Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Transforming growth factor-beta 1 modulates basic fibroblast growth factor-induced proteolytic and angiogenic properties of endothelial cells in vitro

Tightly controlled proteolytic degradation of the extracellular matrix by invading microvascular endothelial cells is believed to be a necessary component of the angiogenic process. We have previously demonstrated the induction of plasminogen activators (PAs) in bovine microvascular endothelial (BME) cells by three agents that induce angiogenesis in vitro: basic FGF (bFGF), PMA, and sodium orthovanadate. Surprisingly, we find that these agents also induce plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) activity and mRNA in BME cells. We also find that transforming growth factor-beta 1 (TGF-beta 1), which in vitro modulates a number of endothelial cell functions relevant to angiogenesis, also increases both PAI-1 and urokinase-type PA (u-PA) mRNA. Thus, production of both proteases and protease inhibitors is increased by angiogenic agents and TGF-beta 1. However, the kinetics and amplitude of PAI-1 and u-PA mRNA induction by these agents are strikingly different. We have used the ratio of u-PA:PAI-1 mRNA levels as an indicator of proteolytic balance. This ratio is tilted towards enhanced proteolysis in response to bFGF, towards antiproteolysis in response to TGF-beta 1, and is similar to that in untreated cultures when the two agents are added simultaneously. Using an in vitro angiogenesis assay in three-dimensional fibrin gels, we find that TGF- beta 1 inhibits the bFGF-induced formation of tube-like structures, resulting in the formation of solid endothelial cell cords within the superficial parts of the gel. These results suggest that a net positive proteolytic balance is required for capillary lumen formation. A novel perspective is provided on the relationship between extracellular matrix invasion, lumen formation, and net proteolytic balance, thereby reflecting the interplay between angiogenesis-modulating cytokines such as bFGF and TGF-beta 1.
Accelerating correctly rounded floating-point division when the divisor is known in advance

We present techniques for accelerating the floating-point computation of x/y when y is known before x. The proposed algorithms are oriented toward architectures with available fused-mac operations. The goal is to get exactly the same result as with usual division with rounding to nearest. It is known that the advanced computation of 1/y allows performing correctly rounded division in one multiplication plus two fused-macs. We show algorithms that reduce this latency to one multiplication and one fused-mac. This is achieved if a precision of at least n+1 bits is available, where n is the number of mantissa bits in the target format, or if y satisfies some properties that can be easily checked at compile-time. This requires a double-word approximation of 1/y (we also show how to get it). Compilers to accelerate some numerical programs without loss of accuracy can use these techniques.
Assessing load-sharing within optimistic simulation platforms

The advent of multi-core machines has lead to the need for revising the architecture of modern simulation platforms. One recent proposal we made attempted to explore the viability of load-sharing for optimistic simulators run on top of these types of machines. In this article, we provide an extensive experimental study for an assessment of the effects on run-time dynamics by a load-sharing architecture that has been implemented within the ROOT-Sim package, namely an open source simulation platform adhering to the optimistic synchronization paradigm. This experimental study is essentially aimed at evaluating possible sources of overheads when supporting load-sharing. It has been based on differentiated workloads allowing us to generate different execution profiles in terms of, e.g., granularity/locality of the simulation events.
Demonstration Paper: A 16 - channel Bluetooth Enabled Wearable EEG Platform with Dry - contact Electrodes for Brain Computer Interface

A mobile, easy to use, wireless dry contact EEG acquisition system is presented in this work. This system can potentially facilitate continuous in-home monitoring of electroencephalography (EEG) to diagnose ailments such as epilepsy. The system has also been validated with brain computer interface (BCI) paradigms that would enable physically disabled users to communicate.
The Role of Cold Work in Eddy Current Residual Stress Measurements in Shot‐Peened Nickel‐Base Superalloys

Recently, it was shown that eddy current methods can be adapted to residual stress measurement in shot‐peened nickel‐base superalloys. However, experimental evidence indicates that the piezoresistivity effect is simply not high enough to account for the observed apparent eddy current conductivity (AECC) increase. At the same time, X‐ray diffraction data indicates that “cold work” lingers even when the residual stress is fully relaxed and the excess AECC is completely gone. It is impossible to account for both observations with a single coherent explanation unless we assume that instead of a single “cold work” effect, there are two varieties of cold work; type‐A and type‐B. Type‐A cold work (e.g., changes in the microscopic homogeneity of the material) is not detected by X‐ray diffraction as it does not significantly affect the beam width, but causes substantial conductivity change and exhibits strong thermal relaxation. Type‐B cold work (e.g., dislocations) is detected by X‐ray, but causes little or no co.
A 400 MHz - 1600 MHz SiGe MMIC beam-former for the Square Kilometre Array

This paper describes an implementation of a beam former Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) for the SKA demonstrator project known as EMBRACE using the SG25H1 Silicon Germanium process of IHP microelectronics. This process is qualified as a high-performance technology with npn-HBTs up to ft/fmax = 180/220 GHz.
LTE Downlink 2X2 MIMO with Realistic CSI: Overview and Performance Evaluation

For downlink multiple input multiple output (MIMO) schemes, there is a tradeoff between downlink MIMO performance and uplink reporting cost. The mobile speed has an impact on this tradeoff since the reporting delays the measurements. This paper presents the major downlink MIMO modes in 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) and their related channel state information (CSI) modes. The impact of realistic CSI is investigated through advanced system simulations, showing that the total performance degradation of realistic CSI reporting is at a surprisingly low 20% compared to full, recent channel knowledge. With realistic CSI reporting, a selected set of promising 2x2 MIMO applications are evaluated at different mobile speeds. The open-loop spatial multiplexing mode offers unexpectedly high cell throughput despite its limited feedback requirement. It performs well for a wide range of speeds, as it provides good robustness to delayed channel knowledge. Bitrates can only be further improved by closed-loop spatial multiplexing in stationary scenarios, where CSI delay does not hamper the precoding gain. These results confirm that there are MIMO modes suitable for both high and low speeds.
A Vehicle Tracking System with Measuring Traffic Parameters

We consider the video image detector systems using tracking techniques which can be handling of the all kind of problems in the real world, such as shadow, occlusion, and vehicle detection by nighttime. Also we have derived the traffic information, volume count, speed, and occupancy time, under kaleidoscopic environments. In this system we propose a shadow cast algorithm and this system was tested under typical outdoor field environments at a test site. We evaluated the performance of traffic information, volume counts, speed, and occupancy time, with 4 lanes in which 2 lanes are upstream and the rests are downstream. And the performance of our video-based image detector system is qualified by comparing with laser detector installed on testing place.
Molecular Determinants of Enterovirus 71 Viral Entry

Background: SCARB2 is the cellular receptor for EV71. Results: Seven highly variable amino acids on SCARB2 and a region in proximity to residue Gln-172 of VP1 are critical for EV71 infection. Conclusion: EV71 might adopt the canyon receptor engagement mode for viral entry. Significance: Elucidation of receptor and viral determinants revealed a possible target for anti-EV71 interventions. Enterovirus 71 (EV71) is one of the major pathogens that cause hand, foot, and mouth disease outbreaks in young children in the Asia-Pacific region in recent years. Human scavenger receptor class B 2 (SCARB2) is the main cellular receptor for EV71 on target cells. The requirements of the EV71-SCARB2 interaction have not been fully characterized, and it has not been determined whether SCARB2 serves as an uncoating receptor for EV71. Here we compared the efficiency of the receptor from different species including human, horseshoe bat, mouse, and hamster and demonstrated that the residues between 144 and 151 are critical for SCARB2 binding to viral capsid protein VP1 of EV71 and seven residues from the human receptor could convert murine SCARB2, an otherwise inefficient receptor, to an efficient receptor for EV71 viral infection. We also identified that EV71 binds to SCARB2 via a canyon of VP1 around residue Gln-172. Soluble SCARB2 could convert the EV71 virions from 160 S to 135 S particles, indicating that SCARB2 is an uncoating receptor of the virus. The uncoating efficiency of SCARB2 significantly increased in an acidic environment (pH 5.6). These studies elucidated the viral capsid and receptor determinants of enterovirus 71 infection and revealed a possible target for antiviral interventions.
gIBIS: a hypertext tool for exploratory policy discussion

This paper describes an application-specific hypertext system designed to facilitate the capture of early design deliberations. It implements a specific method, called Issue Based Information Systems (IBIS), which has been developed for use on large, complex design problems. The hypertext system described here, gIBIS (for graphical IBIS), makes use of color and a high-speed relational database server to facilitate building and browsing typed IBIS networks. Further, gIBIS is designed to support the collaborative construction of these networks by any number of cooperating team members spread across a local area network. Early experiments suggest that the IBIS method is still incomplete, but there is a good match between the tool and method even in this experimental version.
Fast face detection with precise pose estimation

We present a fast algorithm for face detection and precise pose estimation. Our detection scheme is based on a tree-structured hierarchy of face vs. background classifiers combined with a lazy evaluation strategy which concentrates computation on ambiguous areas of the image. The hierarchy corresponds to successive partitions of the pose parameter space, and thereby provides, at no additional cost, a fine estimate of the 2D pose of detected faces.
Computationally Tractable Counterparts of Distributionally Robust Constraints on Risk Measures

In this paper we study distributionally robust constraints on risk measures (such as standard deviation less the mean, Conditional Value-at-Risk, Entropic Value-at-Risk) of decision-dependent random variables. The uncertainty sets for the discrete probability distributions are defined using statistical goodness-of-fit tests and probability metrics such as Pearson, likelihood ratio, Anderson-Darling tests, or Wasserstein distance. This type of constraints arises in problems in portfolio optimization, economics, machine learning, and engineering. We show that the derivation of a tractable robust counterpart can be split into two parts: one corresponding to the risk measure and the other to the uncertainty set. We also show how the counterpart can be constructed for risk measures that are nonlinear in the probabilities (for example, variance or the Conditional Value-at-Risk). We provide the computational tractability status for each of the uncertainty set-risk measure pairs that we could solve. Numerical examples including portfolio optimization and a multi-item newsvendor problem illustrate the proposed approach.
Prediction of the cutting forces generated in the drilling of carbon-fibre-reinforced plastic composites using a twist drill

The cutting force is regarded as the main factor that influences the quality of the hole created in the drilling of carbon-fibre-reinforced plastic composites. This paper proposes a model for the prediction of the thrust force and torque generated in the drilling of composite materials using a twist drill. In the model, contact theory is applied to the chisel edge cutting zone and oblique cutting is considered in the cutting lips cutting zone that is considered to have three distinct deformation regions. The model takes into account the spindle speed, feed rate, drill diameter, point angle, nose radius, rake angle of the chisel edge, web thickness, and fibre orientation. The cutting forces predicted by this model are in satisfactory agreement with experimental results and thus it is concluded that the proposed model can be used to optimize the cutting parameters and tool geometries in the drilling of composites.
Statistical analysis on Stiefel and Grassmann manifolds with applications in computer vision

Many applications in computer vision and pattern recognition involve drawing inferences on certain manifold-valued parameters. In order to develop accurate inference algorithms on these manifolds we need to a) understand the geometric structure of these manifolds b) derive appropriate distance measures and c) develop probability distribution functions (pdf) and estimation techniques that are consistent with the geometric structure of these manifolds. In this paper, we consider two related manifolds - the Stiefel manifold and the Grassmann manifold, which arise naturally in several vision applications such as spatio-temporal modeling, affine invariant shape analysis, image matching and learning theory. We show how accurate statistical characterization that reflects the geometry of these manifolds allows us to design efficient algorithms that compare favorably to the state of the art in these very different applications. In particular, we describe appropriate distance measures and parametric and non-parametric density estimators on these manifolds. These methods are then used to learn class conditional densities for applications such as activity recognition, video based face recognition and shape classification.
High-cycle rotating bending fatigue property in very long-life regime of high-strength steels

In order to investigate the fatigue properties of high-strength steels in the very long-life regime up to over 10 9 cycles, cantilever-type rotating bending fatigue tests were carried out for two kinds of high-strength steels, SUJ2 and SNCM439, which were machined by grinding and finished by electropolishing after grinding. And also, the residual stress on the specimen surface of the ground specimen was examined by X-ray diffractometer in order to investigate effects of the residual stress on the fatigue properties. From the investigations, the S-N curves clearly have a tendency to decrease again in the longer-life range over 10 7 cycles for both types of specimen and for both steels. From observations of fracture surfaces, it was found that fatigue crack origins could be grouped into two types: (i) 'surface crack origin type' in the shorter-life regime and (ii) 'internal crack origin type' in the longer-life regime.
Interactive Multiple Scale Small Multiples

Numerous scientific and analysis problems involve integrating heterogeneous information that is multidimensional, multivariate, and time-dependent. To visualize this data in a 3D environment, we designed a visualization technique called multiple scale small multiples (MSSM), in which each view behaves like an environment in itself. Aggregated multiple views can also form single view visualization. Data from bat flights and flow simulations were used to demonstrate MSSM at work. Users can interact with the dataset at different levels of detail and scale, and access a fairly large amount of data points.
A Clipping-Based Selective-Tap Adaptive Filtering Approach to Stereophonic Acoustic Echo Cancellation

Stereophonic acoustic echo cancellation remains one of the challenging areas for tele/video-conferencing applications. However, the existence of high interchannel coherence between the two input signals for such systems leads to considerable degradation in misalignment convergence of the adaptive filters. We propose a new algorithm for improving the convergence performance and steady-state misalignment by considering robustness to the source position in the transmission room. We achieve this by exploiting the inherent decorrelating properties of selective-tap adaptive filtering as well as employing a variable clipping threshold for the unselected taps. Simulation results using colored noise and speech signals show an improvement over existing algorithms both in terms of convergence rate as well as steady-state normalized misalignment.
Segmentation of envelopes and address block location by salient features and hypothesis testing

Although nowadays there are working systems for sorting mail in some constrained ways, segmenting gray level images of envelopes and locating address blocks in them is still a difficult problem. Pattern Recognition research has contributed greatly to this area since the problem concerns feature design, extraction, recognition, and also the image segmentation if one deals with the original gray level images from the beginning. This paper presents a segmentation and address block location algorithm based on feature selection in wavelet space. The aim is to automatically separate in postal envelopes the regions related to background, stamps, rubber stamps, and the address blocks. First, a typical image of a postal envelope is decomposed using Mallat algorithm and Haar basis. High frequency channel outputs are analyzed to locate salient points in order to separate the background. A statistical hypothesis test is taken to decide upon more consistent regions in order to clean out some noise left. The selected points are projected back to the original gray level image, where the evidence from the wavelet space is used to start a growing process to include the pixels more likely to belong to the regions of stamps, rubber stamps, and written area. Besides the new features and a growing process controlled by the salient points presented here, a fully comprehensive experimental setup was run by separating and classifying blocks in the envelopes, and validating results by a pixel to pixel accuracy measure using a ground truth database of 2200 images with different layouts and backgrounds. Success rate for address block location reached is over 90%.
Prickle isoforms control the direction of tissue polarity by microtubule independent and dependent mechanisms

ABSTRACT Planar cell polarity signaling directs the polarization of cells within the plane of many epithelia. While these tissues exhibit asymmetric localization of a set of core module proteins, in Drosophila, more than one mechanism links the direction of core module polarization to the tissue axes. One signaling system establishes a polarity bias in the parallel, apical microtubules upon which vesicles containing core proteins traffic. Swapping expression of the differentially expressed Prickle isoforms, Prickle and Spiny-legs, reverses the direction of core module polarization. Studies in the proximal wing and the anterior abdomen indicated that this results from their differential control of microtubule polarity. Prickle and Spiny-legs also control the direction of polarization in the distal wing (D-wing) and the posterior abdomen (P-abd). We report here that this occurs without affecting microtubule polarity in these tissues. The direction of polarity in the D-wing is therefore likely determined by a novel mechanism independent of microtubule polarity. In the P-abd, Prickle and Spiny-legs interpret at least two directional cues through a microtubule-polarity-independent mechanism. Summary: Learning how Pk and Sple differentially interpret directional cues allows a broader understanding of the varied signals and mechanisms linking the core module to tissue axes in planar cell polarity.
Fitting Constrained 3D Models in Multiple Aerial Images

This paper presents a method for fitting constrained models in multiple aerial images for building reconstruction applications. Compared to previous works, geometrical constraints are automatically inferred and enforced on the initial approximate model of building and the final constrained model is inherently compliant with the detected constraints through an implicit parameterization. Fitting models in images is performed through automatic matching between model edges and segments detected in the images. An iterative minimization enables to search for the constrained model that minimizes the distance with this image information. Results show that both the introduction of constraints on the model and the use of image information allow a significant gain in the precision of the reconstruction.
TAO: Facebook's Distributed Data Store for the Social Graph

We introduce a simple data model and API tailored for serving the social graph, and TAO, an implementation of this model. TAO is a geographically distributed data store that provides efficient and timely access to the social graph for Facebook's demanding workload using a fixed set of queries. It is deployed at Facebook, replacing memcache for many data types that fit its model. The system runs on thousands of machines, is widely distributed, and provides access to many petabytes of data. TAO can process a billion reads and millions of writes each second.
Auditory Brainstem Implant: I. Issues in Surgical Implantation

Most patients with neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2) are totally deaf after removal of their bilateral acoustic neuromas. Twenty-five patients with neurofibromatosis type 2 have been implanted with a brainstem electrode during surgery to remove an acoustic neuroma. The electrode is positioned in the lateral recess of the fourth ventricle, adjacent to the cochlear nuclei. The present electrode consists of three platinum plates mounted on a Dacron mesh backing, a design that has been demonstrated to be biocompatible and positionally stable in an animal model. Correct electrode placement depends on accurate identification of anatomic landmarks from the translabyrinthine surgical approach and also on Intrasurglcal electrophysiologic monitoring. Some tumors and their removal can result in significant distortion of the brainstem and surrounding structures. Even in the absence of Identifiable anatomic landmarks, electrode location can be adjusted during surgical placement to find the location that maximizes the auditory evoked response and minimizes activation of other monitored cranial nerves. Stimulation of the electrodes produces auditory sensations in most patients, with results similar to those of single-channel cochlear Implants. A coordinated multldlscipllnary team is essential for successful application of an auditory brainstem implant.
Acquisition of Common Sense Knowledge for Basic Level Concepts

Feature norms can be regarded as repositories of common sense knowledge for basic level concepts. We acquire from very large corpora feature-norm-like concept descriptions using a combination of a weakly supervised method and an unsupervised method. The success in identifying the specific properties listed in the feature norms as well as the success in acquiring the classes of properties present in the norms are reported.