Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automatic extraction of assertions from execution traces of behavioural models

Several approaches exist for specification mining of hardware designs. Most of them work at RTL and they extract assertions in the form of temporal relations between Boolean variables. Other approaches work at system level (e.g., TLM) to mine assertions that specify the behaviour of the communication protocol. However, these techniques do not generate assertions addressing the design functionality. Thus, there is a lack of studies related to the automatic mining of assertions for capturing the functionality of behavioural models, where logic expressions among more abstracted (e.g., numeric) variables than bits and bit vectors are necessary. This paper is intended to fill in the gap, by proposing a tool for automatic extraction of temporal assertions from execution traces of behavioural models by adopting a mix of static and dynamic techniques.
Curcumin/Irbesartan Combination Improves Insulin Sensitivity and Ameliorates Serum Pro-inflammatory Cytokines levels in Diabetes Rat model

To evaluate the impact of chronic administration of an angiotensin II receptor antagonist (Irbesartan) and/or curcumin on fasting blood glucose level (FBG), insulin sensitivity, and proinflammatory cytokines in experimentally-induced diabetes in albino rats. Materials and Methods: The study included 80 (20 as control group) male albino rats; diabetes mellitus (DM) was induced using intraperitoneal injection of a single dose of 50 mg/kg of streptozotocin (STZ) after animals were maintained on high-fat diet for 2- weeks (30 rats) for induction of non-insulin dependent DM (NIDDM) or without dieting regimen (30 rats) for induction of IDDM. One-week later, rats received oral irbesartan (2.5 mg/kg/day), oral curcumin (200 mg/kg) or both lines for 6 weeks. Homeostasis Model Assessment of Insulin Resistance (HOMA-IR) and rapid insulin sensitivity test (RIST) were used for clinical assessment. Two fasting venous blood samples were obtained prior to initiation and at 6-wks after treatment for estimation of FBG and ELISA estimation of fasting plasma insulin (FPI), serum interleukin (IL)-1β and -6 and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α). Results: Both lines of treatment induced significant reduction of FBG and FPI levels compared to pre- treatment levels with significant reduction of FBG on using curcumin compared to irbesartan, but combination therapy significantly lowered FPI levels compared to either drug alone. Post-treatment serum levels of studied cytokines in all groups were significantly lower compared to pre-treatment levels, but curcumin alone significantly reduced serum levels of IL-6 and TNF-α compared to irbesartan alone. Post- treatment HOMA-IR and RIST indices were significantly improved compared to pre-treatment levels. Conclusion: Chronic administration of irbesartan/curcumin combination showed anti-diabetic effect manifested as decreased FBG and FPI levels and ameliorated the increased serum levels of pro- inflammatory cytokines. The use of such combination could be recommended for clinical trials so as to document its use for control of both types diabetes. (Mohamed Khaled Mohamed. Mahfouz. Curcumin/Irbesartan Combination Improves Insulin Sensitivity and Ameliorates Serum Pro-inflammatory Cytokines levels in Diabetes Rat model. Journal of American Science 2010;6(11):1051-1059). (ISSN: 1545-1003). (http://www.americanscience.org).
Atrial Natriuretic Peptide–Mediated Inhibition of Microcirculatory Endothelial Ca2+ and Permeability Response to Histamine Involves cGMP-Dependent Protein Kinase I and TRPC6 Channels

Objective—Histamine increases microvascular endothelial leakage by activation of complex calcium-dependent and -independent signaling pathways. Atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) via its cGMP-forming guanylyl cyclase-A (GC-A) receptor counteracts this response. Here, we characterized the molecular mechanisms underlying this interaction, especially the role of cGMP-dependent protein kinase I (cGKI). Approach and Results—We combined intravital microscopy studies of the mouse cremaster microcirculation with experiments in cultured microvascular human dermal endothelial cells. In wild-type mice, ANP had no direct effect on the extravasation of fluorescent dextran from postcapillary venules, but strongly reduced the histamine-provoked vascular leakage. This anti-inflammatory effect of ANP was abolished in mice with endothelial-restricted inactivation of GC-A or cGKI. Histamine-induced increases in endothelial [Ca2+]i in vitro and of vascular leakage in vivo were markedly attenuated by the Ca2+-entry inhibitor SKF96365 and in mice with ablated transient receptor potential canonical (TRPC) 6 channels. Conversely, direct activation of TRPC6 with hyperforin replicated the hyperpermeability responses to histamine. ANP, via cGKI, stimulated the inhibitory phosphorylation of TRPC6 at position Thr69 and prevented the hyperpermeability responses to hyperforin. Moreover, inhibition of cGMP degradation by the phosphodiesterase 5 inhibitor sildenafil prevented the edematic actions of histamine in wild types but not in mice with endothelial GC-A or cGKI deletion. Conclusions—ANP attenuates the inflammatory actions of histamine via endothelial GC-A/cGMP/cGKI signaling and inhibitory phosphorylation of TRPC6 channels. The therapeutic potential of this novel regulatory pathway is indicated by the observation that sildenafil improves systemic endothelial barrier functions by enhancing the endothelial effects of endogenous ANP.
Information technology components selecting for equipment critical applications

The paper is devoted to the problem of the active components (transistors) automated diagnostics on the base of his current-voltage characteristics and passive radio components (resistors) the prediction class by his parameters. The procedure of identification on the neuron nets base for these transistors is proposed. For automated diagnostic of passive radio components, for example, resistors, the procedure of prediction of class such components is work out. On the base of these procedures and classification and clustering on the wavelet transformation base the information technology of components selection is created. This information technology have to increase the efficiency of passive components rejection (at the expense of production test time) and improve the efficiency of grading active components (by reducing the time of diagnosis on a reduced parameter vector) with sufficient reliability for these tasks.
Tapping into the Vibe of the city using VibN, a continuous sensing application for smartphones

We present VibN, a mobile sensing application deployed at large scale through the Apple App Store and the Android Market. VibN has been built to determine "what's going on" around the user in real-time by exploiting multiple sensor feeds. The application allows its users to explore live points of interest of the city by presenting real-time hotspots from sensor data. Each hotspot is characterized by a demographics breakdown of inhabitants and a list of short audio clips. The audio clips augment traditional microblogging methods by allowing users to automatically and manually provide rich audio data about their locations. VibN also allows one to browse historical points of interest and view how locations in a city evolve over time. Additionally, VibN automatically determines a user's personal points of interest, which are a means for building a user's breadcrumb diary of locations where they have spent significant amount of time. In this paper, we present the design, evaluation, and results from the large scale deployment of VibN through the popular Apple App Store and Android Market.
The Heart of Parenting: Parent HR Dynamics and Negative Parenting While Resolving Conflict With Child

The current study examined parent heart rate (HR) dynamic changing patterns and their links to observed negative parenting (i.e., emotional unavailability and psychological control) during a parent–child conflict resolution task among 150 parent–child dyads (child age ranged from 6 to 12 years, Mage = 8.54 ± 1.67). Parent HR was obtained from electrocardiogram (ECG) data collected during the parent–child conflict resolution task. Negative parenting was coded offline based on the video recording of the same task. Results revealed that emotionally sensitive parents during the task showed greater HR increases while discussing a conflict and greater HR decreases while resolving the conflict, whereas emotionally unavailable parents showed no changes in HR. However, parent psychological control was not associated with HR dynamics during the task. These findings indicated the physiological underpinnings of parent emotional sensitivity and responsiveness during parent–child interactions. The potential association between HR baseline levels and parenting behaviors was also discussed.
The experience and meaning of tattooing and piercing in women who have experienced relational traumas

The aim of this study was to examine the experience and meaning of tattooing and piercing in women who had experienced relational traumas, defined as any context in which two or more human beings interact with one another in which a traumatic event occurs, whether these beings are relatives, friends, acquaintances, or strangers. A phenomenological study was conducted. Seven women, ranging in age from 23 to 52, who identified as having experienced relational traumas, were interviewed in depth about their experiences of tattooing and piercing, and the meanings and purposes these body modifications served in their lives. Six prominent themes emerged from a thematic analysis of the data. These themes are: 1) Remembrance; 2) Connection; 3) Identity; 4) Permanence; 5) Healing, Coping, and Closure; and 6) The Significance of Pain. The findings of this study revealed a great deal of complexity in terms of the reasons why women chose to tattoo and pierce following the experience of relational traumas. A connection is made between these findings and feminist literature that demonstrates the importance of relationships and connections in the lives of women, and how tattooing and piercing may aid in that regard. The literature on self-injurious behaviours, such as cutting, is also discussed, and some consideration is made as to whether tattoos and piercings may be, for some, socially acceptable forms of self-harm. The implications for practice and future research are also discussed.
Design Concepts of Polycarbonate-Based Intervertebral Lumbar Cages: Finite Element Analysis and Compression Testing

This work explores the viability of 3D printed intervertebral lumbar cages based on biocompatible polycarbonate (PC-ISO® material). Several design concepts are proposed for the generation of patient-specific intervertebral lumbar cages. The 3D printed material achieved compressive yield strength of 55 MPa under a specific combination of manufacturing parameters. The literature recommends a reference load of 4,000 N for design of intervertebral lumbar cages. Under compression testing conditions, the proposed design concepts withstand between 7,500 and 10,000 N of load before showing yielding. Although some stress concentration regions were found during analysis, the overall viability of the proposed design concepts was validated.
Multimodal Learning of Geometry-Preserving Binary Codes for Semantic Image Retrieval

This paper presents an unsupervised approach to feature binary coding for efficient semantic image retrieval. Although the majority of the existing methods aim to preserve neighborhood structures of the feature space, semantically similar images are not always in such neighbors but are rather distributed in non-linear low-dimensional manifolds. Moreover, images are rarely alone on the Internet and are often surrounded by text data such as tags, attributes, and captions, which tend to carry rich semantic information about the images. On the basis of these observations, the approach presented in this paper aims at learning binary codes for semantic image retrieval using multimodal information sources while preserving the essential low-dimensional structures of the data distributions in the Hamming space. Specifically, after finding the low-dimensional structures of the data by using an unsupervised sparse coding technique, our approach learns a set of linear projections for binary coding by solving an optimization problem which is designed to jointly preserve the extracted data structures and multimodal data correlations between images and texts in the Hamming space as much as possible. We show that the joint optimization problem can readily be transformed into a generalized eigenproblem that can be efficiently solved. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our method yields significant performance gains over several existing methods. key words: image retrieval, multimodal learning, binary coding
Cat among the Pigeons? Cooperators' Response to Individualists in Negotiating Groups

Cooperatively oriented group members (i.e., members concerned about both own and group outcome) typically negotiate smoothly with each other, but what happens when cooperators have to face group members with individualistic orientations (i.e., members concerned only about own outcome)? This study examines how cooperators' behavior and outcome are affected by the number of individualists in negotiating groups. We manipulated 174 students to adopt a cooperative or an individualistic orientation before they participated in a three-person negotiation simulation in one out of three group compositions: All-cooperative (no individualists), cooperative majority (one individualist), or cooperative minority (two individualists). The inclusion of one individualistic member in the group lowered the cooperative members' satisfaction; inclusion of two individualistic members also lowered the cooperative members' individual outcome. Furthermore, cooperative members changed their negotiation behavior to more yielding and less dominating when they met two individualistic members, and this change in behavior explained their lower individual outcome.
Calculating Semantic Distance between Word Sense Probability Distributions

Semantic similarity measures have focused on individual word senses. However, in many applications, it may be informative to compare the overall sense distributions for two different contexts. We propose a new method for comparing two probability distributions over WordNet, which captures in a single measure the aggregate semantic distance of the component nodes, weighted by their probability. Previous such measures compute only the distributional distance, and do not take into account the semantic similarity between Word-Net senses across the distributions. To incorporate semantic similarity, we calculate the (dis)similarity between two probability distributions as a weighted distance “travelled” from one to the other through the WordNet hierarchy. We evaluate the measure by applying it to the acquisition of verb argument alternation knowledge, and ﬁnd that overall it outperforms existing distance measures.
Continuous word representation using neural networks for proper name retrieval from diachronic documents

Developing high-quality transcription systems for very large vocabulary corpora is a challenging task. Proper names are usually key to understanding the information contained in a document. One approach for increasing the vocabulary coverage of a speech transcription system is to automatically retrieve new proper names from contemporary diachronic text documents. In recent years, neural networks have been successfully applied to a variety of speech recognition tasks. In this paper, we investigate whether neural networks can enhance word representation in vector space for the vocabulary extension of a speech recognition system. This is achieved by using high-quality word vector representation of words from large amounts of unstructured text data proposed by Mikolov. This model allows to take into account lexical and semantic word relationships. Proposed methodology is evaluated in the context of broadcast news transcription. Obtained recall and ASR proper name error rate is compared to that obtained using cosine-based vector space methodology. Experimental results show a good ability of the proposed model to capture semantic and lexical information
Availability and interpretability of optimal control for criticality estimation in vehicle active safety

Current and future vehicular active safety systems rely on situation interpretation algorithms for mapping sensor information of the environment to a criticality or threat value. In dangerous driving situations, these metrics are used to trigger a range of safety interventions from warning the driver, pre-tensioning of the braking system, automatic emergency braking, and automatic emergency braking and steering. For highly complex functions like automatic braking and steering, validation through real-world test drives become increasingly costly and time-consuming. Here, simulation studies can be used, where a large set of dangerous driving scenarios is labeled with a reference criticality, that should represent the true criticality. In order to find such a ground truth criticality, we propose an optimal control formulation of criticality taking into account a vehicle dynamics model as well as lane constraints. Further, using stochastically generated driving scenes, we explore the tradeoff between different goal functions and constraint formulations for interpretability and convergence of the criticality measure in simulation scenarios.
The SPA Quartet: A Family of WD-Repeat Proteins with a Central Role in Suppression of Photomorphogenesis in Arabidopsis

The Arabidopsis thaliana proteins suppressor of phytochrome A-105 1 (SPA1), SPA3, and SPA4 of the four-member SPA1 protein family have been shown to repress photomorphogenesis in light-grown seedlings. Here, we demonstrate that spa quadruple mutant seedlings with defects in SPA1, SPA2, SPA3, and SPA4 undergo strong constitutive photomorphogenesis in the dark. Consistent with this finding, adult spa quadruple mutants are extremely small and dwarfed. These extreme phenotypes are only observed when all SPA genes are mutated, indicating functional redundancy among SPA genes. Differential contributions of individual SPA genes were revealed by analysis of spa double and triple mutant genotypes. SPA1 and SPA2 predominate in dark-grown seedlings, whereas SPA3 and SPA4 prevalently regulate the elongation growth in adult plants. Further analysis of SPA2 function indicated that SPA2 is a potent repressor of photomorphogenesis only in the dark but not in the light. The SPA2 protein is constitutively nuclear localized in planta and can physically interact with the repressor COP1. Epistasis analysis between spa2 and cop1 mutations provides strong genetic support for a biological significance of a COP1–SPA2 interaction in the plant. Taken together, our results have identified a new family of proteins that is essential for suppression of photomorphogenesis in darkness.
Simulated annealing based VLSI circuit partitioning for delay minimization

In this work two way partitioning of a circuit represented as a graph, is made using simulated annealing procedure and delay between the partitions is minimized. The various parameters used in the annealing process like initial temperature, cooling rate, and the threshold, given as a number of calculations, are changed and its influence on the delay between the partitions is discussed. Procedure was tested on an example with a 102 components connected by 103 nets. Substantial improvement in delay is obtained over the initial circuit delay proving the effectiveness of proposed method.
Growth site localization of Rho1 small GTP-binding protein and its involvement in bud formation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The Rho small GTP-binding protein family regulates various actomyosin- dependent cell functions, such as cell morphology, locomotion, cytokinesis, membrane ruffling, and smooth muscle contraction. In the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, there is a homologue of mammalian RhoA, RHO1, which is essential for vegetative growth of yeast cells. To explore the function of the RHO1 gene, we isolated a recessive temperature-sensitive mutation of RHO1, rho1-104. The rho1-104 mutation caused amino acid substitutions of Asp 72 to Asn and Cys 164 to Tyr of Rho1p. Strains bearing the rho1-104 mutation accumulated tiny- or small- budded cells in which cortical actin patches were clustered to buds at the restrictive temperature. Cell lysis and cell death were also seen with the rho1-104 mutant. Indirect immunofluorescence microscopic study demonstrated that Rho1p was concentrated to the periphery of the cells where cortical actin patches were clustered, including the site of bud emergence, the tip of the growing buds, and the mother-bud neck region of cells prior to cytokinesis. Indirect immunofluorescence study with cells overexpressing RHO1 suggested that the Rho1p-binding site was saturable. A mutant Rho1p with an amino acid substitution at the lipid modification site remained in the cytoplasm. These results suggest that Rho1 small GTP-binding protein binds to a specific site at the growth region of cells, where Rho1p exerts its function in controlling cell growth.
Activation Kinetics of AMPA Receptor Channels Reveal the Number of Functional Agonist Binding Sites

AMPA and NMDA receptor channels are closely related molecules, yet they respond to glutamate with distinct kinetics, attributable to differences in ligand binding and channel gating steps (for review, seeEdmonds et al., 1995). We used two complementary approaches to investigate the number of functional binding sites on AMPA channels on outside-out patches from cultured hippocampal neurons. The activation kinetics of agonist binding were measured during rapid steps into low concentrations of selective AMPA receptor agonists and during steps from a competitive AMPA receptor antagonist, 6-cyano-7-nitro-quinoxaline-2,3-dione, into a saturating concentration of agonist. Both approaches revealed sigmoidal kinetics, which suggests that multiple agonist binding steps or antagonist unbinding steps are needed for channel activation. A kinetic model with two independent binding sites gave a better fit to the activation phase than models with one or three independent sites. A more refined analysis incorporating cooperative interaction between the two binding sites significantly improved the fits to the responses. The affinity of the first binding step was two to three times higher than the second step. These results demonstrate that binding of two agonist molecules are needed to activate AMPA receptors, but the two binding sites are not identical and independent. Because NMDA receptors require four ligand molecules for activation (two glycine and two glutamate; Benveniste and Mayer, 1991; Clements and Westbrook, 1991), it may be that some binding sites on AMPA receptors are functionally silent.
Real-time anatomical imaging of the heart on an experimental ultrasound system

Fast cardiac imaging requires a reduction of the number of transmit events. This is typically achieved through multi-line-transmission (MLT) and/or multi-line-acquisition (MLA) techniques. However, restricting the field-of-view (FOV) to the anatomically relevant domain, e.g. the myocardium, can increase frame rate (FR) further. Using computer simulations, we previously proposed an anatomical scan sequence by performing automatic myocardial segmentation on conventional B-mode images and feeding this information back to the scanner in order to define a fast myocardial scan sequence. The aim of this study was to implement and test this approach experimentally.