Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Cycling of Acetyl-Coenzyme A Through Acetylcarnitine Buffers Cardiac Substrate Supply: A Hyperpolarized 13C Magnetic Resonance Study

Background— Carnitine acetyltransferase catalyzes the reversible conversion of acetyl-coenzyme A (CoA) into acetylcarnitine. The aim of this study was to use the metabolic tracer hyperpolarized [2-13C]pyruvate with magnetic resonance spectroscopy to determine whether carnitine acetyltransferase facilitates carbohydrate oxidation in the heart. Methods and Results— Ex vivo, following hyperpolarized [2-13C]pyruvate infusion, the [1-13C]acetylcarnitine resonance was saturated with a radiofrequency pulse, and the effect of this saturation on [1-13C]citrate and [5-13C]glutamate was observed. In vivo, [2-13C]pyruvate was infused into 3 groups of fed male Wistar rats: (1) controls, (2) rats in which dichloroacetate enhanced pyruvate dehydrogenase flux, and (3) rats in which dobutamine elevated cardiac workload. In the perfused heart, [1-13C]acetylcarnitine saturation reduced the [1-13C]citrate and [5-13C]glutamate resonances by 63% and 51%, respectively, indicating a rapid exchange between pyruvate-derived acetyl-CoA and the acetylcarnitine pool. In vivo, dichloroacetate increased the rate of [1-13C]acetylcarnitine production by 35% and increased the overall acetylcarnitine pool size by 33%. Dobutamine decreased the rate of [1-13C]acetylcarnitine production by 37% and decreased the acetylcarnitine pool size by 40%. Conclusions— Hyperpolarized 13C magnetic resonance spectroscopy has revealed that acetylcarnitine provides a route of disposal for excess acetyl-CoA and a means to replenish acetyl-CoA when cardiac workload is increased. Cycling of acetyl-CoA through acetylcarnitine appears key to matching instantaneous acetyl-CoA supply with metabolic demand, thereby helping to balance myocardial substrate supply and contractile function.
Cultural Indicators and Global Freedom of the Press

Abstract This study sought to determine if cultural variables might explain differences in press freedom across nations. The results confirmed that two of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions – power distance and individualism – explained a significant amount of variance in press freedom rankings produced by Freedom House and Reporters Without Borders. For example, the two factors combined to explain 48% of the variance in Reporters Without Borders rankings and accounted for 42% of the variance in Freedom House’s civil liberties scores. The results suggest that those who seek to promote freedom of the press around the world would be wise to pay more attention to cultural factors that may stand in the way of change.
On Maximizing Quality of Information for the Internet of Things: A Real-Time Scheduling Perspective (Invited Paper)

The paper considers the challenge of maximizing the quality of information collected to meet decision needs of real-time Internet-of-Things applications. A novel scheduling model is proposed, where applications need multiple data items to make decisions, and where individual data items can be captured at different levels of quality. We assume the existence of a single bottleneck over which data objects are collected and schedule the transmission of these objects over the bottleneck to meet decision deadlines and data validity constraints, while maximizing quality. A family of heuristic algorithms is presented to solve this problem. Their performance is empirically compared leading to insights into the solution space.
Designing, developing, and deploying systems to support human–robot teams in disaster response

This paper describes our experience in designing, developing and deploying systems for supporting human–robot teams during disaster response. It is based on R&D performed in the EU-funded project NIFTi. NIFTi aimed at building intelligent, collaborative robots that could work together with humans in exploring a disaster site, to make a situational assessment. To achieve this aim, NIFTi addressed key scientific design aspects in building up situation awareness in a human–robot team, developing systems using a user-centric methodology involving end users throughout the entire R&D cycle, and regularly deploying implemented systems under real-life circumstances for experimentation and testing. This has yielded substantial scientific advances in the state-of-the-art in robot mapping, robot autonomy for operating in harsh terrain, collaborative planning, and human–robot interaction. NIFTi deployed its system in actual disaster response activities in Northern Italy, in July 2012, aiding in structure damage assessment. Graphical Abstract
Changes in cultural representations on Indonesian children's television from the 1980s to the 2000s

ABSTRACT This study describes the changes over time in the portrayal of socio-cultural characteristics; namely gender, age, ethnicity, religious outlook, family unit, violence experienced, living conditions, and cultural values in Indonesian children's television programs. Using systematic-quantitative content analysis of popular locally produced Indonesian children's television programs in the 1980s and the 2000s, this study found that all socio-cultural characteristics changed over time, except for gender representation with male actors consistently outnumbering female actors. There were some predominant socio-cultural characteristics in the 1980s, the era of authoritarian broadcasting system in Indonesia: most of the major characters were children and preteens, from Western Indonesia, not showing religious symbols or practices, having more than one sibling, and the majority of the adult characters were married. In the 2000s, the era of liberal broadcasting system, major characters were children and teens, showing certain religious symbols, having no or only one sibling, and the majority of the adult characters were single. Indonesian children's television brought certain cultural values to the fore for their young audiences to identify themselves with: self-direction and benevolence.
Metabolomic Analysis of Mice Exposed to Gamma Radiation Reveals a Systemic Understanding of Total-Body Exposure

Diagnostic markers are needed for accidental or deliberate radiation exposure that could cause acute and chronic radiation toxicity. Biomarkers of temporal, dose-dependent, aging-attenuated and multiple radiation exposures have been previously described by others. However, the physiological origin and biochemical networks that generate these biomarkers and their association at the molecular level have yet to be explored. Hence, the discovery and identification of total-body-irradiation-induced tissue specific biomarkers remains an enormous challenge within radiation biodosimetry research. To determine the tissue level response of total-body exposure (6 Gy), metabolomics analysis was carried out on radiosensitive tissues bone marrow, ileum, liver, muscle and lung as well as serum and on urine within 12 h postirradiation. Differences in the metabolic signatures between the sham and gamma-irradiated groups were analyzed by hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC)-based ultra-performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-ESI-QTOFMS). A panel of 67 biomarkers identified in radiosensitive tissues and biofluids (serum and urine) at a 6 Gy dose. Among the identified biomarkers, 3-methylglutarylcarnitine (3-MGC) was found to be a novel metabolite in liver, serum and urine that could potentially be an early radiation response marker. The degree of metabolic changes among different tissues showed perturbations in pathways including DNA methylation, energy, nucleic acid, amino acid, glutathione and bile acid metabolism. These results highlight metabolomics as a potential novel approach to understand functional alterations in the metabolome that could be adapted for use in the rapid assessment of radiation exposure and triage protocols in the case of nuclear incidents.
General theory of space vector modulation for five-phase inverters

Multiphase motor drives are a very promising technology, especially for medium and high power ranges. As known, a multiphase motor drive cannot be analyzed using the space vector representation in a single d-q plane, but it is necessary to introduce multiple d-q planes. So far a general space vector modulation for multiphase inverters is not available due to the inherent difficulty of synthesizing more than one independent space vector simultaneously in different d-q planes. In this paper the problem of the space vector modulation of five-phase inverters is completely solved extending the theory of space vector modulation used for traditional three-phase voltage source inverters and introducing the concept of reciprocal vector. This approach leads to the definition of a very flexible modulation strategy that allows the full exploitation of the dc input voltage and the simultaneous modulation of voltage space vectors in different d-q planes. The validity of the proposed modulation theory is confirmed by experimental tests.
An Oscillatory Neural Model of Multiple Object Tracking

An oscillatory neural network model of multiple object tracking is described. The model works with a set of identical visual objects moving around the screen. At the initial stage, the model selects into the focus of attention a subset of objects initially marked as targets. Other objects are used as distractors. The model aims to preserve the initial separation between targets and distractors while objects are moving. This is achieved by a proper interplay of synchronizing and desynchronizing interactions in a multilayer network, where each layer is responsible for tracking a single target. The results of the model simulation are presented and compared with experimental data. In agreement with experimental evidence, simulations with a larger number of targets have shown higher error rates. Also, the functioning of the model in the case of temporarily overlapping objects is presented.
A Novel Approach to Hardware Architecture Design and Advanced Optimization Techniques for Time Critical Applications

Ubiquitous and pervasive computing systems are characterized by intelligent sensing and computing. These systems seamlessly understand and respond to the environment with little human intervention. Since such systems are required to be small and inobtrusive, embedded systems play an important role in their design. Furthermore, these systems need to run sophisticated applications in a resource constrained environment. In this paper we focus on computer vision applications in such systems. As these applications require larger memory and are computationally intensive, optimization of these algorithms is imperative. This paper discusses some optimization techniques and their impact on execution time in a complex real-world face tracking example. In certain scenarios, the requirement may be to suggest a hardware architecture for achieving a specific response time. This is especially important for mission critical applications in the fields of automotive, medical or defence. However, the estimation of hardware architecture parameters such as core-clock frequency, memory requirement, optimal number of parallel execution paths for a given application is not straight forward. In this paper, we also present a structured approach to determine the hardware architecture for a driver assistance and safety application with stringent performance constraints.
Rapid Resetting of the Aortic Baroreceptors in the Rabbit and Its Implications for Short‐Term and Longer Term Reflex Control

We studied the effects of sustained changes in resting mean arterial pressures (MAP) on arterial baroreceptor properties in anesthetized rabbits and on the baroreceptor-heart rate reflex in conscious animals. The rabbits had balloons implanted round their aorta and vena cava, for producing transient changes in MAP about the resting MAP. Aortic baroreceptor function curves were obtained at different resting MAP by relating balloon-induced changes in MAP to either (1) integrated aortic nerve activity or (2) unit baroreceptor activity. Any sustained change in resting MAP reset the unit function curves in the same direction within 15 minutes by altering their threshold without affecting gain. The effect was reversible and independent of starting pressure. It was the same whether resting MAP was altered by vasoactive drugs (nitroprusside, phenylephrine) or was changed by withdrawing or infusing blood in sympathetically blocked rabbits. We studied baroreflex function in conscious rabbits by deriving MAP-heart period (HP) curves at different resting MAP. Nitroprusside lowered baroreflex threshold for evoking bradycardia, whereas phenylephrine increased threshold. From our analysis, the resting MAP-mediated changes in receptor threshold accounted for the reflex threshold changes. Altered baroreceptor properties did not account for changes in baroreflex HP range produced by both drugs, and in reflex gain; these were probably due to afferent interactions in the CNS. Because of rapid arterial baroreceptor resetting, transient changes (of about 30 seconds or less) in MAP of moderate magnitude evoked normal reflex heart rate responses at each resting MAP. After changes in resting MAP sustained for 15 minutes or longer, reflex changes in resting heart rate were considerably smaller than in the absence of resetting. Therefore the arterial baroreceptors provide the baroreflex with a “floating” rather than a fixed set point, determined by the prevailing MAP.
Mass Spectrometry-based Proteomic Studies of Human Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma*

Malignant lymphomas are a diverse group of malignant neoplasms that arise as a result of a complex interplay of multiple factors including genetic aberrations, immunosuppression, and exposure to noxious agents such as ionizing radiation and chemical agents. Anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) is an aggressive T-lineage lymphoma harboring chromosomal translocations involving the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) tyrosine kinase. The most common translocation in ALCL is the t(2;5)(p23;q35). This results in the formation of a chimeric fusion kinase, nucleophosmin/ALK. Nucleophosmin/ALK activates numerous downstream signaling pathways resulting in enhanced survival and proliferation. Using a variety of mass spectrometry-driven proteomic strategies, we have studied several aspects of the ALCL proteome. In this review, we provide a summary of mass spectrometry-based proteomic studies that expands the current understanding of the molecular pathogenesis of ALCL and provides the basis for the identification of biomarkers and targets for novel therapeutic agents.
A completely integrated 1.9 GHz receiver front-end with monolithic image reject filter and VCO

A 19 GHz monolithic superheterodyne receiver front-end with 300 MHz IF, on-chip tunable image reject filter and VCO is presented. The receiver was fabricated on a 0.5 um bipolar process. The 2.2 GHz VCO was realized with ground-shielded inductors. The performance is as follows: conversion gain: 25.6 dB, noise figure: 4.5 dB, image rejection: 65 dB, and phase noise of -103 dBc/Hz at 100 kHz offset. The LO-IF isolation improved compared to a previously fabricated front-end with off-chip VCO. This receiver front-end has NF, linearity, and phase noise suitable for DCS-1800.
Design of Dynamic Digital Circuits with n-Channel Multiple-Input Floating-Gate Transistors

Dynamic circuits using n-channel multiple-input floating-gate MOS(FGMOS) transistors to realize binary and ternary logic are presented. In binary domino circuits, the n-channel FGMOS transistors are used to replace the nMOS logic block to simplify the circuit structure. By using the advantage that voltage signals are easy to be added by means of floating gate in multiple-input FGMOS transistor, a summation signal is introduced in binary circuit design. Finally, two dynamic ternary literal circuits are designed using n-channel FGMOS transistors. The proposed voltage-mode dynamic ternary literal circuits have simpler structure. All the proposed dynamic circuits are verified by HSPICE simulation results with TSMC 0.35&mu;m 2-ploy 4-metal CMOS technology.
The state of play of ASC-Inclusion: An Integrated Internet-Based Environment for Social Inclusion of Children with Autism Spectrum Conditions

Individuals with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) have marked difficulties using verbal and non-verbal communication for social interaction. The running ASC-Inclusion project aims to help children with ASC by allowing them to learn how emotions can be expressed and recognised via playing games in a virtual world. The platform includes analysis of users' gestures, facial, and vocal expressions using standard microphone and web-cam or a depth sensor, training through games, text communication with peers, animation, video and audio clips. We present the state of play in realising such a serious game platform and provide results for the different modalities.
Faithful Experimental Models of Human Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Infection

Copyright: © 2012 Kaushal D, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. In spite of the remarkable progress made by the medical science in the last century, the effectiveness of tuberculosis (TB) treatment and vaccination has remained less than satisfactory. This has placed a very high burden on the public health systems of the third world. Annually, about 1.5 million deaths are attributed to TB [1]. The number of new cases seems to be on the rise, topping 9 million in the recent years [1]. Co-infection with HIV-AIDS has further worsened the global TB situation [2]. A further concern is the advent of drug resistant (including multiand extensively-drug resistant) strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) [3].
INTEGRAL observations of five sources in the Galactic Center region

A number of new X-ray sources (IGR J17091-3624, IGR/XTE J17391-3021, IGR J17464-3213 (=XTE J17464-3213 = H 1743-322), IGR J17597-2201, SAX/IGR J18027-2017) have been observed with the INTEGRAL observatory during ultra deep exposure of the Galactic Center region in August-September 2003. Most of them were permanently visible by INTEGRAL at energies higher than ∼ 20 keV, but IGR/XTE J17391-3021 was observed only during its flaring activity with a flux maximum of ~120 mCrab. IGR J17091-3624, IGR J17464-3213 and IGR J17597-2201 were detected up to ∼ 100–150 keV. In this paper we present the analysis of INTEGRAL observations of these sources to determine the nature of these objects. We conclude that all of them have a galactic origin. Two sources are black hole candidates (IGR J17091-3624 and IGR J17464-3213), one (IGR J17597-2201) is an LMXB neutron star binary (presumably an X-ray burster) and two other sources (IGR J17391-3021 and SAX/IGR J18027-2017) are neutron stars in high mass binaries; one of them (SAX/IGR J18027-2017) is an accreting X-ray pulsar.
Developing precise and efficient Metrics for Adaptive Checkpoint Scheduling of Virtual Machine Replication on Multi-core

Today, there is a growing demand for online services deployment on virtualized infrastructures [1]. Online services are processing more and more requests concurrently nowadays and that requires virtual machines (VM) to utilize and more and more virtual CPU’s on multi-core hardware. Because of this rise in cloud computing, hardware failures have become more common [5]. This implies that the need for high availably is rising.
Missed Opportunities for Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) Immunization in Mesoamerica: Potential Impact on Coverage and Days at Risk

Background Recent outbreaks of measles in the Americas have received news and popular attention, noting the importance of vaccination to population health. To estimate the potential increase in immunization coverage and reduction in days at risk if every opportunity to vaccinate a child was used, we analyzed vaccination histories of children 11–59 months of age from large household surveys in Mesoamerica. Methods Our study included 22,234 children aged less than 59 months in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Panama. Child vaccination cards were used to calculate coverage of measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) and to compute the number of days lived at risk. A child had a missed opportunity for vaccination if their card indicated a visit for vaccinations at which the child was not caught up to schedule for MMR. A Cox proportional hazards model was used to compute the hazard ratio associated with the reduction in days at risk, accounting for missed opportunities. Results El Salvador had the highest proportion of children with a vaccine card (91.2%) while Nicaragua had the lowest (76.5%). Card MMR coverage ranged from 44.6% in Mexico to 79.6% in Honduras while potential coverage accounting for missed opportunities ranged from 70.8% in Nicaragua to 96.4% in El Salvador. Younger children were less likely to have a missed opportunity. In Panama, children from households with higher expenditure were more likely to have a missed opportunity for MMR vaccination compared to the poorest (OR 1.62, 95% CI: 1.06–2.47). In Nicaragua, compared to children of mothers with no education, children of mothers with primary education and secondary education were less likely to have a missed opportunity (OR 0.46, 95% CI: 0.24–0.88 and OR 0.25, 95% CI: 0.096–0.65, respectively). Mean days at risk for MMR ranged from 158 in Panama to 483 in Mexico while potential days at risk ranged from 92 in Panama to 239 in El Salvador. Conclusions Our study found high levels of missed opportunities for immunizing children in Mesoamerica. Our findings cause great concern, as they indicate that families are bringing their children to health facilities, but these children are not receiving all appropriate vaccinations during visits. This points to serious problems in current immunization practices and protocols in poor areas in Mesoamerica. Our study calls for programs to ensure that vaccines are available and that health professionals use every opportunity to vaccinate a child.