Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Correction for Phagocytosis of Necrotic Cells by Macrophages Is Phosphatidylserine Dependent and Does Not Induce Inflammatory Cytokine Production

Apoptotic cells are cleared by phagocytosis during development, homeostasis, and pathology. However, it is still unclear how necrotic cells are removed. We compared the phagocytic uptake by macrophages of variants of L929sA murine fibrosarcoma cells induced to die by tumor necrosis factor-induced necrosis or by Fas-mediated apoptosis. We show that apoptotic and necrotic cells are recognized and phagocytosed by macrophages, whereas living cells are not. In both cases, phagocytosis occurred through a phosphatidylserine-dependent mechanism, suggesting that externalization of phosphatidylserine is a general trigger for clearance by macrophages. However, uptake of apoptotic cells was more efficient both quantitatively and kinetically than phagocytosis of necrotic cells. Electron microscopy showed clear morphological differences in the mechanisms used by macrophages to engulf necrotic and apoptotic cells. Apoptotic cells were taken up as condensed membrane-bound particles of various sizes rather than as whole cells, whereas necrotic cells were internalized only as small cellular particles after loss of membrane integrity. Uptake of neither apoptotic nor necrotic L929 cells by macrophages modulated the expression of proinflammatory cytokines by the phagocytes.
Performance Calculation for a High-Speed Solid-Rotor Induction Motor

The paper deals with analytical method of design and prediction of performance characteristics for induction motors with solid steel rotor coated with copper layer. On the basis of the distribution of the 2-D electromagnetic field, the equivalent impedance of the rotor has been derived. The edge effect and nonlinear magnetic permeability of solid steel have been included. The presented analytical method has been verified with laboratory test results. A 300 kW, 60 000-rpm, three-phase solid-rotor induction motor for the next generation air compressor has been investigated. The accuracy of analytical approach is acceptable and can be recommended for rapid design of solid-rotor induction motors.
Print: a provenance model to support integration processes

In some integration applications, users are allowed to import data from heterogeneous sources, but are not allowed to update source data directly. Imported data may be inconsistent, and even when inconsistencies are detected and solved, these changes may not be propagated to the sources due to their update policies. Therefore, they continue to provide the same inconsistent data in the future until the proper authority updates them. In this paper, we propose PrInt, a model that supports user's decisions on cleaning data to be automatically reapplied in subsequent integration processes. By reproducing previous decisions, the user may focus only on new inconsistencies originated from source modified data. The reproducibility provided by PrInt is based on logging, and by incorporating data provenance in the integration process.
Extending integrate-and-fire model neurons to account for input filtering and the effects of weak electric fields mediated by the dendrite

The collective dynamics of neuronal populations can be efficiently studied using single-compartment (point) model neurons of the integrate-and-fire (IF) type. Existing point neuron models are intrinsically not able to appropriately reproduce (i) the effects of dendrites on synaptic input integration or (ii) the modulation of neuronal activity due to an electric field, which strongly depends on the dendritic morphology. Weak electric fields, as generated endogenously or through transcranial electrical stimulation, have recently gained increased attention because of their ability to modulate ongoing neuronal activity. However, the underlying mechanisms are not well understood. Here, we extend the popular spiking point neuron model class to accurately reflect input filtering and weak electric field effects as present in a canonical spatially extended “ball-and-stick” (BS) neuron model. We analytically derive additional components for two major types of IF point neuron models to exactly reproduce the subthreshold somatic voltage dynamics of the BS model with arbitrary morphology exposed to an oscillating electric field. Also the spiking dynamics for suprathreshold fluctuating inputs is well reproduced by the extended point models. Through this approach we further show that the presence of a dendritic cable (i) attenuates the somatic subthreshold response to slowly-varying inputs and (ii) mediates spike rate resonance, or equivalently, pronounced spike to field coherence, in the beta and gamma frequency range due to an oscillatory weak electric field. Our point neuron model extension is simple to implement and well suited for studying the dynamics of populations with heterogeneous neuronal morphology and the effects of weak electric fields on population activity. ar X iv :1 60 3. 04 88 1v 1 [ qbi o. N C ] 1 5 M ar 2 01 6
Does a Daily Deal Promotion Signal a Distressed Business? An Empirical Investigation of Small Business Survival

In the last four years, daily deals have emerged from nowhere to become a multi-billion dollar industry world-wide. Daily deal sites such as Groupon and Livingsocial off er products and services at deep discounts to consumers via email and social networks. As the industry matures, there are many questions regarding the impact of daily deals on the market-place Important questions in this regard concern the reasons why businesses decide to o er daily deals and their longer-term impact on businesses. In the present paper, we investigate whether the unobserved factors that make marketers run daily deals are correlated with the unobserved factors that influence the business, In particular, we employ the framework of seemingly unrelated regression to model the correlation between the errors in predicting whether a business uses a daily deal and the errors in predicting the business' survival. Our analysis consists of the survival of 985 small businesses that off ered daily deals between January and July 2011 in the city of Chicago. Our results indicate that there is a statistically signifi cant correlation between the unobserved factors that influence the business' decision to o ffer a daily deal and the unobserved factors that impact its survival. Furthermore, our results indicate that the correlation coefficient is signifi cant in certain business categories (e.g. restaurants).
Fibroblast Growth Factor Homologous Factor 13 Regulates Na+ Channels and Conduction Velocity in Murine Hearts

Rationale: Fibroblast growth factor homologous factors (FHFs), a subfamily of fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) that are incapable of functioning as growth factors, are intracellular modulators of Na+ channels and have been linked to neurodegenerative diseases. Although certain FHFs have been found in embryonic heart, they have not been reported in adult heart, and they have not been shown to regulate endogenous cardiac Na+ channels or to participate in cardiac pathophysiology. Objective: We tested whether FHFs regulate Na+ channels in murine heart. Methods and Results: We demonstrated that isoforms of FGF13 are the predominant FHFs in adult mouse ventricular myocytes. FGF13 binds directly to, and colocalizes with, the NaV1.5 Na+ channel in the sarcolemma of adult mouse ventricular myocytes. Knockdown of FGF13 in adult mouse ventricular myocytes revealed a loss of function of NaV1.5-reduced Na+ current density, decreased Na+ channel availability, and slowed NaV1.5-reduced Na+ current recovery from inactivation. Cell surface biotinylation experiments showed ≈45% reduction in NaV1.5 protein at the sarcolemma after FGF13 knockdown, whereas no changes in whole-cell NaV1.5 protein or in mRNA level were observed. Optical imaging in neonatal rat ventricular myocyte monolayers demonstrated slowed conduction velocity and a reduced maximum capture rate after FGF13 knockdown. Conclusion: These findings show that FHFs are potent regulators of Na+ channels in adult ventricular myocytes and suggest that loss-of-function mutations in FHFs may underlie a similar set of cardiac arrhythmias and cardiomyopathies that result from NaV1.5 loss-of-function mutations.
Modelling the acquisition of verb polysemy in children

We use token-level clustering methods to simulate children’s acquisition of the senses of a polysemous verb. Using actual child-directed data, we show that simple syntactic features commonly used in distributional models are sufficient to reasonably distinguish verb senses. However, these features are inadequate to account for the order of acquisition of polysemy as observed in children, and we argue that future models will need to incorporate other types of information in order to better explain child behaviour.
The Poisson Channel at Low Input Powers

The asymptotic capacity at low input powers of an average-power limited or an average- and peak-power limited discrete-time Poisson channel is considered. For a Poisson channel whose dark current is zero or decays to zero linearly with its average input power $E$, capacity scales like $E\log\frac{1}{E}$ for small $E$. For a Poisson channel whose dark current is a nonzero constant, capacity scales, to within a constant, like $E\log\log\frac{1}{E}$ for small $E$.
Behavioural Biases in Investment Decisions:An Exploration of the Role of Gender

Classical finance theories are based on the assumption of rational decision making. However, it has been concluded by various researchers that in practical situations, humans are not fully rational. They are influenced by various behavioural factors and errors in judgment while making decisions. These behavioural factors, also termed as cognitive illusions, cannot be adequately explained by traditional finance theories. This research work sought to assess the impact of gender on certain identified behavioural factors (or biases) such as overconfidence bias, reference point bias, self-attribution bias, framing effect bias, overreaction bias, and regret avoidance bias in investment decision making of individual investors. A sample survey of 521 individual investors was conducted through a structured questionnaire in the National Capital Region of India. The results of detailed investigation of collected data revealed clearly that individuals' investment decisions are not fully rational. Investors were found to be prone towards behavioural biases tested in this study. However, mix evidence was found in the study about variation in the propensity to exhibit these behavioural biases between male and female investors. Gender effect was found to be statistically significant in case of overconfidence bias, self-attribution bias, and regret avoidance bias.
Cooperative works by a human and a humanoid robot

We have developed a humanoid robot HRP-2P with a biped locomotion controller, stereo vision software and aural human interface to realize cooperative works by a human and a humanoid robot. The robot can find a target object by the vision, and carry it cooperatively with a human by biped locomotion according to the voice commands by the human. A cooperative control is applied to the arms of the robot while it carries the object, and the walking direction of the robot is controlled by the interactive force and torque through the force/torque sensor on the wrists. The experimental results are presented in the paper.
Design and testing of a four rod crab cavity for HL-LHC

A 4-rod deflecting structure is proposed as a possible crab cavity design for the LHC high luminosity upgrade. Crab cavities are required for the LHC luminosity upgrade to provide a greater bunch overlap in the presence of a crossing angle, but must fit in the existing limited space. The structure has two parallel sections consisting of two longitudinally opposing quarter-wave rods, where each rod has the opposite charge from each of its nearest neighbors. The structure is transversely compact because the frequency is dependent on the rod lengths rather than the cavity radius. Simulations were undertaken to investigate the effect of rod shape on surface fields, higher order multipole terms and induced wakefields in order to obtain the optimal rod shape. The simulation results presented show that the addition of focus electrodes or by shaping the rods the sextupole contribution of the cavity voltage can be negated; the sextupole contribution is 321.57 mTm/m, Epeak=27.7 MV/m and Bpeak=63.9 mT at the design voltage of 3 MV. The damping requirements for the LHC are critical and suitable couplers to damp all modes but the operating mode are presented. The results of various testing cycles of the first SRF 4 rod prototype cavity are presented and show that the cavity has reached the required transverse voltage of 3 MV.
Hierarchical Structures for Dynamic Polygonal Simplification

This paper presents a novel technique for simplifying polygonal environments. Unlike previous multi-resolution methods, the technique operates dynamically, simplifying the scene on-the-fly as the user’s viewing position shifts, and adaptively, simplifying the entire database without first decomposing the environment into individual objects. Each frame the simplification process queries a spatial subdivision of the model to generate a scene containing only those polygons that are important from the current viewpoint. This spatial subdivision, an octree, classifies the polygons of a scene according to which regions of space the polygons intersect. When the volume of space associated with an octree node occupies less than a user-specified amount of the screen, all vertices within that node are collapsed together and degenerate polygons filtered out. An active list of visible polygons is maintained for rendering. Since frame-to-frame movements typically involve small changes in viewpoint, and therefore modify the active list by only a few polygons, the method can take advantage of temporal coherence for greater speed. The algorithm has been tried on a wide range of models. The current implementation increases rendering performance two to four times with only slight degradation of image quality, or ten to seventeen times with more drastic degradation. On larger, more complex models the algorithm should perform even better. This is a promising sign since models of every category are growing in size and complexity, continuously outpacing the ability of graphics hardware to render them.
Towards real biometrics : An overview of fingerprint liveness detection

This paper presents an overview of liveness detection particularly based on fingerprint images. Since fingerprints start to be widely employed in the mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets for payment as well as security, high-performed algorithms have been explored in literature. At the same time, such mobile systems are highly required to detect spoofing attacks by fabricated fingerprints with malicious intends. To this end, many researchers have developed liveness detection methods based on local image descriptors. In this paper, we briefly review those descriptors used for fingerprint liveness detection and compare the detection performance based on representative datasets, i.e., ATVS, LivDet2009, and LivDet2011. From experimental results, we can conclude that textural patterns of a local region in the fingerprint image have a good ability to discriminate fake fingerprints from live ones.
Back to school in later life: Older Chinese adults’ perspectives on learning participation barriers

ABSTRACT Background and aim: Even though the beneficial effects of elderly learning are widely acknowledged, many older Chinese people are still not involved. This paper aims to examine the barriers that affect the level of educational participation of older adults in China. Methodology: Using a focus group methodology, 43 older participants (aged 55 years and over) were assigned to five focus groups based on gender and (in)activity rate in Xi’an, China. The focus groups were conducted to identify the individual learning experiences including motivation, learning preferences, and, especially, participation barriers between older adults who have already participated in the Universities of the Third Age (U3As) and others who have not. Strategies to overcome or minimize these barriers were also raised in focus group interviews. Results: The results have demonstrated that barriers associated with situational factors were reported the most; informational barriers and dispositional barriers were perceived as the least obstructive. The active group was characterized by a more optimistic mood in dealing with these learning barriers. The study also suggests that the Selective Optimisation with Compensation Model of successful ageing can be useful in explaining older adults’ strategy for coping with the barriers. Conclusion: The findings of the study provide policy makers and U3A practitioners an insight into the barriers to educational participation. These findings provide input to develop targeted intervention strategies and tailor-made measures to reduce these constraints and increase participation.
Strategies for storage of checkpointing data using non-dedicated repositories on Grid systems

Dealing with the large amounts of data generated by long-running parallel applications is one of the most challenging aspects of Grid Computing. Periodic checkpoints might be taken to guarantee application progression, producing even more data. The classical approach is to employ high-throughput checkpoint servers connected to the computational nodes by high speed networks. In the case of Opportunistic Grid Computing, we do not want to be forced to rely on such dedicated hardware. Instead, we want to use the shared Grid nodes to store application data in a distributed fashion.In this work, we evaluate several strategies to store checkpoints on distributed non-dedicated repositories. We consider the tradeoff among computational overhead, storage overhead, and degree of fault-tolerance of these strategies. We compare the use of replication, parity information, and information dispersal (IDA). We used InteGrade, an object-oriented Grid middleware, to implement the storage strategies and perform evaluation experiments.
Modeling TCP Throughput in IEEE 802.11 Based Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Recent studies have shown that one reason for poor TCP throughput in wireless ad hoc networks is the inefficient interaction between TCP and CSMA based MAC protocols. In this paper, we demonstrate that the congestion window variation of TCP can be modeled as a Markov chain under maximum window limit, and the average TCP throughput is the expectation of throughput on different congestion windows. The state transition probabilities are related to the packet dropping probabilities on different windows. Then we derive the end-to-end throughput and packet dropping probability on a specific congestion window by analyzing the packet loss probability over each hop and the round trip time. The model is validated via simulation and the analytical throughput of our model is consistent with that from simulation accurately. Another important result is that, under the maximum window limit, TCP-Newreno and TCP-Vegas obtain similar throughput.
HIV/AIDS, Food Supplementation and Livelihood Programs in Uganda: A Way Forward?

Background Over the last decade, health, nutrition and policy experts have become increasingly aware of the many ways in which food insecurity and HIV infection negatively impact and reinforce one another. In response, many organizations providing HIV care began supplying food aid to clients in need. Food supplementation, however, was quickly recognized as an unsustainable and incomplete intervention. Many HIV care organizations therefore developed integrated HIV and livelihood programs (IHLPs) to target the root causes of food insecurity. Methods and Findings We conducted a qualitative study using in-depth interviews with 21 key informants who worked at seven organizations providing HIV care, food aid, or IHLPs in Kampala, Uganda in 2007-2008 to better understand the impact of IHLPs on the well-being of people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHAs) and the challenges in transitioning clients from food aid to IHLPs. There was strong consensus among those interviewed that IHLPs are an important intervention in addressing food insecurity and its adverse health consequences among PLWHAs. Key informants identified three main challenges in transitioning PLWHAs from food supplementation programs to IHLPs: (1) lack of resources (2) timing of the transition and (3) logistical considerations including geography and weather. Factors seen as contributing to the success of programs included: (1) close involvement of community leaders (2) close ties with local and national government (3) diversification of IHLP activities and (4) close integration with food supplementation programs, all linked through a central program of HIV care. Conclusion Health, policy and development experts should continue to strengthen IHLPs for participants in need. Further research is needed to determine when and how participants should be transitioned from food supplementation to IHLPs, and to determine how to better correlate measures of food insecurity with objective clinical outcomes so as to better evaluate program results.
On-line task scheduling for dual-core real-time embedded systems

On-line task scheduling is a very challenging issue for dual-core real-time embedded systems, because to control priority inversion and to manage system utilization are fundamentally at odds with each other. We propose an on-line dual-core scheduling framework for dynamic workloads with real-time constraints. The processor and the co-processor are dedicated to separate schedulers with different scheduling policies, and precedence constraints among tasks are dealt with the interaction between the two schedulers. We have shown that our proposed scheduling can achieve a good balance between high system utilization and stable task response under realistic workloads.
The Korean version of the FRAIL scale: clinical feasibility and validity of assessing the frailty status of Korean elderly

Background/Aims: The fatigue, resistance, ambulation, illnesses, and loss of weight (FRAIL) scale is a screening tool for frailty status using a simple 5-item questionnaire. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical feasibility and validity of the Korean version of the FRAIL (K-FRAIL) scale. Methods: Questionnaire items were translated and administered to 103 patients aged ≥ 65 years who underwent a comprehensive geriatric assessment at the Seoul National University Bundang Hospital. In this cross-sectional study, the K-FRAIL scale was compared with the domains and the multidimensional frailty index of the comprehensive geriatric assessment. We also assessed the time required to complete the scale. Results: The participants’ mean age was 76.8 years (standard deviation [SD], 6.1), and 55 (53.4%) were males. The mean overall frailty index was 0.19 (SD, 0.17). For K-FRAIL-robust, prefrail, and frail patients, the mean frailty indices were 0.09, 0.18, and 0.34, respectively (p for trend < 0.001). A higher degree of impairment in the K-FRAIL scale was associated with worse nutritional status, poor physical performance, functional dependence, and polypharmacy. The number of items with impairment in the K-FRAIL scale was positively associated with the frailty index (B = 3.73, p < 0.001). The K-FRAIL scale could differentiate vulnerability from robustness with a sensitivity of 0.90 and a specificity of 0.33. Of all patients, 75 (72.8%) completed the K-FRAIL scale within < 3 minutes. Conclusions: The K-FRAIL scale is correlated with the frailty index and is a simple tool to screen for frailty in a clinical setting.