, as well as a robust algorithm that articulates these two. Experimental results with data from large mining operations are presented to validate the new algorithm.
Reducing the Decline in Physical Activity during Pregnancy: A Systematic Review of Behaviour Change Interventions

Purpose Physical activity (PA) typically declines throughout pregnancy. Low levels of PA are associated with excessive weight gain and subsequently increase risk of pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes mellitus, hypertension disorders, delivery by caesarean section and stillbirth. Systematic reviews on PA during pregnancy have not explored the efficacy of behaviour change techniques or related theory in altering PA behaviour. This systematic review evaluated the content of PA interventions to reduce the decline of PA in pregnant women with a specific emphasis on the behaviour change techniques employed to elicit this change. Search and Review Methodology Literature searches were conducted in eight databases. Strict inclusion and exclusion criteria were employed. Two reviewers independently evaluated each intervention using the behaviour change techniques (BCT) taxonomy to identify the specific behaviour change techniques employed. Two reviewers independently assessed the risk of bias using the guidelines from the Cochrane Collaboration. Overall quality was determined using the GRADE approach. Findings A total of 1140 potentially eligible papers were identified from which 14 studies were selected for inclusion. Interventions included counselling (n = 6), structured exercise (n = 6) and education (n = 2). Common behaviour change techniques employed in these studies were goal setting and planning, feedback, repetition and substitution, shaping knowledge and comparison of behaviours. Regular face-to-face meetings were also commonly employed. PA change over time in intervention groups ranged from increases of 28% to decreases of 25%. In 8 out of 10 studies, which provided adequate data, participants in the intervention group were more physically active post intervention than controls. Conclusions and Implications Physical activity interventions incorporating behaviour change techniques help reduce the decline in PA throughout pregnancy. Range of behaviour change techniques can be implemented to reduce this decline including goals and planning, shaping knowledge and comparison of outcomes. A lack of high quality interventions hampers conclusions of intervention effectiveness.
Have digital repositories come of age? The views of library directors

This survey of approximately 150 repositories assessed the achievements, impact, and success of digital repositories. Results show that while the size and use of repositories has been relatively modest, almost half of all institutions either have, or are planning, a repository mandate requiring deposit and small gains have been made in raising the profile of the library within the institution. Repositories, then, have made a good deal of progress, but they have not quite come of age.
Circles of care: Home care and community support for rural older adults

Rural dwelling, frail older adults are a vulnerable population owing to the complexity of health problems superimposed upon limited health care resources. Home care facilitates managing complex health needs and is congruent with rural valued independence. An ethnography was conducted to describe rural home care for frail older adults from the perspective of those delivering and receiving services. A major theme identified was “Circles of Care. ” Grounded in rural culture, the circles assisted the system of formal care to work in harmony with informal care, maintaining independence for vulnerable rural elderly and their families.
Applications of multiwavelet techniques to image denoising

The developments in wavelet theory have given rise to the wavelet thresholding method, for extracting a signal from noisy data. Multiwavelets, wavelets with several scaling functions, have been introduced and they offer simultaneous orthogonality, symmetry and short support; which is not possible with ordinary wavelets, also called scalar wavelets. This property makes multiwavelets more suitable for various signal processing applications, especially compression and denoising. Like scalar wavelets, multiwavelets can be realized as filterbanks, however the filterbanks are now matrix-valued; requiring two or more input streams, which can be accomplished by prefiltering. Several thresholding methods to be used with different multiwavelets for image denoising are presented. The performances of multiwavelets are compared with those of scalar wavelets. Simulations reveal that multiwavelet based image denoising schemes outperform wavelet based methods both subjectively and objectively.
Improving the Timeliness of Procedures in a Pediatric Endoscopy Suite

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Pediatric endoscopic procedures are essential in the evaluation and treatment of gastrointestinal diseases in children. Although pediatric endoscopists are greatly interested in increasing efficiency and through-put in pediatric endoscopy units, there is scarcely any literature on this critical process. The goal of this study was to improve the timeliness of pediatric endoscopy procedures at Children’s Hospital at Montefiore. METHODS: In June 2010, a pediatric endoscopy quality improvement initiative was formed at Children’s Hospital at Montefiore. We identified patient-, equipment-, and physician-related causes for case delays. Pareto charts, cause and effect diagrams, process flow mapping, and statistical process control charts were used for analysis. RESULTS: From June 2010 to December 2012, we were able to significantly decrease the first case endoscopy delay from an average of 17 to 10 minutes (P < .001), second case delay from 39 to 25 minutes (P = .01), third case delay from 61 to 45 minutes (P = .05), and fourth case delay from 79 to 51 minutes (P = .05). Total delay time decreased from 196 to 131 minutes, resulting in a reduction of 65 minutes (P = .02). From June 2010 to August 2011 (preintervention period), an average of 36% of first endoscopy cases started within 5 minutes, 51% within 10 minutes, and 61% within 15 minutes of the scheduled time. From September 2011 to December 2012 (postintervention period), the percentage of cases starting within 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and 15 minutes increased to 47% (P = .07), 61% (P = .04), and 79% (P = .01), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Applying quality improvement methods and tools helped improve pediatric endoscopy timeliness and significantly decreased total delays.
A SYNTHETIC STUDY ON THE INFLUENCE OF ERROR IN SURFACE SOIL MOISTURE OBSERVATIONS ON ASSIMILATION

Defensible requirements of a remote sensing mission for the measurement of surface soil moisture are of vital importance to scientists planning such a mission. In particular, mission planners need: (i) justification for polarization, wavelength and look angle requirements of the sensor; and (ii) accuracy, temporal resolution and spatial resolution requirements of the measurement. The requirements of (i) have been fairly well defined, with horizontally polarized L-band radiometer measurements at a look angle of less than 50o yielding the greatest sensitivity to soil moisture. However, the requirements of (ii) have been less well defined. This paper seeks to address the first of those three issues; measurement accuracy requirements. The remaining two issues will be addressed in forthcoming papers.
Hexagonal split ring monopole antenna (HSRMA) for wifeless applications

Design of a hexagonal monopole antenna capable of operating at 1.5 GHz, 2.5 GHz and 3.5 GHz serving GPS, WLAN and WiMAX applications is reported in this paper. The antenna is comprised of two concentric hexagonal rings with a split along its side length. It is fed by a microstrip line and is printed on a 40×40×3.2 mm3 FR-4 substrate. The effect of the split position on the return loss characteristics of the antenna is emphasized.
Persistence of Helicobacter pylori in Heterotrophic Drinking-Water Biofilms

ABSTRACT Although the route of transmission of Helicobacter pylori remains unknown, drinking water has been considered a possible transmission vector. It has been shown previously that, in water, biofilms are a protective niche for several pathogens, protecting them from stressful conditions, such as low carbon concentration, shear stress, and less-than-optimal temperatures. In this work, the influence of these three parameters on the persistence and cultivability of H. pylori in drinking-water biofilms was studied. Autochthonous biofilm consortia were formed in a two-stage chemostat system and then inoculated with the pathogen. Total numbers of H. pylori cells were determined by microscopy using a specific H. pylori 16S rRNA peptide nucleic acid probe, whereas cultivable cells were assessed by standard plating onto selective H. pylori medium. Cultivable H. pylori could not be detected at any time point, but the ability of H. pylori cells to incorporate, undergo morphological transformations, persist, and even agglomerate in biofilms for at least 31 days without a noticeable decrease in the total cell number (on average, the concentration was between 1.54 × 106 and 2.25 × 106 cells cm−2) or in the intracellular rRNA content may indicate that the loss of cultivability was due to entry into a viable but noncultivable state. Unlike previous results obtained for pure-culture H. pylori biofilms, shear stress did not negatively influence the numbers of H. pylori cells attached, suggesting that the autochthonous aquatic bacteria have an important role in retaining this pathogen in the sessile state, possibly by providing suitable microaerophilic environments or linking biomolecules to which the pathogen adheres. Therefore, biofilms appear to provide not only a safe haven for H. pylori but also a concentration mechanism so that subsequent sloughing releases a concentrated bolus of cells that might be infectious and that could escape routine grab sample microbiological analyses and be a cause of concern for public health.
Sensitivity and Specificity of a New Vertical Flow Rapid Diagnostic Test for the Serodiagnosis of Human Leptospirosis

Background: Leptospirosis is a growing public health concern in many tropical and subtropical countries. However, its diagnosis is difficult because of non-specific symptoms and concurrent other endemic febrile diseases. In many regions, the laboratory diagnosis is not available due to a lack of preparedness and simple diagnostic assay or difficult access to reference laboratories. Yet, an early antibiotic treatment is decisive to the outcome. The need for Rapid Diagnostic Tests (RDTs) for bedside diagnosis of leptospirosis has been recognized. We developed a vertical flow immunochromatography strip RDT detecting anti-Leptospira human IgM and evaluated it in patients from New Caledonia, France, and French West Indies. Methodology/Principal Findings: Whole killed Leptospira fainei cells were used as antigen for the test line and purified human IgM as the control line. The mobile phase was made of gold particles conjugated with goat anti-human IgM. Standards for Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy criteria were used to assess the performance of this RDT. The Microscopic Agglutination Test (MAT) was used as the gold standard with a cut-off titer of ≥400. The sensitivity was 89.8% and the specificity 93.7%. Positive and negative Likelihood Ratios of 14.18 and 0.108 respectively, and a Diagnostic Odds Ratio of 130.737 confirmed its usefulness. This RDT had satisfactory reproducibility, repeatability, thermal tolerance and shelf-life. The comparison with MAT evidenced the earliness of the RDT to detect seroconversion. When compared with other RDT, the Vertical Flow RDT developed displayed good diagnostic performances. Conclusions/Significance This RDT might be used as a point of care diagnostic tool in limited resources countries. An evaluation in field conditions and in other epidemiological contexts should be considered to assess its validity over a wider range of serogroups or when facing different endemic pathogens. It might prove useful in endemic contexts or outbreak situations.
Understanding Fear of Zika: Personal, Interpersonal, and Media Influences

Fear of infectious disease often motivates people to protect themselves. But, it can also produce negative bio‐social‐psychological effects whose severity is on par with those of the disease. The WHO declaration of Zika as a world health crisis presented an opportunity to study factors that bring about fear. Beginning nine days after the WHO announcement, data were gathered from women aged 18–35 living in the southern United States (N = 719). Respondents reported experiencing fear of Zika at levels akin to those reported following other significant crises/disasters (e.g., the terrorist attacks of 9/11). Fear increased as a function of (1) personal, but not other‐relevance, (2) frequency of media exposure, but not media content, and (3) frequency of interpersonal exposure and interpersonal content. It is argued that media and interpersonal message sources may be innately predisposed to amplify, rather than attenuate, risk.
Matching Points into Pairwise-Disjoint Noise Regions: Combinatorial Bounds and Algorithms

We consider several cases of the point matching problem in which we are to find a transformation of a set of n points such that each transformed point lies in one of n given pairwise-disjoint “noise regions. ” We prove upper and lower bounds on the number of possible matches, under a variety of types of transformations (rotations, translations, similarity) and noise regions (circles, squares, polygons). We also give efficient algorithms for computing the set of all possible matches, along with a corresponding transformation that realizes each match. INFORMS Journal on Computing , ISSN 1091-9856, was published as ORSA Journal on Computing from 1989 to 1995 under ISSN 0899-1499.