Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A compact neural core for digital implementation of the Neural Engineering Framework

The Neural Engineering Framework (NEF) is a tool that is capable of synthesising large-scale cognitive systems from subnetworks; and it has been used to construct SPAUN, which is the first brain model capable of performing cognitive tasks. It has been implemented on computers using high-level programming languages. However the software model runs much slower than real time, and therefore is not capable of performing for applications that need real-time control, such as interactive robotic systems. Here we present a compact neural core for digital implementation of the NEF on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) in real time. The proposed digital neural core consists of 64 neurons that are instantiated by a single physical neuron using a time-multiplexing approach. As NEF intrinsically uses a spike rate-encoding paradigm, rather than implementing spiking neurons and then measuring their firing rates, we chose to implement NEF with neurons that compute their firing rate directly. The neuron is efficiently implemented using a 9-bit fixed-point multiplier without the requirement of memory, the bandwidth of memory being the bottleneck for the time-multiplexing approach. The neural core uses only a fraction of the hardware resources in a commercial-off-the-shelf FPGA (even an entry level one) and can be easily programmed for different mathematical computations. Multiple cores can easily be combined to build real-time large-scale cognitive neural networks using the Neural Engineering Framework.
Protein kinase G–regulated production of H2S governs oxygen sensing

Complex interplay between three gases—oxygen, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen sulfide—is necessary to control breathing. Signaling when to breathe When oxygen concentrations in the blood are low, the carotid body triggers breathing reflexes, a response that requires the gasotransmitter hydrogen sulfide, which is generated by the enzyme CSE. When blood is adequately oxygenated, the enzyme HO-2 generates carbon monoxide, which inhibits CSE and decreases neural activity in the carotid body. Yuan et al. identified two cysteine residues that enabled HO-2 to generate carbon monoxide in an oxygen-sensitive manner. They found that carbon monoxide triggered an increase of the second messenger cGMP, which stimulated protein kinase G to phosphorylate CSE, thereby inhibiting this enzyme and suppressing carotid body activity. Reflexes initiated by the carotid body, the principal O2-sensing organ, are critical for maintaining cardiorespiratory homeostasis during hypoxia. O2 sensing by the carotid body requires carbon monoxide (CO) generation by heme oxygenase-2 (HO-2) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S) synthesis by cystathionine-γ-lyase (CSE). We report that O2 stimulated the generation of CO, but not that of H2S, and required two cysteine residues in the heme regulatory motif (Cys265 and Cys282) of HO-2. CO stimulated protein kinase G (PKG)–dependent phosphorylation of Ser377 of CSE, inhibiting the production of H2S. Hypoxia decreased the inhibition of CSE by reducing CO generation resulting in increased H2S, which stimulated carotid body neural activity. In carotid bodies from mice lacking HO-2, compensatory increased abundance of nNOS (neuronal nitric oxide synthase) mediated O2 sensing through PKG-dependent regulation of H2S by nitric oxide. These results provide a mechanism for how three gases work in concert in the carotid body to regulate breathing.
Development of UV Spectrophotometric Method For Determination of Methyl Salicylate In Bulk And Semisolid Formulation

The present research work discusses the development of a UV estimation method for Methyl salicylate. Simple, accurate and reproducible spectrophotometric method has been developed for the estimation of Methyl salicylate in bulk and semisolid dosage form based on measurement at maximum wavelength (max) 237 nm. The percentage recovery of Methyl salicylate ranged from 99.23 to 99.76% in pharmaceutical dosage form. Beers law was obeyed in the concentration range of 1-10 µg/ml having line equation y = 0.0581x + 0.0025 with correlation coefficient of 0.9973.
DNA methylation analysis in liquid‐based cytology for cervical cancer screening

Cervical cancer is the second most common type of cancer in women worldwide. Preinvasive disease can be detected by cervical cytology. All currently available cytology technologies rely on the visual analysis of exfoliated cells from the uterine cervix. Improvement of conventional cytological screening has been proposed by the introduction of molecular‐based markers applied to liquid‐based cytology (LBC), the suspension of cells collected from the cervix. DNA methylation changes occur very early in carcinogenesis and identification of appropriate DNA methylation markers in such samples should be able to distinguish high‐grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSIL) from nonspecific cytology changes and the normal cervix. To address this potential, we have undertaken a proof‐of‐principle study of methylation status of LBC samples from HSIL cytology cases compared against matched normal controls. Using quantitative methylation‐specific PCR on 28 genes, we found SOX1, HOXA11 and CADM1 to significantly discriminate between the groups analyzed (p < 0.01). Area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) demonstrated that methylation of SOX1, HOXA11 and CADM1 could discriminate between HSIL cases and controls with high sensitivity and specificity (AUC 0.910, 0.844 and 0.760, respectively). The results were further validated in an independent set. This proof‐of‐principle study is the first to validate the results in an independent case/control set and presents HOXA11, a gene that is important for cervical development, as a potentially useful DNA marker in LBC samples. Further assessment of these preliminary estimates will need to be performed in a larger cohort to confirm clinical utility. © 2009 UICC
Limited and Defined Truncation at the C Terminus Enhances Receptor Binding and Degranulation Activity of the Neutrophil-activating Peptide 2 (NAP-2)

We have previously described a C-terminally truncated variant of the chemokine neutrophil-activating peptide 2 (NAP-2) that exhibited higher neutrophil-stimulating capacity than the full-size polypeptide. To investigate the impact of the NAP-2 C terminus on biological activity and receptor binding, we have now purified the novel molecule to homogeneity. Furthermore, we have cloned, expressed in Escherichia coli, and purified full-size recombinant NAP-2 (rNAP-2-(1-70)) and a series of C-terminally deleted variants (rNAP-2-(1-69) to rNAP-2-(1-64)). Biochemical and immunochemical analyses revealed that the natural NAP-2 variant was structurally identical to the rNAP-2-(1-66) isoform. As compared with their respective native and recombinant full-size counterparts, both molecules exhibited ∼3-4-fold enhanced potency in the induction of neutrophil degranulation as well as 3-fold enhanced binding affinity for specific receptors on these cells. All other variants were considerably less active. The natural occurrence of a NAP-2 variant truncated by exactly four residues at the C terminus suggests that limited and defined proteolysis at this site plays a role in the regulation of the biological function of the chemokine.
True myocardial motion tracking

Myocardial tagging is a powerful tool for the assessment of in‐plane cardiac motion. However, for previous myocardial tagging techniques, the imaged slice is fixed with respect to the magnet coordinate system. Thus, images acquired at different heart phases do not always represent the same slice of the myocardium. A new myocardial tagging technique is presented, which takes the through‐plane motion into consideration. It involves tagging of the desired myocardial slice and applying a subtraction imaging technique to image just that part of the myocardium. The examination time can be reduced considerably by the acquisition of two one‐dimensionally tagged images. To increase the signal‐to‐noise ratio especially at later heart phases, variable imaging RF excitation flip angles are applied. To reduce motion artifacts a repetitive breathhold scheme was applied. in vivo results demonstrate that the tags can be accurately tracked within the entire heart period with a temporal resolution of 35 ms, even at a top basal level of the heart and right ventricle.
Tamoxifen‐inducible podocyte‐specific iCre recombinase transgenic mouse provides a simple approach for modulation of podocytes in vivo

We report the generation and initial characterization of a mouse line expressing tamoxifen‐inducible improved Cre (iCre) recombinase (iCre‐ERT2) under the regulation of NPHS2 (podocin) gene promoter. The resulting transgenic mouse line was named podocin‐iCreERT2 mice. The efficiency of iCre activity was confirmed by crossing podocin‐iCreERT2 with the ROSA26 reporter mouse. By using the floxed ROSA reporter mice, we found that tamoxifen specifically induced recombination in the kidneys. In the absence of tamoxifen, recombination was undetectable in podocin‐iCreERT2;ROSA26 mice. However, following intraperitoneal injection of tamoxifen, selective recombination was observed in the podocytes of adult animals. We further examined the efficiency of recombination by assessing various tamoxifen exposure regimens in adult mice. These results suggest that podocin‐iCre‐ERT2 mouse provides an excellent genetic tool to examine the function of candidate genes in podocytes in a spatially and temporally‐restricted manner. genesis 48:446–451, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Proposing a New Feature for Structure-Aware Analysis of Android Malwares

Android is a major target of attackers for malicious purposes due to its popularity. Despite obvious malicious functionality of Android malware, its analysis is a challenging task. Extracting and using features that discriminate malicious and benign behaviors in applications is essential for malware classification in using machine learning methods. In this paper, we propose a new feature in Android malware classification process which in combination with other proposed features, can discriminate malicious and benign behaviors with a good accuracy. Using components such as activities and services in Android applications’ source code will lead to different flows on invoking between application’s components. We consider this flows of invoking between application components as a new feature which based on Android malware behaviors analysis, is different in benign and malicious applications. Even tough inter-app communications have been covered in many researches, using intra-app communication as a feature in Android malware analysis field using ML methods have been seldom addressed. Our results show that we are able to achieve an accuracy as high as 85% and a false positive rate as low as 10% using SVM classifier on a data-set contain 10,320 Android malware and benign applications.
CONCEPT FORMATION IN EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT

The aim of this study is to analyze how a new concept in educational management is produced during a hired consulting for manager educators. The consulting is part of a chain of activities involving a Secretariat of Education, Boards of Education, and schools in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. This research has been carried out through a partnership between the Management in Creative Chains project (São Paulo-Brazil) and Concept Formation in the Wild (HelsinkiFinland). The importance of the research is related to the gap between educational management based on a business perspective and local school needs. The majority of the data was collected from meetings held in the Secretariat of Education, in boards of education and in schools in the city of São Paulo. The main purpose of these meetings was to produce a new concept of educational management and develop instruments that materialize the concept produced in practice. Thus, the data consist of videorecorded meetings, video and audiorecorded interviews, field observations, and other mediating artifacts developed during the consulting for manager educators, which are analyzed through multiple complementary methods suited for discourse data. Key theoretical concepts in the analysis include sense, meaning, mediating instrument, multivoicedness, and the creative chain of activities. The findings of this research will be reported in four articles tentatively titled as follows: 1. Concept formation in educational management: Through sense and meaning; 2. Multivoicedness in educational management; 3. The management plan as an instrument for the transformation of educational administration; and 4. The creative chain of activities in the process of educational management.
The Role of Microfinance in Women Empowerment: A Study on the SHG Bank Linkage Program in Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh)

Micro finance programs are treated as a key strategy in addressing development issues across nations since the last three decades. This study attempts to explore on the much debated question of the role of microfinance as a financial intermediary for enhancing women empowerment A primary survey has been carried out to capture the realistic experiences and observation from the beneficiaries of Micro sate branch of Hyderabad, a unique initiative of Indian Bank for microfinance operations intended to improve the status of women. The empirical findings of the study suggests that microfinance has a profound influence on the economic status, decision making power, knowledge and self worthiness of women participants of self help group linkage program in Hyderabad. The microfinance related loan availement and its productive utilization found to be causing significant differences in women empowerment levels, measured through women empowerment index (WEI), of the loan availed participants as compared to the non- loan availed. The study confirms that as an anti poverty tool, microfinance has its own limitations to reach the bottom of the poor. However, it is found effective in graduating the poor, not the poorest, and lower middle class to a higher standard of living. Though different studies at various places and points of time differ in their conclusion, the present study acknowledge that despite of bottlenecks, microfinance is capable of graduating struggling poor from their shackles and helps to upscale them to a better living and playing significantly positive role in upgrading women empowerment.
Hermitian and skew-Hermitian solvers and preconditioners application to symmetric and indefinite problems

The aim of the master thesis is to apply the Hermitian and skew-Hermitian (HSS) iterative method and its inexact version to the solution of linear algebraic systems, arising in different applications, with symmetric, but indefinite system matrices. In particular, we consider saddle-point problems coming from a reformulation of the well-known domain decomposition Finite Element Tearing and Interconnecting method as a saddle-point problem with both primal and dual variables as unknowns. This is an alternative, hopefully better, approach to the existing methods, namely block-structured preconditioners combined with suitable Krylov subspace methods or Schur-complement conjugate gradient methods. The convergence of HSS method is studied numerically. The numerical experiments show that the use of the HSS method as a preconditioner in a Krylov subspace method is very efficient.
Predicting Users’ Search Behavior Using Stochastic Multi-mode Network Models

Multidimensional relationships can be represented as a multi-mode network or graph, where each vertex or node corresponds to an object, and each edge or link is attributed to one of the multiple types of relationships between a pair of objects. Web search log includes users' search behavior and can also be represented as such a multi-mode network, where each vertex corresponds to a query and each attributed edge corresponds to a relationship between a pair of queries. The relational attributes can be derived from multiple assumptions, for instance, two queries are considered to be related to each other when two different users input those queries and click through from respective search result lists to the sameWeb pages. In order to analyze such complex data, this paper proposes a new multi-mode block model based on latent variable modeling. We evaluate the effectiveness of our multi-mode block model through experiments on the task of predicting queries related to each given query using real search query log.
Regional and Global Financial Integration in East Asia

We examine the degree of regional vs. global financial integration of East Asian countries in three ways; (1) comparing the size of cross-border assets such as securities and bank claims, (2) estimating the gravity model of bilateral financial asset holdings, and (3) estimating consumption risk sharing model. The results suggest that East Asian financial markets, particularly compared to the European ones, are relatively less integrated with each other than to global markets. We also find relatively more evidence of regional financial integration in bank claim markets than portfolio asset markets. The low financial integration within East Asia is attributed to the low incentives for portfolio diversification within the region, the low degree of development and deregulation of financial markets, and the instability in monetary and exchange rate regime.
Tissue-Selective Regulation of Androgen-Responsive Genes

Introduction. Androgens regulate a wide array of physiological processes, including male sexual development, bone and muscle growth, and behavior and cognition. Because androgens play a vital role in so many tissues, changes in androgen signaling are associated with a plethora of diseases. How such varied responses are achieved by a single stimulus is not well understood. Androgens act primarily through the androgen receptor (AR), a hormone nuclear receptor that is expressed in a select variety of tissues. Methods. In order to gain a better understanding of how the tissue-selective effects of androgens are achieved, we performed a comparison of microarray data, using previously published datasets and several of our own microarray datasets. These datasets were derived from clinically relevant, AR-expressing tissues dissected from rodents treated with the full androgen dihydrotestosterone (DHT). Results. We found that there is a diverse response to DHT, with very little overlap of androgen regulated genes in each tissue. Gene ontology analyses also indicated that, while several tissues regulate similar biological processes in response to DHT, most androgen regulated processes are specific to one or a few tissues. Thus, it appears that the disparate physiological effects mediated by androgens begin with widely varying effects on gene expression in different androgen-sensitive tissues. Conclusion. The analysis completed in this study will lead to an improved understanding of how androgens mediate diverse, tissue-specific processes and better ways to assess the tissue-selective effects of AR modulators during drug development.
LIFE-CYCLE COST EFFECTIVENESS OF BASE-ISOLATED WOODEN HOUSE IN SEISMICALLY ACTIVE REGION

This paper presents the life-cycle cost effectiveness of a base-isolated wooden house in Japan. This house is exposed to intensive seismic hazards since it is located near the seismic source of Miyagi-ken-oki Earthquake (magnitude is about 7.5), which was forecasted to occur in 99 % probability within this 30 years. Strong ground motions are expected around the selected house when the earthquake occurs. In order to examine the effectiveness of the base-isolated system, the life-cycle costs of two design alternatives are compared: one is the base-fixed house and the other is base-isolated one. The analysis demonstrates that the initial investment to the base-isolation system reduces the life-cycle cost imposed on the owner of the house. Based on such a result, the engineers can persuade owners of buildings to purchase base-isolation systems, particularly, in seismically active regions. The life-cycle costs are estimated utilizing the equation formulated by the first author. This equation provides owners of buildings with rational decision-makings because it can directly reflect newly announced information on activities of surrounding seismic sources, and can make use of up-to-date simulation techniques developed in the related academic fields such as seismology, geotechnical engineering, structural engineering and social economics.
Research on Marine Economic Growth Data Mining based on Model of Multiple Industries and Shift-Share Analysis

This paper builds model of multiple industries to analyse contribution of Fujian marine industrial structure change to marine economic growth and apply shift-share analysis method to analyse effect of Fujian marine industrial structure change on marine economic growth. Research results show that the development speed of the secondary marine industry in Fujian province slows down, and the development speed of the tertiary marine industry is relatively fast, and the development level is high. The marine economic competitiveness of Fujian province the core zone of the “maritime silk road”, is strong, while the contribution of marine industrial structure to marine economic growth is insufficient. On this basis, the following policy suggestions on the development of Fujian marine economy are proposed. Keywords—Marine Industry Structure, Marine Economic Growth, Model of Multiple Industries, Shift-Share Analysis
Surface Treatment of PET and PP by Atmospheric Pressure Dielectric Barrier Discharge for Improvement in Hydrophilicity

Low temperature plasmas generated under atmospheric pressure condition has been gaining popularity for the surface treatment of materials due to their many advantages over conventional methods of treatment. This paper reports the study of surface modification of Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) and Polypropylene (PP) by using atmospheric pressure dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) to improve their hydrophilicity. The discharge was generated by using a high voltage power supply (Vpp=50 kV) operating at line frequency (50 Hz). The electrical discharge was characterized by measurement of current and voltage. The samples before and after the treatment were studied using contact angle measurements, surface free energy calculations and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Contact angles of three test liquids: distilled water, glycerol and diiodomethane with the polymer sample were used to determine total surface free energy and its polar and dispersive components. The results showed a remarkable decrease in contact angle with plasma treated samples indicating an improvement in hydrophilicity after the treatment. SEM analysis revealed that the treatment in DBD increases the roughness of the polymer surface resulting an increase in hydrophilicity. It was also observed that addition of a small quantity of argon to the discharge can significantly enhance the surface treatment.