Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Independent Origins of Middle Ear Bones in Monotremes and Therians

A dentary of the oldest known monotreme, the Early Cretaceous Teinolophos trusleri, has an internal mandibular trough, which in outgroups to mammals houses accessory jaw bones, and probable contact facets for angular, coronoid, and splenial bones. Certain of these accessory bones were detached from the mandible to become middle ear bones in mammals. Evidence that the angular (homologous with the mammalian ectotympanic) and the articular and prearticular (homologous with the mammalian malleus) bones retained attachment to the lower jaw in a basal monotreme indicates that the definitive mammalian middle ear evolved independently in living monotremes and therians (marsupials and placentals).
A Multivariable Adaptive Control Approach for Stabilization of a Cart-Type Double Inverted Pendulum

This paper considers the design and practical implementation of linear-based controllers for a cart-type double inverted pendulum (DIPC). A constitution of two linked pendulums placed on a sliding cart, presenting a three Degrees of Freedom and single controlling input structure. The controller objective is to keep both pendulums in an up-up unstable equilibrium point. Modeling is based on the Euler-Lagrange equations, and the resulted nonlinear model is linearized around up-up position. First, the LQR method is used to stabilize DIPC by a feedback gain matrix in order to minimize a quadratic cost function. Without using an observer to estimate the unmeasured states, in the next step we make use of LQG controller which combines the Kalman-Bucy filter estimation and LQR feedback control to obtain a better steady-state performance, but poor robustness. Eventually, to overcome the unknown nonlinear model parameters, an adaptive controller is designed. This controller is based on Model Reference Adaptive System (MRAS) method, which uses the Lyapunov function to eliminate the defined state error. This controller improves both the steady-state and disturbance responses.
Intelligent Agent and Semantic Web based Innovation in the Wholesale Financial Services Industry

It is now widely accepted that success in providing wholesale financial services will depend on the industry’s ability to develop flexible ebusiness models and strategies, as well as its ability to develop innovative systems for knowledge management and customer relationship management that can communicate effectively with legacy systems. In this paper we describe the problems and challenges facing Australian corporations in the Wholesale Financial Services sector and describe a research model that seeks to assess the impact of emerging Intelligent Agent and Semantic Web enabled e-business initiatives, particularly in the areas of system architecture and mass customisation. The purpose is to assist these firms achieve a level of international competitiveness in this area through (a) the investigation and longitudinal monitoring of the current status of and further developments in intelligent agent technologies, and (b) the investigation of emergent applications and successful approaches for the adoption and implementation of these key technologies in the provision of improved value-added customer services. We argue that intelligent agents, the semantic web and knowledge technologies offer a previously unexplored solution to the documented challenges confronting Australia’s Wholesale Financial Services industry. Agent architectures transcend traditional information system designs for applications that require complex, highly customized transactions in an open exception rich environment where responsiveness is imperative. We show that agent architectures naturally support innovation by providing a framework for genuine dynamic information system development, which in turn leads to the kind of system agility that is crucial in the current highly competitive global financial environment. Agents can evolve over time iteratively and independently, without impacting other agents. A key difference between agent architectures and more traditional architectures is that instead of building relationships between software components at design time, agent architectures allow relationships to be formed on the fly at run-time. This results in highly responsive systems that are context-sensitive and that can be opportunistic in a competitive complex business environment. The ability to be opportunistic is particularly important in the current highly competitive global wholesale financial services industry.
Foreign Direct Investment and Innovation in Central and Eastern Europe: Evidence from Estonia

A growing literature is trying to analyse the productivity gap between domestic and foreign firms with differences in innovation indicators. In our paper we analyse the relationship between inward and outward FDI at either company or industry level and the innovation behaviour of companies in Estonia. We use company-level data from three waves of the Community Innovation Surveys, which are combined with financial data from the Estonian Business Register and FDI data from the balance of payments statistics. For the analysis we apply a structural model involving equations on innovation expenditure, innovation outcome and productivity, and also innovation accounting and propensity score matching approaches. Our results show that the higher innovation output of foreign owned companies vanishes after various company characteristics are controlled for, but there were significant differences in innovation inputs such as the higher use of knowledge sourcing and the lower importance of various impeding factors. Outward investment has a positive influence on innovativeness among both domestic and foreign owned companies.
Induction of dendritic spines by an extracellular domain of AMPA receptor subunit GluR 2

along radii centred at fixation. Each frame was constructed from a new set of pairs. Initially, frames were refreshed at 50 Hz, later in the series of experiments at 12 Hz. In the rotations, we varied the separation between the elements of a pair (the Glass shift) initially over 18, 28, 48, 88, 168 and 328 of rotation; later we added 128 and 248. To correct for the unequal number of presentations, the probabilities in Fig. 1 were calculated as a fraction of the number of times that a shift was used. To stimulate MT cells adequately, we used larger dots than in the psychophysics; the range of shifts was selected such that human observers judged only the centre of the range to be moving. In the translations, the shift was 18, a value that led to a consistent motion percept in human observers. In the 'noise' condition, 100 random dots were randomly repositioned at 50 Hz or 12 Hz. In the clockwise and anticlockwise conditions, 100 random dots rotated coherently. The rotation speeds (angular velocity 2408 s 21) matched the perceived speed in the Glass patterns. In any experiment, the dot density, extent and luminance were the same for all patterns. To determine direction tuning, 100 random dots moved on a circular fronto-parallel pathway. This generated motion in all directions and a tuning curve could quickly be generated 11. Latency was defined as the first 40-ms bin in which an onset response significantly (P , 0.05) exceeded the rate in the 200 ms before stimulus onset. To determine the preferred direction (PD), we corrected for the latency, and determined the circular pathway response in 40-ms bins. The PD was defined as the centroid of this activity. The Rayleigh test 20 gave a measure of its significance. In the interaction paradigms, we combined the circular pathway with Glass patterns or real translations. We called the angle between the PD of the cell and the orientation of the Glass pattern (or the axis of motion for real translation) the conflict angle. Using the axis of motion allowed us to compare the effect of real motion with that of the directionally ambiguous Glass patterns. The change in PD due to the additional pattern was called the deflection. To determine the population deflection, we binned the deflections with respect to the conflict angle (bin width 208) and averaged over all cells. Its significance …
Integer affine transformations of parametric ℤ-polytopes and applications to loop nest optimization

The polyhedral model is a well-known compiler optimization framework for the analysis and transformation of affine loop nests. We present a new method to solve a difficult geometric operation that is raised by this model: the integer affine transformation of parametric ℤ-polytopes. The result of such a transformation is given by a worst-case exponential union of ℤ-polytopes. We also propose a polynomial algorithm (for fixed dimension), to count points in arbitrary unions of a fixed number of parametric ℤ-polytopes. We implemented these algorithms and compared them to other existing algorithms, for a set of applications to loop nest analysis and optimization.
Designing a new generalized battery management system

Battery management systems (BMSs) are used in many battery-operated industrial and commercial systems to make the battery operation more efficient and the estimation of battery state nondestructive. The existing BMS techniques are examined in this paper and a new design methodology for a generalized reliable BMS is proposed. The main advantage of the proposed BMS compared to the existing systems is that it provides a fault-tolerant capability and battery protection. The proposed BMS consists of a number of smart battery modules (SBMs) each of which provides battery equalization, monitoring, and battery protection to a string of battery cells. An evaluation SBM was developed and tested in the laboratory and experimental results verify the theoretical expectations.
Acquisition and generalization of key word signing by three children with autism

Abstract Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the effect of Key Word Sign (KWS) intervention on the acquisition and generalization of manual signing among three children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and to measure any changes in their production of spoken words and gestures following intervention. Methods: A multiple baseline single-case experimental design was used to measure changes for each of the three children. Results: All three children began using signs following the introduction of the KWS intervention, and generalized their use of some signs across activities. The introduction of the intervention was associated with either neutral, or statistically significantly positive, changes in the children’s production of spoken words and natural gestures. Conclusion: The results provide preliminary evidence for the effectiveness of KWS for preschool children with ASD, which parents, therapists, and educators can use to inform clinical practice.
Eliciting expert opinion on the effectiveness and practicality of interventions in the farm and rural environment to reduce human exposure to Escherichia coli O157

SUMMARY Few hard data are available on emergent diseases. However, the need to mitigate and manage emergent diseases has prompted the use of various expert consultation and opinion elicitation methods. We adapted best-worst scaling (BWS) to elicit experts' assessment of the relative practicality and effectiveness of measures to reduce human exposure to E. coli O157. Cattle vaccination was considered the most effective and hand-washing was considered the most practical measure. BWS proved a powerful tool for expert elicitation as it breaks down a cognitively burdensome process into simple, repeated, tasks. In addition, statistical analysis of the resulting data provides a scaled set of scores for the measures, rather than just a ranking. The use of two criteria (practicality and effectiveness) within the BWS process allows the identification of subsets of measures judged as potentially performing well on both criteria, and conversely those judged to be neither effective nor practical.
The Machine Learning Toolbox Consultant

The Machine Learning Toolbox contains a set of ten Machine Learning algorithms, integrated with a common interface and common knowledge representation language. An essential component of the Toolbox is the Consultant, a knowledge-based system that advises novice users about which algorithm they could use for a particular application. We show how the Consultant’s architecture evolved, through its successive implementations, from a rigid rule-based expert system to a flexible information browsing system supporting user experimentation. In particular, we show how a task description can be elicited from the user in three different modes and exploited by several functions to provide advice and explanations at various levels of detail. The system’s output also increased in sophistication: initially limited to the recommendation of a suitable algorithm, it now includes detailed information about the algorithm and its usage, and will be extended to help the user interpret and improve the results of learning.
Remobilisation of phosphorus fractions in rice flag leaves during grain filling: Implications for photosynthesis and grain yields

Phosphorus (P) is translocated from vegetative tissues to developing seeds during senescence in annual crop plants, but the impact of this P mobilisation on photosynthesis and plant performance is poorly understood. This study investigated rice (Oryza sativa L.) flag leaf photosynthesis and P remobilisation in a hydroponic study where P was either supplied until maturity or withdrawn permanently from the nutrient solution at anthesis, 8 days after anthesis (DAA) or 16 DAA. Prior to anthesis, plants received either the minimum level of P in nutrient solution required to achieve maximum grain yield (‘adequate P treatment’), or received luxury levels of P in the nutrient solution (‘luxury P treatment’). Flag leaf photosynthesis was impaired at 16 DAA when P was withdrawn at anthesis or 8 DAA under adequate P supply but only when P was withdrawn at anthesis under luxury P supply. Ultimately, reduced photosynthesis did not translate into grain yield reductions. There was some evidence plants remobilised less essential P pools (e.g. Pi) or replaceable P pools (e.g. phospholipid-P) prior to remobilisation of P in pools critical to leaf function such as nucleic acid-P and cytosolic Pi. Competition for P between vegetative tissues and developing grains can impair photosynthesis when P supply is withdrawn during early grain filling. A reduction in the P sink strength of grains by genetic manipulation may enable leaves to sustain high rates of photosynthesis until the later stages of grain filling.
A network-conscious approach to end-to-end video delivery over wide area networks using proxy servers

In this paper we present a novel network-conscious approach to the problem of end-to-end video delivery over wide-area networks using proxy servers situated between local-area networks (LANs) and a backbone wide-area network (WAN). We develop a novel and effective video delivery technique called video staging via intelligent utilization of the disk bandwidth and storage space available at proxy servers. We also design several video staging methods and evaluate their effectiveness in reducing the backbone WAN bandwidth requirement. Our results demonstrate that the proposed proxy-server-based, network-conscious approach provides an effective and scalable solution to the problem of the end-to-end video delivery over wide-area networks.
Noise estimation in MR GRAPPA reconstructed data

A new method to estimate the variance of noise from the composite magnitude signal of GRAPPA reconstructed images is presented. Parallel imaging methods allow to increase the acquisition rate via subsampled acquisitions of the k-space. However, the reconstruction process yields to a variance of noise value which is dependent on the position within the image. The proposed method uses information of the GRAPPA reconstruction coefficients and assumes a final non-central chi distribution to recover the spatial pattern of noise.
Effects of Fornix Transection on Spontaneous and Trained Non-Matching by Monkeys

Three monkeys with fornix transection and three normal control monkeys performed a series of tasks which were variations of delayed non-matching. Experiment 1 showed that even at short retention intervals fornix transection impaired the spontaneous tendency to explore novel objects. Experiment 2 provided differential reward for non-matching and showed that the fornix-transected monkeys learned and performed non-matching normally even though the sample-match retention intervals were long throughout the experiment. Experiment 3 showed that non-matching performance was transiently more disrupted in fornix-transected than in normal monkeys when the testing procedure was changed, in a variety of ways, while maintaining the basic non-match rule. Experiment 4 required the monkeys to discriminate objects they had displaced from objects they had seen but not displaced; fornix transection produced in this task a substantial and stable impairment. These four experiments require a revised interpretation of the effects of fornix transection upon recognition memory and exploration. Particularly they contradict the hypothesis, suggested by previous experiments, that fornix transection produces a defect in discrimination of stimulus familiarity in long-term but not in short-term memory. They suggest rather that fornix transection impairs memory of instrumental responses.
LGR5-Targeted Antibody–Drug Conjugate Eradicates Gastrointestinal Tumors and Prevents Recurrence

Gastrointestinal cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related mortality in men and women worldwide. The adult stem cell marker LGR5 (leucine-rich repeat-containing, G protein–coupled receptor 5) is highly expressed in a significant fraction of gastrointestinal tumors of the colon, liver, pancreas, and stomach, relative to normal tissues. LGR5 is located on the cell surface and undergoes rapid, constitutive internalization independent of ligand. Furthermore, LGR5-high cancer cells have been shown to exhibit the properties of tumor-initiating cells or cancer stem cells (CSC). On the basis of these attributes, we generated two LGR5-targeting antibody–drug conjugates (ADC) by tethering the tubulin-inhibiting cytotoxic drug monomethyl auristatin E to a highly specific anti-LGR5 mAb via a protease cleavable or noncleavable chemical linker and compared them in receptor binding, cell internalization, and cytotoxic efficacy in cancer cells. Here, we show that both ADCs bind LGR5 with high specificity and equivalent nanomolar affinity and rapidly internalize to the lysosomes of LGR5-expressing gastrointestinal cancer cells. The anti-LGR5 ADCs effectively induced cytotoxicity in LGR5-high gastrointestinal cancer cells, but not in LGR5-negative or -knockdown cancer cell lines. Overall, we demonstrate that the cleavable ADC exhibited higher potency in vitro and was able to eradicate tumors and prevent recurrence in a xenograft model of colon cancer. These findings provide preclinical evidence for the potential of LGR5-targeting ADCs as effective new therapeutics for the treatment and eradication of gastrointestinal tumors and CSCs with high LGR5 expression. Mol Cancer Ther; 15(7); 1580–90. ©2016 AACR.
Endosomal Proteolysis by Cathepsins Is Necessary for Murine Coronavirus Mouse Hepatitis Virus Type 2 Spike-Mediated Entry

ABSTRACT Most strains of murine coronavirus mouse hepatitis virus (MHV) express a cleavable spike glycoprotein that mediates viral entry and pH-independent cell-cell fusion. The MHV type 2 (MHV-2) strain of murine coronavirus differs from other strains in that it expresses an uncleaved spike and cannot induce cell-cell fusion at neutral pH values. We show here that while infection of the prototype MHV-A59 strain is not sensitive to pretreatment with lysosomotropic agents, MHV-2 replication is significantly inhibited by these agents. By use of an A59/MHV-2 chimeric virus, the susceptibility to lysosomotropic agents is mapped to the MHV-2 spike, suggesting a requirement of acidification of endosomes for MHV-2 spike-mediated entry. However, acidification is likely not a direct trigger for MHV-2 spike-mediated membrane fusion, as low-pH treatment is unable to overcome ammonium chloride inhibition, and it also cannot induce cell-cell fusion between MHV-2-infected cells. In contrast, trypsin treatment can both overcome ammonium chloride inhibition and promote cell-cell fusion. Inhibitors of the endosomal cysteine proteases cathepsin B and cathepsin L greatly reduce MHV-2 spike-mediated entry, while they have little effect on A59 entry, suggesting that there is a proteolytic step in MHV-2 entry. Finally, a recombinant virus expressing a cleaved MHV-2 spike has the ability to induce cell-cell fusion at neutral pH values and does not require low pH and endosomal cathepsins during infection. These studies demonstrate that endosomal proteolysis by cathepsins is necessary for MHV-2 spike-mediated entry; this is similar to the entry pathway recently described for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus and indicates that coronaviruses may use multiple pathways for entry.
Mating preferences, sexual selection and patterns of cladogenesis in ray‐finned fishes

Evolutionary theory predicts that sexual selection may increase taxonomic diversity when emergent mating preferences result in reproductive isolation and therefore speciation. This theory has been invoked to explain patterns of diversity in ray‐finned fishes (most notably in the cichlids), but the theory has not been tested comparatively in fish. Additionally, several other unrelated factors have been identified as promoters of cladogenesis, so it is unclear how important sexual selection might be in diversification. Using sister‐clade analysis, I tested the relationship between the presence of sexually selected traits and taxonomic diversification in actinopterygiian fishes, a large clade that shows substantial diversity in mating preferences and related sexually selected traits. In all identified sister‐families that differed with regard to the proportion of species manifesting sexually selected traits, sexual selection was correlated with increased diversification, and this association was significant across all sister clades (P = 0.02). This suggests that sexual selection, when present, is a substantial driver of diversification in the ray‐finned fishes, and lends further empirical support to the theoretical link between mating preferences and accelerated cladogenesis.
Beam Shaping and Control with Nonlinear Optics

We demonstrate the feasibility of strong (up to atomic fields) and super-short (fewor even sub-femtosecond) sub-cycle (non-oscillating) electromagnetic solitons -EM bubbles (EMBs) in a gas of two-level atoms, as well as EMBs and pre-ionization shock waves in classically nonlinear atoms. We show that EMBs can be generated by existing sources of radiation, including sub-picosecond half-cycle pulses and very short laser pulses. We investigate how EMB characteristics are controlled by those of originating pulses. Our most recent results are focused on the related transient phenomena, including EMB formation length, multi-bubble generation and shock-like waves. We also develop the theory of the diffraction-induced transformation of sub-cycle pulses in linear media. * Also with Abteilung für Quantenphysik, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany