Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Improved decoding methods to reduce reaction time in brain - machine interface systems

2007; Lebedev et al., 2006; Mussa-Ivaldi et al., 2003, Nicolelis et al., 2009, Schwartz et al., 2006). Development of BMI systems In recent years, there has been much development in the quality of recordings extracted from neuronal ensembles with the aim of creating improved BMIs to drive neuroprosthetics. Initially, single-electrode implants in the brain showed promise for providing the source of signals to drive arti! cial devices in restoration of mobility after paralysis (Schmidt et al., 1980). Advancing on this technique, the development of the novel electrophysiological model of multi-electrode recordings, such as the Utah Intracortical Electrode Array (UIEA) emerged (Maynard, et al., 1996). "e UIEA demonstrated the ability of neuronal populations to perform control tasks and showed that the number of neurons present in a recording is signi! cant, as recordings from small populations of neurons rather than single units are more reliable for brain-computer interface application. "e introduction of this e#ective model was almost simultaneous with the development of BMIs (Schmidt, 1980). Chronic implants containing multielectrode arrays in multiple cortical areas of the rhesus monkeys brain are now able to record extracellular electrical activity of hundreds of neurons (Carmena, et al., 2003; Fitzsimmons et al., 2009; Lebedev et al., 2005; Nicolelis et al., 2003; Lebedev & Nicolelis, 2011). With these novel electrophysiological techniques executing simultaneous Introduction Sensorimotor defects resulting from neurologic injuries, diseases, or limb loss a#ect millions of people worldwide. In the United States alone, ! ve million people are currently a$icted with some form of paralysis according to data from Medical News Today (Paddock, 2009). Such paralyzing disorders substantially limit independence, mobility, and communication. Despite severe motor de! cits due to damage to the spinal cord, nerves, or muscles, many patients retain fully intact cortical and subcortical motor networks that are capable of motor processing (Mattia et al., 2009). "ese areas can adapt to new controls due to innate brain plasticity (Hosp & Luft, 2003; Winstein et al., 2003). To bypass the site of neural lesion, activity from healthy motor regions such as M1 or S1 can be connected to a neural prosthetic through an interface, called a brainmachine interface (BMI) (Lebedev & Nicolelis, 2006). "us, arti! cial actuators such as an exoskeleton or arti! cial limbutilizing neurophysiological signals from undamaged components of the central nervous system allow for direct interaction between the brain and the outside world (Andersen, et al., 2004; Jackson et al., 2004; Lebedev et al., 2006). Many research groups are currently pursuing this goal with the hope that BMIs with increasingly sophisticated technologies and decoding strategies will serve to augment partial and full body mobility in paralyzed patients (Andersen, et al., 2004; Birbaumer et al., 2007; Fetz, Improved decoding methods to reduce
Blind Source Separation of fMRI Signals Using Joint Diagonalization Algorithm

Blind Source Separation (BSS) is a model free source separation technique which decomposes observed mixture data into mixing matrix and source matrix both of which are unknown beforehand. One well known BSS algorithm is joint diagonalization which is from the algebraic class and in which mixing structures are recovered by jointly diagonalizing the source condition matrix. In this study we first review the existing joint diagonalizing algorithm and then propose a modified high order and exponential gradient of the algorithm. The proposed algorithm is tested on simulated images and synthetic fMRI signals. Quality and execution time of the extracted sources and time courses is compared with conventional JD algorithm.
Partial-Volume Effect in PET Tumor Imaging*

PET has the invaluable advantage of being intrinsically quantitative, enabling accurate measurements of tracer concentrations in vivo. In PET tumor imaging, indices characterizing tumor uptake, such as standardized uptake values, are becoming increasingly important, especially in the context of monitoring the response to therapy. However, when tracer uptake in small tumors is measured, large biases can be introduced by the partial-volume effect (PVE). The purposes of this article are to explain what PVE is and to describe its consequences in PET tumor imaging. The parameters on which PVE depends are reviewed. Actions that can be taken to reduce the errors attributable to PVE are described. Various PVE correction schemes are presented, and their applicability to PET tumor imaging is discussed.
Practical Measures and Test for Credibility of an Estimator

Most estimators and filters provide assessments of their own estimation errors. Are these self-assessments trustable? What is the degree to which they are trustable? This paper provides practical answers to such questions, referred to as the (level of) credibility of the estimators/filters. It formulates the concept of credibility, proposes several practical measures of credibility, and discusses a credibility test. A special effort is made to explain the underlying rationales as clearly as possible. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the pros and cons of the measures and test.
Design and Implementation of a Quadrifilar Helix Antenna Operating at 0.94GHz

A quadrifilar helix antenna (QHA) operating at 0.94GHz is designed and realized in this paper. The designed QHA consists of four helical conductors which are excited in phase quadrature by employing a Wilkinson divider which shows good performance in return loss and transmission characteristic. According to the designed parameters of the helices and Wilkinson divider, a QHA is fabricated and measured. The measured results demonstrate that the designed QHA has a resonant frequency of 0.94GHz and relative good performances including low voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR), broad beam width and approximate circular polarization are achieved. The designed QHA has simple structure and is suitable for practical application.
Assessing End-Of-Supply Risk of Spare Parts Using the Proportional Hazard Model

Operators of long field-life systems like airplanes are faced with hazards in the supply of spare parts. If the original manufacturers or suppliers of parts end their supply, this may have large impacts on operating costs of firms needing these parts. Existing end-of-supply evaluation methods are focused mostly on the downstream supply chain, which is of interest mainly to spare part manufacturers. Firms that purchase spare parts have limited information on parts sales, and indicators of end-of-supply risk can also be found in the upstream supply chain. This article proposes a methodology for firms purchasing spare parts to manage end-of-supply risk by utilizing proportional hazard models in terms of supply chain conditions of the parts. The considered risk indicators fall into four main categories, of which two are related to supply (price and lead time) and two others are related to demand (cycle time and throughput). The methodology is demonstrated using data on about 2,000 spare parts collected from a maintenance repair organization in the aviation industry. Cross-validation results and out-of-sample risk assessments show good performance of the method to identify spare parts with high end-of-supply risk. Further validation is provided by survey results obtained from the maintenance repair organization, which show strong agreement between the firm's and the model's identification of high-risk spare parts.
Corneal endothelial integrity in aging mice lacking superoxide dismutase-1 and/or superoxide dismutase-3

Purpose To evaluate the age-induced changes in corneal endothelial morphology in mice lacking the cytosolic copper-zinc superoxide dismutase (SOD-1), the interstitial extracellular superoxide dismutase (SOD-3), or both of these SOD isoenzymes. Methods The central corneal endothelial morphologies of old C57BL-6J wild type (n=19), SOD-1 null (n=16), SOD-3 null (n=15), and SOD1/3 null (n=11) mice were evaluated using alizarin red staining and light microscope photographs. For comparison, young endothelia from the same genotypes were evaluated similarly. The levels of corneal reactive oxygen species and nitrogen species in all four genotypes were quantified using fluorimetry with 2',7'-dichlorodihydrofluorescein diacetate and OxyBURST. Results In accordance with our previous findings, the mean corneal endothelial cell area was larger in the SOD-3 null genotype than in the wild type mice. The SOD-1/3 null genotype had similar cell sizes as the SOD-3 null mice but had a more irregular morphology at an older age. Apparently, these irregularities develop with time as they are not seen in young animals. The SOD-1 null mice did not differ from the wild type mice in corneal endothelial morphology. Elevated levels of reactive oxygen species were seen in SOD-1 null and SOD-3 null corneas, and elevated superoxide levels were seen in all three knockout genotypes. Conclusions The increased spontaneous age-related enlargement of corneal endothelial cells seen in the absence of SOD-3 is associated with a more irregular cell pattern when combined with a lack of SOD-1. This indicates more cellular movements and ongoing repair in the SOD-1/3 null genotype and possibly a more vulnerable corneal endothelium. SOD-3 and SOD-1 appear to have functions in preserving corneal endothelial integrity in aging.
Disturbance of Social Hierarchy by an Invasive Species: A Gene Transcription Study

Background Ecological and evolutionary changes in native populations facing invasion by exotic species are increasingly reported. Recently, it has been shown that competition with exotic rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) disrupts dominance hierarchies within groups of native Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). The genetic and molecular actors underlying phenotypic plasticity are poorly understood. Methodology Here, we aimed at identifying the genetic and molecular actors contributing to this plastic loss of dominance hierarchies as well as at identifying genes implicated in behaviours related to social dominance. By using microarrays, we compared the genome-wide gene transcription profiles in brains of dominant versus subordinate juvenile Atlantic salmon in presence or absence of a competitive rainbow trout. Principal Findings Adding the trout competitor resulted in dominant and subordinate salmon being more similar, both behaviourally and at the level of brain gene transcription patterns. Genes for which transcription levels differed between dominant and subordinate salmon in the absence of exotic trout were mainly over-expressed in dominant salmon and included genes implicated in protein turnover, neuronal structural change and oxygen transport. Conclusions/Significance Our study provides one of the few examples demonstrating a close interplay between behavioural plasticity and gene transcription, therefore contributing to the understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying these processes in an ecologically relevant context.
Inter-Document Similarity in Web Searches

Existing Web search services fail in helping users with information needs that are broad, vague, or hard to express through a set of keywords. This dissertation investigates the use of retrieval techniques based on inter-document similarity, either measured through the textual contents or the linkage between documents. Unlike traditional retrieval approaches, which match documents against keywords and produce one-dimensional ranked lists of results, techniques based on inter-document similarity offer better support for results visualization, as well as alternative ways of expressing information needs. A Portuguese Web search engine has been extended with two inter-document similarity algorithms: result set clustering and related pages. The system was evaluated in a user survey, which has shown that both algorithms are well accepted. KEY-WORDS: Web Information Retrieval, Clustering, Similarity Search, WebMining.
Direct Minutiae Matching in Gray-Level Fingerprint Images

Most researchers applied the same procedure in both fingerprint enrollment and fingerprint verification. In general, many overall pixel-level computations are employed in the procedure of fingerprint enrollment to obtain clear minutiae. Because the minutiae-matching is performed only once for one-to-one verification, we propose a different procedure to directly check the positions of minutiae in gray-level fingerprint images. Therefore, this approach avoids some time-consuming overall pixel-level computations and achieves a fast minutiae matching
Consideration of the bioavailability of iron in the North American Great Lakes: Development of novel approaches toward understanding iron biogeochemistry

There is increasing recognition that iron distribution and availability is significant in terms of global oceanic production. Low availability of iron and other nutritive trace metals may also constrain productivity in the North American Great Lakes. Despite its importance, the biogeochemistry of iron in the water column of lacustrine systems remains poorly characterized. In addressing the current state of iron biogeochemistry, a workshop organized a decade ago at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research brought together a cross-disciplinary team of chemists and biologists who sought to synthesize current knowledge and identify research priorities in this field. Key among goals identified during the workshop, and one that remains today for the most part unfulfilled, was to ‘develop techniques to quantify those fractions of Fe that are accessible to phytoplankton. ’ Here we review recent progress toward meeting this objective, drawing on specific examples from Lake Superior where these approaches have been applied.
Comparison of McGrath Series 3 and Macintosh Laryngoscopes for Tracheal Intubation in Patients With Normal Airway by Inexperienced Anesthetists

AbstractDifficult and failed intubations account for the major causes of morbidity and mortality in current anesthetic practice. Several devices including McGrath Series 3 videolaryngoscope are available which may facilitate tracheal intubation by improving view of the larynx compared with Macintosh blade laryngoscopy. But no studies demonstrate whether McGrath Series 3 performs better than Macintosh laryngoscope in normal airway intubations by inexperienced anesthetists so far. We therefore designed this randomized controlled study to compare McGrath with Macintosh in routine tracheal intubation performed by inexperienced anesthetists.In total, 180 adult patients with normal-appearing airways requiring orotracheal intubation for elective surgery were randomly allocated to be intubated by 9 inexperienced anesthetists with McGrath or Macintosh. The primary outcome was time to intubation. Ease of intubation was assessed by a 5-point ordinal scale. Intubation attempts/failures, best laryngoscopy view using the Cormack–Lehane grade, associated complications and hemodynamic changes during intubation were recorded.We found that there was no significant difference between McGrath and Macintosh in the median time to intubation (P = 0.46); the Cormack–Lehane views attained using McGrath were superior (P < 0.001); the difference of ease of intubation was statistically significant (P = 0.01). No serious trauma occurred in both groups. And there was statistically significant difference in the systolic blood pressure changes between 2 groups (P < 0.05). We demonstrated that in orotracheal intubation in patients with normal airway by inexperienced anesthetists, McGrath compared with the Macintosh allows superior glottis views, greater ease of intubation, less complications, and hemodynamic changes with noninferior intubation time. And it remained a potential selection for inexperienced anesthetists in uncomplicated intubation.
Efficient Object Detection Robust to RST with Minimal Set of Examples

In this paper, we present an object detection approach based on a similarity measure combining crosscorrelation and affine deformation. Current object detection systems provide good results, at the expense of requiring a large training database. The use of correlation anables object detection with very small training set but is not robust to the luminosity change and RST (Rotation, Scale, translation) transformation. This paper presents a detection system that first searches the likely positions and scales of the object using image preprocessing and cross-correlation method and secondly, uses a similarity measure based on affine deformation to confirm or not the predetection. We apply our system to face detection and show the improvement in results due to the images preprocessing and the affine deformation.
A Two-Step Mutual Authentication Protocol Based on Randomized Hash-Lock for Small RFID Networks

RFID has been widely used in today's commercial and supply chain industry, due to the significant advantages it offers and the relatively low production cost. However, this ubiquitous technology has inherent problems in security and privacy. This calls for the development of simple, efficient and cost effective mechanisms against a variety of security threats. This paper proposes a two-step authentication protocol based on the randomized hash-lock scheme proposed by S. Weis in 2003. By introducing additional measures during the authentication process, this new protocol proves to enhance the security of RFID significantly, and protects the passive tags from almost all major attacks, including tag cloning, replay, full-disclosure, tracking, and eavesdropping. Furthermore, no significant changes to the tags is required to implement this protocol, and the low complexity level of the randomized hash-lock algorithm is retained.
The Formaldehyde Masers in NGC 7538 and G29.96-0.02: VLBA, MERLIN, and VLA Observations

The 6 cm form aldehyde (H 2 CO ) m aser sources in the com pact H II regions N G C 7538-IRS1 and G 29.96-0.02 have been im aged at high resolution ( (cid:18) beam < 50 m as). U sing the V LBA and M ERLIN ,we (cid:12)nd the angular sizes ofthe N G C 7538 m asers to be (cid:24) 10 m as (30 AU ) corresponding to brightness tem peratures (cid:24) 10 8 K . TheangularsizesoftheG 29.96-0.02 m asersare (cid:24) 20 m as (130 AU )corresponding to brightnesstem peratures (cid:24) 10 7 K . U sing theV LA ,we detect2 cm form aldehydeabsorption from them aserregions.W
Evolution of the most common English words and phrases over the centuries

By determining the most common English words and phrases since the beginning of the sixteenth century, we obtain a unique large-scale view of the evolution of written text. We find that the most common words and phrases in any given year had a much shorter popularity lifespan in the sixteenth century than they had in the twentieth century. By measuring how their usage propagated across the years, we show that for the past two centuries, the process has been governed by linear preferential attachment. Along with the steady growth of the English lexicon, this provides an empirical explanation for the ubiquity of Zipf's law in language statistics and confirms that writing, although undoubtedly an expression of art and skill, is not immune to the same influences of self-organization that are known to regulate processes as diverse as the making of new friends and World Wide Web growth.
A Decomposition Theorem for Maximum Weight Bipartite Matchings

Let G be a bipartite graph with positive integer weights on the edges and without isolated nodes. Let n, N, and W be the node count, the largest edge weight, and the total weight of G. Let k(x, y) be log x / log (x2/y). We present a new decomposition theorem for maximum weight bipartite matchings and use it to design an $O(\sqrt{n}W / k(n, W/N))$-time algorithm for computing a maximum weight matching of G. This algorithm bridges a long-standing gap between the best known time complexity of computing a maximum weight matching and that of computing a maximum cardinality matching. Given G and a maximum weight matching of G, we can further compute the weight of a maximum weight matching of G - {u} for all nodes u in O(W) time.
Improving Corporate Governance in Soes: An Integrated Approach

Poor corporate governance lies at the heart of the poor performance of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) throughout the world. In many countries, previous SOE reform efforts failed to deliver sustained improvements in performance because they did not fully address the core governance deficiencies of public enterprises - multiple and conflicting objectives, excessive political interference, and opacity. This article, drawing upon the author's research and work with SOEs in a number of jurisdictions, explores how an integrated approach encompassing clear directions, political insulation, and transparency can improve the corporate governance of SOEs and clear the path to a higher level of performance.
Transforming growth factor-beta 1 in the rat brain: increase after injury and inhibition of astrocyte proliferation

Transforming growth factor-beta 1 (TGF-beta 1) has been shown to up- regulate the synthesis of nerve growth factor (NGF) in cultured rat astrocytes and in neonatal brain in vivo (Lindholm, D., B. Hengerer, F. Zafra, and H. Thoenen. 1990. NeuroReport. 1:9-12). Here we show that mRNA encoding TGF-beta 1 increased in rat cerebral cortex after a penetrating brain injury. The level of NGF mRNA is also transiently increased after the brain trauma, whereas that of brain-derived neurotrophic factor remained unchanged. In situ hybridization experiments showed a strong expression of TGF-beta 1 4 d after the lesion in cells within and in the vicinity of the wound. Staining of adjacent sections with OX-42 antibodies, specific for macrophages and microglia/brain macrophages, revealed a similar pattern of positive cells, suggesting that invading macrophages, and perhaps reactive microglia, are the source of TGF-beta 1 in injured brain. Both astrocytes and microglia express TGF-beta 1 in culture, and TGF-beta 1 mRNA levels in astrocytes are increased by various growth factors, including FGF, EGF, and TGF-beta itself. TGF-beta 1 is a strong inhibitor of astrocyte proliferation and suppresses the mitotic effects of FGF and EGF on astrocytes. The present results indicate that TGF- beta 1 expressed in the lesioned brain plays a role in nerve regeneration by stimulating NGF production and by controlling the extent of astrocyte proliferation and scar formation.
Positive self-image over time

This paper incorporates egocentric comparisons into a human capital accumulation model and studies the evolution of positive self image over time. The paper shows that the process of human capital accumulation together with egocentric comparisons imply that positive self image of a cohort is first increasing and then decreasing over time. Additionally, the paper finds that positive self image: (1) peaks earlier in activities where skill depreciation is higher, (2) is smaller in activities where the distribution of income is more dispersed, (3) is not a stable characteristic of an individual, and (4) is higher for more patient individuals.