Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Tau Reduction Diminishes Spatial Learning and Memory Deficits after Mild Repetitive Traumatic Brain Injury in Mice

Objective Because reduction of the microtubule-associated protein Tau has beneficial effects in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease and epilepsy, we wanted to determine whether this strategy can also improve the outcome of mild traumatic brain injury (TBI). Methods We adapted a mild frontal impact model of TBI for wildtype C57Bl/6J mice and characterized the behavioral deficits it causes in these animals. The Barnes maze, Y maze, contextual and cued fear conditioning, elevated plus maze, open field, balance beam, and forced swim test were used to assess different behavioral functions. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI, 7 Tesla) and histological analysis of brain sections were used to look for neuropathological alterations. We also compared the functional effects of this TBI model and of controlled cortical impact in mice with two, one or no Tau alleles. Results Repeated (2-hit), but not single (1-hit), mild frontal impact impaired spatial learning and memory in wildtype mice as determined by testing of mice in the Barnes maze one month after the injury. Locomotor activity, anxiety, depression and fear related behaviors did not differ between injured and sham-injured mice. MRI imaging did not reveal focal injury or mass lesions shortly after the injury. Complete ablation or partial reduction of tau prevented deficits in spatial learning and memory after repeated mild frontal impact. Complete tau ablation also showed a trend towards protection after a single controlled cortical impact. Complete or partial reduction of tau also reduced the level of axonopathy in the corpus callosum after repeated mild frontal impact. Interpretation Tau promotes or enables the development of learning and memory deficits and of axonopathy after mild TBI, and tau reduction counteracts these adverse effects.
Clusterhead selection in clustering algorithms for wireless sensor networks: A survey

Most of the research in energy efficient data gathering in data centric applications of wireless sensor networks is motivated by LEACH scheme which by allowing rotation of clusterhead role among the sensor nodes tries to distribute the energy consumption over the network. Selection of sensor node for such role rotations greatly affects the energy efficiency of the network. Hence many proposals are reported in the literature suggesting different clusterhead selection strategies. However, till now, these strategies have not been talked about for their collective understanding. So, efforts have been made, in this paper, to discuss them in unison and present a global view. Comparison of their costs of clusterhead selection in different rounds and after effects like cluster formation, distribution of clusterheads and creation of clusters shows a need of more energy efficient clusterhead selection strategy.
Factors Associated with Inconsistent Condom Use among Men Who Have Sex with Men in Cambodia

Background Compared to the general population, men who have sex with men (MSM) are at greater risk for HIV and less understood due to their more hidden and stigmatized nature. Moreover, the discrepancy in findings in the literature merits further investigations in MSM populations from different cultures and settings. We therefore conducted this study to explore factors associated with inconsistent condom use among high-risk MSM in Cambodia. Methods This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2014 among 367 MSM randomly selected from Battembang and Siem Reap using a two-stage cluster sampling method. A structured questionnaire was used for face-to-face interviews to collect information on characteristics of respondents, HIV testing history, self-perception of HIV risk, substance use, sexual behaviors, mental disorders, and HIV knowledge. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was performed to identify factors independently associated with inconsistent condom use. Results On average, 62.3% of respondents reported that they always used condoms over the past three months. The rates varied with types of sexual partners; the proportion of respondents who reported always using condoms was 55.1%, 64.2%, 75.9%, 73.0%, 78.1%, and 70.3%, for sexual partners who were girlfriends, boyfriends, female sex workers, male sex workers, female clients, or male clients, respectively. After adjustment, inconsistent condom use was significantly associated with age of ≥25 (AOR = 1.77, 95% CI = 1.09–2.86), self-rated quality of life as good or very good (AOR = 4.37, 95% CI = 1.79–5.67), self-perception of higher HIV risk compared to the general population (AOR = 2.37, 95% CI = 1.35–4.17), illicit drug use in the past three months (AOR = 5.76, 95% CI = 1.65–10.09), and reported consistent lubricant use when selling anal sex to men in the past three months (AOR = 2.85, 95% CI = 1.07–8.12). Conclusions We found risky sexual behaviors to be considerably high among MSM in this study, especially among those who used illicit drugs or were older than 25. HIV education and social marketing should be expanded and specifically designed for MSM to better educate on the increased risk of HIV with unprotected anal sex and illicit drug use as risk factors, and the importance of the use of both condoms and lubricant during anal intercourse.
Amplitude modulation in the stellate microcircuit of the cochlear nucleus

This paper presents the amplitude modulated coding behaviour in a biophysically-realistic neural network model of the cochlear nucleus. It focuses specifically on the microcircuit of T stellate cells, with three inhibitory interneurons. T stellate cells provide a robust spectral representation of auditory information, and enhanced coding of temporal information (especially the pitch in complex environments [1]). The model contains three inhibitory interneurons, each controlling the rate and temporal response of T stellate cells. Despite saturation of their characteristic frequency, the ability to code temporal information is not disabled. The optimal coding of amplitude modulation is still provided across the network, most specifically in lateral sidebands around the carrier frequency.
Local indices of aortic stiffness a magnetic resonance imaging study

The stiffness of the aortic wall was evaluated by coupling the morphological and the blood flow MR data. The deformability of the ascending aorta, and the aortic Pulse Wave Velocity (PWV) were estimated in a series of 36 volunteers aged between 14 and 77 years. An accurate automatic method of segmentation for extracting contours of the aorta was used. A 3D estimation of the length of the aortic arch and a precise measurement of the transit time between ascending and descending flow waves were performed. Results. The deformability and the PWV were inversely related. Mean ± SD values of deformability and PWV for the younger subjects (age≪50) were respectively 0.25±0.11 and 4.03±0.83m/s. For the older subjects (age≥50) they were 0.068±0.04 and 7.01±1.14m/s. Conclusions. The local and automated approach for measurement of deformability and PWV characterizes directly the stiffness of the aorta and results are consistent with previous studies.
Object-Oriented Frameworks for Distributed Systems : A Survey

Object-oriented frameworks are gaining importance to help reduce development efforts in large complex systems. They help developers leverage the knowledge of experienced domain experts, thus reducing the complexity of the development of large systems. Distributed applications are inherently complex and are therefore difficult to develop. Frameworks are used to hide away these complex issues, freeing the developer to concentrate on the application requirements instead. This paper will present an overview of object oriented frameworks and describe a few example frameworks targetted for distributed applications development. It will conclude by stating future trends in frameworks and a suggestion of promising areas of interest for research.
Improvement on Classification Models of Multiple Classes through Effectual Processes

Classify cases in one of two classes referred to as a binary classification. However, some classification algorithms will allow, of course the use of more than two classes. This research work focuses on improving the results of classification models of multiple classes via some effective techniques. A case study of students’ achievement at Salahadin University is used in this research work. The collected data are pre-processed, cleaned, filtered, normalised, the final data was balanced and randomised, then a combining technique of Naive Base Classifier and Best First Search algorithms are used to ultimately reduce the number of features in data sets. Finally, a multi-classification task is conducted through some effective classifiers such as K-Nearest Neighbor, Radial Basis Function, and Artificial Neural Network to forecast the students’ performance.
Baseline selenium status and effects of selenium and vitamin e supplementation on prostate cancer risk.

BACKGROUND The Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial found no effect of selenium supplementation on prostate cancer (PCa) risk but a 17% increased risk from vitamin E supplementation. This case-cohort study investigates effects of selenium and vitamin E supplementation conditional upon baseline selenium status. METHODS There were 1739 total and 489 high-grade (Gleason 7-10) PCa cases and 3117 men in the randomly selected cohort. Proportional hazards models estimated hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for effects of supplementation within quintiles of baseline toenail selenium. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate hazard ratios, and all statistical tests are two-sided. RESULTS Toenail selenium, in the absence of supplementation, was not associated with PCa risk. Selenium supplementation (combined selenium only and selenium + vitamin E arms) had no effect among men with low selenium status (<60th percentile of toenail selenium) but increased the risk of high-grade PCa among men with higher selenium status by 91% (P = .007). Vitamin E supplementation (alone) had no effect among men with high selenium status (≥40th percentile of toenail selenium) but increased the risks of total, low-grade, and high-grade PCa among men with lower selenium status (63%, P = .02; 46%, P = .09; 111%, P = .008, respectively). CONCLUSIONS Selenium supplementation did not benefit men with low selenium status but increased the risk of high-grade PCa among men with high selenium status. Vitamin E increased the risk of PCa among men with low selenium status. Men should avoid selenium or vitamin E supplementation at doses that exceed recommended dietary intakes.
Internationalisation and modern languages in Scottish Further and Higher Education

This scoping study investigated the impact of internationalisation strategies on modern language provision in Scottish further and higher education and was commissioned by the Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies. It follows on from the report by Footitt (2005), which explored issues of internationalisation and modern languages in England. The present investigation had the following aims: to identify the main policy documents related to internationalisation strategies and modern languages in Scottish further and higher education and explore to which extent internationalisation initiatives support or encourage the development of students' language and to explore the explicit and implicit messages given by institutional websites about international student support and about modern language study; to explore the views of selected stakeholders in Scottish further and higher education with regard to internationalisation strategies and in what ways international activities at selected institutions offer opportunities for language learning.
Cache-aware Scheduling for Energy Efficiency on Multi-Processors

Cache size is a scarce resource in multi processors systems, Scheduling has a dramatic impact on the delay introduced by cache contention. This paper investigates the effects between programs running on a multi processors system, considering cache contention. This paper is proposed in low load case, the most programs' number of each core is one. The goal is to reduce cache contention between threads, improve the performance of processor and shorten the execution time, to achieve the goal of reducing energy consumption.
Riffled Independence for Efficient Inference with Partial Rankings

Distributions over rankings are used to model data in a multitude of real world settings such as preference analysis and political elections. Modeling such distributions presents several computational challenges, however, due to the factorial size of the set of rankings over an item set. Some of these challenges are quite familiar to the artificial intelligence community, such as how to compactly represent a distribution over a combinatorially large space, and how to efficiently perform probabilistic inference with these representations. With respect to ranking, however, there is the additional challenge of what we refer to as human task complexity -- users are rarely willing to provide a full ranking over a long list of candidates, instead often preferring to provide partial ranking information. Simultaneously addressing all of these challenges -- i.e., designing a compactly representable model which is amenable to efficient inference and can be learned using partial ranking data -- is a difficult task, but is necessary if we would like to scale to problems with nontrivial size. In this paper, we show that the recently proposed riffled independence assumptions cleanly and efficiently address each of the above challenges. In particular, we establish a tight mathematical connection between the concepts of riffled independence and of partial rankings. This correspondence not only allows us to then develop efficient and exact algorithms for performing inference tasks using riffled independence based representations with partial rankings, but somewhat surprisingly, also shows that efficient inference is not possible for riffle independent models (in a certain sense) with observations which do not take the form of partial rankings. Finally, using our inference algorithm, we introduce the first method for learning riffled independence based models from partially ranked data.
Lateral Entorhinal Modulation of Piriform Cortical Activity and Fine Odor Discrimination

The lateral entorhinal cortex (LEC) receives direct input from olfactory bulb mitral cells and piriform cortical pyramidal cells and is the gateway for olfactory input to the hippocampus. However, the LEC also projects back to the piriform cortex and olfactory bulb. Activity in the LEC is shaped by input from the perirhinal cortices, hippocampus, and amygdala, and thus could provide a rich contextual modulation of cortical odor processing. The present study further explored LEC feedback to anterior piriform cortex by examining how LEC top-down input modulates anterior piriform cortex odor evoked activity in rats. Retrograde viral tracing confirmed rich LEC projections to both the olfactory bulb and piriform cortices. In anesthetized rats, reversible lesions of the ipsilateral LEC increased anterior piriform cortical single-unit spontaneous activity. In awake animals performing an odor discrimination task, unilateral LEC reversible lesions enhanced ipsilateral piriform cortical local field potential oscillations during odor sampling, with minimal impact on contralateral activity. Bilateral LEC reversible lesions impaired discrimination performance on a well learned, difficult odor discrimination task, but had no impact on a well learned simple odor discrimination task. The simple discrimination task was impaired by bilateral reversible lesions of the anterior piriform cortex. Given the known function of LEC in working memory and multisensory integration, these results suggest it may serve as a powerful top-down modulator of olfactory cortical function and odor perception. Furthermore, the results provide potential insight into how neuropathology in the entorhinal cortex could contribute to early olfactory deficits seen in Alzheimer's disease.
A Hybrid Modeling Method for Dynamic Liquid Simulation

Natural phenomena simulation attracts a lot of research attention and interest in virtual reality. We introduce the main research achievements in recent years with regard of liquid, which is a common natural phenomenon. A hybrid modeling approach for dynamic liquid simulation is proposed, followed by a surface reconstruction method using simulated results. Experiment shows that satisfactory visual effect is achieved and this application can be used in computer games, movie making and virtual simulation in medical area.
Overcoming the Copenhagen Failure with Flexible Commitments

The fundamental issues presented by climate change are first, that the global environment is a global public good and second, the question of how to share the burden of providing a better climate. Everyone would like to "free ride" on the efforts of others, but there is disagreement over who is free riding. The Kyoto approach, based on dividing up emission rights, has an inherent problem in that such rights could easily reach a monetary value of over a trillion dollars a year. The approach suggested here avoids any attempt at a grand solution to the fair allocation of these rights. A low-carbon economy could be achieved through the imposition of a moderate carbon price, which would raise substantial revenue and allow a reduction in other taxes, thereby keeping the deadweight loss small. Countries should be given flexibility in how they meet their obligations - whether through a carbon tax, a system of cap and trade, or even possibly certain regulatory mechanisms. But a fully voluntary agreement likely cannot include countries that export a significant amount of fossil fuel. A green fund financed by allocating say 20% of carbon revenues collected in developed countries could be used to implement "differentiated responsibilities. "
An Improved Ras Sensor for Highly Sensitive and Quantitative FRET-FLIM Imaging

Ras is a signaling protein involved in a variety of cellular processes. Hence, studying Ras signaling with high spatiotemporal resolution is crucial to understanding the roles of Ras in many important cellular functions. Previously, fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) of fluorescent resonance energy transfer (FRET)-based Ras activity sensors, FRas and FRas-F, have been demonstrated to be useful for measuring the spatiotemporal dynamics of Ras signaling in subcellular micro-compartments. However the predominantly nuclear localization of the sensors' acceptor has limited its sensitivity. Here, we have overcome this limitation and developed two variants of the existing FRas sensor with different affinities: FRas2-F (Kd∼1.7 µM) and FRas2-M (Kd∼0.5 µM). We demonstrate that, under 2-photon fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy, FRas2 sensors provide higher sensitivity compared to previous sensors in 293T cells and neurons.
Interactive segmentation of MR images from brain tumor patients

Medical doctors often do not trust the result of fully automatic segmentations because they have no possibility to make corrections if necessary. On the other hand, manual corrections can introduce a user bias. In this work, we propose to integrate the possibility for quick manual corrections into a fully automatic segmentation method for brain tumor images. This allows for necessary corrections while maintaining a high objectiveness. The underlying idea is similar to the well-known Grab-Cut algorithm, but here we combine decision forest classification with conditional random field regularization for interactive segmentation of 3D medical images. The approach has been evaluated by two different users on the BraTS2012 dataset. Accuracy and robustness improved compared to a fully automatic method and our interactive approach was ranked among the top performing methods. Time for computation including manual interaction was less than 10 minutes per patient, which makes it attractive for clinical use.
Are PAHs precursors of small hydrocarbons in photo-dissociation regions? The Horsehead case

We present maps at high spatial and spectral resolution in emission lines of CCH, c-C3H2, C4H, 12CO and C18O of the edge of the Horsehead nebula obtained with the IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer (PdBI). The edge of the Horsehead nebula is a one-dimensional Photo-Dissociation Region (PDR) viewed almost edge-on. All hydrocarbons are detected at high signal-to-noise ratio in the PDR where intense emission is seen both in the H2 ro-vibrational lines and in the PAH mid-infrared bands. C18O peaks farther away from the cloud edge. Our observations demonstrate that CCH, c-C3H2 and C4H are present in UV-irradiated molecular gas, with abundances nearly as high as in dense, well-shielded molecular cores. PDR models i) need a large density gradient at the PDR edge to correctly reproduce the offset between the hydrocarbons and H2 peaks; and ii) fail to reproduce the hydrocarbon abundances. We propose that a new formation path of carbon chains, in addition to gas phase chemistry, should be considered in PDRs: because of intense UV-irradiation, large aromatic molecules and small carbon grains may fragment and feed the interstellar medium with small carbon clusters and molecules in significant amounts.
Alliance Capability in Tunisian pharmaceutical industry

Najeh Bouraoui: PhD student at the Faculty of Economics and Management of Sfax in Tunisia. Member of a Research Unit on Management Studies Amira Bouhamed: PhD student at the Faculty of Economics and Management of Sfax in Tunisia. Member of a Research Unit on Management Studies Jamil Chaabouni: Professor in Management Studies at the Faculty of Economics and Management of Sfax in Tunisia. Leader of a Research Unit on Management Studies.
Resource-Efficient Data Gathering in Sensor Networks for Environment Reconstruction

Environmentreconstructionistorebuildthephysicalenvironmentinthecyberspaceusingthesensory data collected by sensor networks, which is a fundamental method for human to understand the physical world in depth.A lot of basic scientific work such as nature discovery and organic evolution heavily relies on the environment reconstruction. However, gathering large amount of environmental data costs huge energy and storage space. The shortage of energy and storage resources has become a major problem in sensor networks for environment reconstruction applications. Motivated by exploiting the inherent feature of environmental data, in this paper, we design a novel data gathering protocolbasedoncompressivesensingtheoryandtimeseriesanalysistofurtherimprovetheresource efficiency.This protocol adapts the duty cycle and sensing probability of every sensor node according to the dynamic environment, which cannot only guarantee the reconstruction accuracy, but also save energy and storage resources. We implement the proposed protocol on a 51-node testbed and conduct the simulations based on three real datasets from Intel Indoor, GreenOrbs and Ocean Sense projects. Both the experiment and simulation performances demonstrate that our method significantlyoutperformstheconventionalmethodsintermsofresourceefficiencyandreconstruction accuracy.