Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Synapsin Selectively Controls the Mobility of Resting Pool Vesicles at Hippocampal Terminals

Presynaptic terminals are specialized sites for information transmission where vesicles fuse with the plasma membrane and are locally recycled. Recent work has extended this classical view, with the observation that a subset of functional vesicles is dynamically shared between adjacent terminals by lateral axonal transport. Conceptually, such transport would be expected to disrupt vesicle retention around the active zone, yet terminals are characterized by a high-density vesicle cluster, suggesting that counteracting stabilizing mechanisms must operate against this tendency. The synapsins are a family of proteins that associate with synaptic vesicles and determine vesicle numbers at the terminal, but their specific function remains controversial. Here, using multiple quantitative fluorescence-based approaches and electron microscopy, we show that synapsin is instrumental for resisting vesicle dispersion and serves as a regulatory element for controlling lateral vesicle sharing between synapses. Deleting synapsin disrupts the organization of presynaptic vesicle clusters, making their boundaries hard to define. Concurrently, the fraction of vesicles amenable to transport is increased, and more vesicles are translocated to the axon. Importantly, in neurons from synapsin knock-out mice the resting and recycling pools are equally mobile. Synapsin, when present, specifically restricts the mobility of resting pool vesicles without affecting the division of vesicles between these pools. Specific expression of synapsin IIa, the sole isoform affecting synaptic depression, rescues the knock-out phenotype. Together, our results show that synapsin is pivotal for maintaining synaptic vesicle cluster integrity and that it contributes to the regulated sharing of vesicles between terminals.
High accurate model-integration-based voice conversion using dynamic features and model structure optimization

This paper combines a parameter generation algorithm and a model optimization approach with the model-integration-based voice conversion (MIVC). We have proposed probabilistic integration of a joint density model and a speaker model to mitigate a requirement of the parallel corpus in voice conversion (VC) based on Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM). As well as the other VC methods, MIVC also suffers from the problems; the degradation of the perceptual quality caused by the discontinuity through the parameter trajectory, and the difficulty to optimize the model structure. To solve the problems, this paper proposes a parameter generation algorithm constrained by dynamic features for the first problem and an information criterion including mutual influences between the joint density model and the speaker model for the second problem. Experimental results show that the first approach improved the performance of VC and the second approach appropriately predicted the optimal number of mixtures of the speaker model for our MIVC.
Data Caches for Multithreaded Processors

Multithreaded processors can keep different threads of execution running together inside the processor. One of the main drawbacks of these organizations is the pressure they exert on the memory system, since references from different programs access the same cache, thus causing interferences among them (inter-thread misses) and increasing the interferences inside them (intra-thread misses). This work investigates and evaluates different cache organizations for these architectures. First, we show that conventional caches are not the best way to deal with references from concurrent threads. Then, we propose various optimizations; some of which are borrowed from proposals made for conventional caches (bitwise-XOR placement functions, double access, cache splitting). We show that the cache that provides the best performance is diveded into different areas, each of which is assigned to a thread. Each load first accesses its local area, and, in the case of a miss, it accesses the whole cache with a different placement function. This organization has a nearly optimal performance (i.e. that of a fully-associative cache), for a size of 16 KB and 4 threads running together.
Phase transition phenomena in wireless ad hoc networks

There are many contexts in distributed wireless networks where there is a critical threshold, corresponding to a minimum amount of the communication effort or power expenditure by individual nodes, above which a desirable global property exists with high probability. When this individual node effort is below the threshold the desired global property exists with a low probability. This "phase transition" is typically seen to become sharper as the number of nodes in the network increases. We discuss some examples of properties that exhibit such critical behavior: node reachability with probabilistic flooding, ad-hoc network connectivity, and sensor network coordination. We discuss the connections between these phenomena and the phase transitions that have been shown to arise in random graphs. We argue that a good understanding of these phase transition phenomena can provide useful design principles for engineering distributed wireless networks.
Serious Games for Mobile Devices: the InTouch Project Case Study

The paper presents the InTouch project and discusses design principles, implementation and evaluation of serious mobile games for the development of soft skills. 30 serious games for mobile devices were produced to be tested and evaluated during Learning Labs participated by SMEs professionals operating in different business sectors from seven European countries. The games describe situational learning cases related to 10 non routine skills, and use different types of interaction. Evaluation results are described, showing an overall positive impact deriving from the choice of the serious game approach and the use of mobile devices. When analyzing the role of different dimensions of the games, the most relevant elements influencing players’ satisfaction and their willingness to play again were found to be the levels of fun and difficulty associated with the games, the interest, the sense of reality and the adequacy of duration of the games.
Minimum Bayes Risk Estimation and Decoding in Large Vocabulary Continuous Speech Recognition

Minimum Bayes risk estimation and decoding strategies based on lattice segmentation techniques can be used to refine large vocabulary continuous speech recognition systems through the estimation of the parameters of the underlying hidden Markov models and through the identification of smaller recognition tasks which provides the opportunity to incorporate novel modeling and decoding procedures in LVCSR. These techniques are discussed in the context of going 'beyond HMMs', showing in particular that this process of subproblem identification makes it possible to train and apply small-domain binary pattern classifiers, such as Support Vector Machines, to large vocabulary continuous speech recognition.
Evaluation of multiplexing and buffer policies influence on VoIP conversation quality

This work presents a study of RTP multiplexing schemes, which are compared with the normal use of RTP, in terms of ITU R-factor quality estimator. The bandwidth saving of the different schemes is studied, and some tests with VoIP traffic are carried out in order to compare R-factor using three different router buffer policies. Network delays are added using an adequate statistical distribution. The tests show the bandwidth savings of multiplexing, and also the importance of the packet size with time-limited buffer policies. The customer experience improvement which can be achieved is measured in terms of R-factor, showing that the use of multiplexing can be interesting in some scenarios, like an enterprise with different offices connected via Internet.
Participation motives for a holistic dance-movement practice

Recent decades have seen the appearance of forms of physical activity where the emphasis goes beyond traditional exercise to include a striving towards holistic well-being. However, not much is known about what attracts people to these holistically orientated practices compared to typical sport and exercise participation motives. The purpose of this study was to explore the participation motives for a holistic dance-movement practice called 5Rhythms, comprising free movement within the structure of five distinct “rhythms”. Ninety eight dancers responded to an e-mail survey consisting of two open-ended questions querying them about what attracted them to 5Rhythms and what kept them dancing. A thematic analysis led to 10 motive themes, with freedom, safety, emotions, personal growth, spirituality, and social motives emerging particularly strongly. It was noteworthy that health and appearance-related motives were virtually absent in the participants’ accounts, while fitness was important for some but not others and tended to be marginal compared to other motives. It was concluded that the inherent holistic features of the practice are reflected in participants’ motives and that 5Rhythms may serve a sub-population with particular values and needs. This underscores the notion that the varied characteristics of different physical activity contexts self-select different subsets of people according to matching values and beliefs.
On “The Fall of the House of Usher"

Regarded as a classic piece of American romantic literature, Edgar Allan Poe's “The Fall of the House of Usher" has always been the favorite of literary critics at home and abroad. This work's unique artistic glamour derives from a series of binary oppositions, which are undergoing a simultaneous process of pairing and splitting. These binary oppositions are ration and irration, the house of Usher and its owner, Roderick and his sister, literature and reality.
Heart rate and its variability as an indicator of mental health in male prisoners

Heart rate (HR) and its variability (HRV) has been proposed as a marker for depressive symptoms and other aspects of mental health. However, the real correlation between them is presently uncertain, as previous studies have generally been conducted on the basis of small samples. In a sample of 113 adult male prisoners, we analyzed correlations between five measures of HR/HRV and five psychological measures of mental health aspects (depression, state and trait anxiety, and social relationships). We used Nadaraya-Watson non-parametric regression in both directions and age-stratified Spearman correlation to detect possible relations. Despite strong correlations among HR/HRV measures and among psychological measures, correlations between HR/HRV and psychological measures were low and non-significant for the overall sample. However, we found an age dependency, suggesting some correlations in younger people (HR with STAI-State, r = 0.39; with HADS-Anxiety, r = 0.52; both p < .005). Overall, the general utility of HR/HRV as a marker for mental health across populations remains unclear. Future research should address age and other potential confounders more consistently.
Transmit FDE weight design for single-carrier space-time block coded joint transmit/receive diversity

Single-carrier (SC) transmission using frequency-domain space-time block coded joint transmit/receive diversity (FD-STBC-JTRD) combined with transmit frequency-domain equalization (FDE) obtains full spatial diversity gain and frequency diversity gain. Channel state information (CSI) is required only at transmitter for transmit FDE. In our previous study of SC FD-STBC-JTRD, single transmit FDE weight matrix was used. In this paper, noting that a sequence of data blocks is STBC encoded into a code-word composed of a new sequence of coded data blocks, we derive the optimal transmit FDE weight design. Multiple transmit FDE weight matrices, each associated with each coded block in a STBC code-word, are used unlike our previous transmit FDE weight design. Transmit FDE weight matrices are jointly optimized based on the minimization of the mean square error (MSE) between the transmitted signal before STBC encoding and the received signal after STBC decoding. We show by theoretical analysis that the optimal transmit FDE weight design can achieve 1/RSTBC times higher signal-to-interference plus noise power ratio (SINR) than our previous design (single transmit FDE weight matrix), where RSTBC denotes the STBC coding rate. And then, we show, by computer simulation, the optimal transmit FDE weight design achieves better bit error rate (BER) performance than our previous design.
The Presentation of Interaction for Coverage Analysis in Sensor Networks

Because of sensors with different types and some other different characteristics in real deployment, there exist four kinds of interaction among sensors in information fusion for coverage analysis, including negative synergy, positive synergy, independency and interference. In order to handle the interaction properly, the discrete fuzzy measure theory is introduced to represent the interaction among sensors and discuss how to determine the interaction via fuzzy measure in sensor networks. An example is provided to illustrate the interaction in sensor networks. The results show that handling the interaction among sensors in networks can provide more useful information for coverage analysis.
Environmental Controls on Soil Co2 Flux Following Fire in Black Spruce, White Spruce, and Aspen Stands of Interior Alaska

Boreal forests contain large amounts of stored soil carbon and are susceptible to periodic disturbance by wildfire. This study evaluates the relationship between post-fire changes in soil temperature, moisture, and CO2 exchange in paired burned and control stands of three Alaskan forest systems: Picea mariana (Mill.) BSP, Picea glauca (Moench) Voss, and Populus tremuloides Michx. In these systems, the environmental factor that most directly controlled rates of carbon exchange varied depending upon burn status and soil drainage. In mature unburned stands, CO2 flux was highly correlated with seasonal patterns of soil temperature. Following fire, these soils became significantly warmer, and carbon exchange became more sensitive to fluctuations in surface moisture conditions. The effect of fire on soil climate was most pronounced in the P. mariana stands, which experienced a mean seasonal temperature increase of 58°C in the upper 1 m of the soil profile, a 200% increase in the rate of active layer thaw, and .
Some non-perturbative calculations on spin glasses

Models of spin glasses are studied with a phase transition which is discontinuous in the Parisi order parameter. It is assumed that the leading-order corrections to the thermodynamic limit of the high-temperature free energy are due to the existence of a metastable saddle point in the replica formalism. An ansatz is made for the form of the metastable point and its contribution to the free energy is calculated. The random energy model is considered along with the Ising spin glass with p-spin interactions and the p-state Potts glass with two-spin interactions in their p< infinity expansion.
An abstract machine based on linear logic and explicit substitutions

We present xLIN, a novel linear abstract machine that introduces no penalty in computing with non-linear resources, while computing with linear resources might, in principle, be as fast as a series of destructive updates. Garbage collection would not be required for linear objects, while still present for non-linear objects. We propose a weak calculus of explicit substitutions as its foundations, and show how it may be easily \derived" from it. A proof of correctness, then, comes for free. We illustrate in which way this machine may be seen as a re nement of Krivine's abstract machine, and hint at how non-linear computation could be optimized to serve as framework for the implementation of functional languages. Besides, not to sound so optimistic at this rather preliminary stage of development, we comment on the inherent incompatibilities that exist between the techniques suggested by the high-level description of the machine.
Chiron: A Robust Recommendation System

Recommendation systems have been widely used by commercial service providers for giving suggestions to users based on their previous behaviors. While a large portion of users faithfully express their opinions, some malicious users add noisy ratings in order to change the overall ratings of a specific group of items. The presence of noise can add bias to recommendations, leading to instabilities in estimation and prediction. Although the robustness of different recommendation systems has been extensively studied, designing a robust recommendation system remains a significant challenge as detecting malicious users is computationally expensive. In this work, we propose Chiron, a fast and robust hybrid recommendation system that is not only faster than most state-of-the-art methods, but is also resistant to manipulation by malicious users.
The Psychosis High-Risk State

The disabling nature and costly impact of mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, can cause significant burden to both person and society. It is also indicated that the negative outcomes associated with psychosis may, in part, be due to the delayed detection and initiation of treatment. Preventative interventions in several arenas of medicine have advanced, but have only come to the fore in psychiatry in the last two decades. It was long known that a preclinical phase preceded psychosis, now commonly termed as ‘ultra-high-risk (UHR)' status. The advent of specialized early intervention services provided the cornerstone in taking a preventative and timely endeavor to maximize the chance of positive outcomes in psychosis. Despite the potential, the current state of the UHR concept lacks consensus in how at-risk individuals should be approached. This chapter aims to provide an overview of how preventative medicine can intersect with psychiatry by focusing on the psychosis high-risk state. It describes the current criteria and screening procedures used to prospectively detect UHR individuals and discusses the validity of these tools. While advocating the benefits of focused interventions, this chapter also recognizes current challenges and the controversy that leaves the psychosis high-risk state on fertile ground for wavering opinions. The chapter concludes with an exploration and discussion that proposes an improved conceptualization of the high-risk state and how this can direct intervention, as well as suggests future lines of research in this area.
Axonal transport and distribution of endogenous calcitonin gene-related peptide in rat peripheral nerve

Calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) has been found in both sensory and motor neurons. It has been suggested that CGRP is transported from neuron cell bodies to their terminals, where it may act as an anterograde trophic factor. However, it is not known how fast CGRP is transported or whether CGRP found in the innervated target organ indeed originated in neural tissues. We have quantified endogenous CGRP in the rat peripheral nerve by a newly developed enzyme immunoassay. The CGRP immunoreactive material obtained from neural tissues coincided with synthetic rat CGRP in fractional distributions separated by gel filtration. After ligation of the sciatic nerve, tissue CGRP accumulated in the segment central to the ligature. The rate of anterograde transport of CGRP was about 1 mm/hr in both sensory and motor fibers. In the sciatic nerve, only a small fraction of CGRP measured was found to originate from the motor nerve fibers. This may be due in part to the disproportionately large number of sensory fibers in the sciatic nerve and in part to the possible presence of CGRP in sympathetic nerve fibers. The CGRP content in the dorsal root fibers was significantly lower than that in the peripheral processes of the sensory neurons. The CGRP content in the hind leg muscle was much higher than that expected from the amount of CGRP per nerve fiber in the sciatic nerve. Most CGRP in muscle disappeared following denervation. It is concluded that CGRP highly concentrated in nerve terminals is supplied by axonal transport from the neuron cell bodies.
Information-Theoretic Methods for Planning and Learning in Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes

Bounded agents are limited by intrinsic constraints on their ability to process information that is available in their sensors and memory and choose actions and memory updates. In this dissertation, we model these constraints as information-rate constraints on communication channels connecting these various internal components of the agent. We make four major contributions detailed below and many smaller contributions detailed in each section. First, we formulate the problem of optimizing the agent under both extrinsic and intrinsic constraints and develop the main tools for solving it. Second, we identify another reason for the challenging convergence properties of the optimization algorithm, which is the bifurcation structure of the update operator near phase transitions. Third, we study the special case of linear-Gaussian dynamics and quadratic cost (LQG), where the optimal solution has a particularly simple and solvable form. Fourth, we explore the learning task, where the model of the world dynamics is unknown and sample-based updates are used instead.
Physical and Filter Pinna Models Based on Anthropometry

This paper addresses the fundamental problem of relating the anthropometry of the pinna to the localization cues it creates. The HRTFs for isolated pinnae (which are called PRTFs) are analyzed and modeled for sound sources directly in front of the listener. It is shown that a low-order filter model, with parameters suggested by or derived from pinna anthropometry, provides a good fit to the data. Methods are reported for adjusting the model parameters to fit the PRTF data. It is often possible to estimate the model parameters from a few geometrical measurements of the pinna. However, direct estimation from pinna anthropometry in general remains an unsolved problem, and the nature of this problem is discussed.
Reconstructing Requirements Traceability in Design and Test Using Latent Semantic Indexing

Managing traceability data is an important aspect of the software development process. In this paper we define a methodology, consisting of six steps, for reconstructing requirements views using traceability data. One of the steps concerns the reconstruction of the traceability data. We investigate to what extent Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), an information retrieval technique, can help recovering the information needed for automatically reconstructing traceability of requirements during the development process. We experiment with different link selection strategies and apply LSI in multiple case studies varying in size and context. We discuss the results of a small lab study, a larger case study and a large industrial case study.
A Low-Cost Digital Microscope with Real-Time Fluorescent Imaging Capability

This paper describes the development of a prototype of a low-cost digital fluorescent microscope built from commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components. The prototype was tested to detect malignant tumor cells taken from a living organism in a preclinical setting. This experiment was accomplished by using Alexa Fluor 488 conjugate dye attached to the cancer cells. Our prototype utilizes a torch along with an excitation filter as a light source for fluorophore excitation, a dichroic mirror to reflect the excitation and pass the emitted green light from the sample under test and a barrier filter to permit only appropriate wavelength. The system is designed out of a microscope using its optical zooming property and an assembly of exciter filter, dichroic mirror and transmitter filter. The microscope is connected to a computer or laptop through universal serial bus (USB) that allows real-time transmission of captured florescence images; this also offers real-time control of the microscope. The designed system has comparable features of high-end commercial fluorescent microscopes while reducing cost, power, weight and size.