Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Orientation selectivity and population coding in V 1

When a visual stimulus is presented in the visual field, visual information are conveyed from the retina to the visual cortex via subcortical pathways. In the visual cortex, neurons are sensitive to stimulus properties such as orientation tuning, and this sensitive of single cells has been well studied in the literature. But using single cells can be limited by many problems such as noise or robustness. With the improvement of techniques such as multi-electrodes arrays, we aim to better understand how orientations are coded in real time by populations of neurons.
The debate over â€˜Thirlwall's lawâ€™: balance-of-payments-constrained growth reconsidered

Several recent critiques have questioned the theoretical logic of standard models of balance-of-payments-constrained growth (BPCG) and the empirical support for â€˜Thirlwall's lawâ€™. On the empirical side, critics charge that most econometric estimates of this model have effectively only tested whether exports and imports grow at similar rates in the long run. On the theoretical side, the criticisms have focused on the role of foreign income growth, capital accumulation, relative prices and country size in BPCG models. This article reviews the current state of the debate over these critiques and also offers a brief discussion and evaluation of three alternative models. The alternative models all highlight a significant role for the level of relative prices (or the real exchange rate) in determining long-run growth, which is consistent with recent empirical studies.
Short and prolonged periods of maternal separation and voluntary ethanol intake in male and female ethanol-preferring AA and ethanol-avoiding ANA rats.

BACKGROUND Genetic as well as environmental factors can affect the propensity for psychopathology and/or drug dependence. Maternal separation represents an animal experimental model that is useful in studies of effects of early life experiences. The authors have established a protocol for short and prolonged periods of maternal separation to study adult neurochemistry, behavior, and ethanol intake and have previously reported alterations in ethanol intake in Wistar rats and ethanol-preferring rats. The aim of the current study was to more thoroughly study how early life experiences affect an inherited propensity for high and low ethanol intake, respectively, in male and female ethanol-preferring AA (Alko alcohol) and ethanol-avoiding ANA (Alko, Non-Alcohol) rats. METHODS AA and ANA pups were assigned to one of three different rearing conditions: 15 min (MS15) or 360 min (MS360) of daily maternal separation in litters or normal animal facility rearing (AFR) during postnatal days 1 to 21. In adulthood, voluntary ethanol intake was investigated using the two-bottle free choice paradigm. RESULTS In male ethanol-preferring AA rats, MS15 resulted in a lower intake and fewer high-preferring animals at 8% and 10% ethanol compared with MS360 rats. The male MS360 rats had a higher ethanol intake at 8% and 10% ethanol in comparison with AFR rats. In contrast, the female AA MS15 and MS360 rats had a lower ethanol intake and a lower preference for the 10% ethanol solution compared with the female AA AFR rats. In male and female ANA rats, no major separation-induced effects were found. CONCLUSIONS The current results show that genetic inheritance can be affected by environmental manipulations in AA rats with an inherent high ethanol intake. The findings in female ethanol-preferring AA rats give further evidence of a differential outcome of maternal separation in male and female rats, as previously shown.
Emotion Recognition through Keystroke Dynamics on Touchscreen Keyboards

: Automatic emotion recognition through computers offers a lot of advantages, as the interaction between human and computers can be improved. For example, it is possible to be responsive to anger or frustration of customers automatically while working with a webpage. Mouse cursor movements and keystroke dynamics were already used and examined for such a recognition on conventional keyboards. The aim of this work is to investigate keystroke dynamics on touchscreen keyboards which gets a cumulative relevance through the increasingly further circulation of smartphones and tablets. Furthermore, it is possible to record additional information like pressure and size of keystrokes. This could increase the recognition rate for emotions. In order to record the keystroke dynamics, an application and keyboard layout for Android OS were developed. In addition, hypotheses were established on the basis of Yerkes-Dodson-Law and Flow theory and besides, a study with 152 test persons for the data collection was implemented. Subsequently, a data evaluation with the SPSS software was accomplished. Most of the hypotheses were conﬁrmed and the results of the study show that emotions can be explained by the keystroke dynamics and recognized in this way.
Sexual Life and Sexual Frigidity Among Women Developing Acute Myocardial Infarction

&NA; The various aspects of the sexual life of 100 female patients aged 40‐60 with acute myocardial infarction were compared with those of a control group of 100 female patients of the same age, hospitalized for other diseases. Sexual frigidity and dissatisfaction were found among 65% of the coronary patients as compared with 24% of the controls. The commonest cause for sexual dissatisfaction was premature ejaculation or impotence in the husband. The incidence of premarital sexual relations was greater among the frigid patients when compared with those who achieved orgasm. The coronary patients had an earlier menopausal age than the controls. The number of coronary patients who underwent artificial abortions in the past was lower than in the control group. All these findings were statistically significant at a level of P < 0.05. No connection was found between extramarital relations and sexual frigidity. There was no relation found between sexual frigidity and diabetes, essential hypertension, marital status, pathological gynecological findings, or localization of the infarction. Until now, sexual frigidity and dissatisfaction appear to have been a neglected aspect in the female coronary patient.
Automatic detection of temporal synchronization mismatches between the stereoscopic channels for stereo 3D videos

This paper presents an efficient approach to estimate temporal synchronization distortions in 3D sequences, based on measuring motion consistencies of object feature points in depth planes. Errors in post-processing steps or exposure setups of stereo cameras can cause temporal asynchronization between stereoscopic channels. This kind of 3D artifacts lead to poor 3D experience for viewers. Due to the fact that the synchronization mismatch between stereoscopic views is normally slight, the perceptibility of temporal synchronization mismatches is first analyzed since distortion is sometimes not noticeable. Experimentally, this framework introduces 1, 2 or 3 frames of slight temporal deviations to simulate the synchronization mismatch between stereoscopic channels. The experimental results show that the proposed framework has a high accuracy for detecting the synchronization mismatch of a given 3D sequence at the frame and the shot levels.
Accelerating duplicate data chunk recognition using NN trained by locality-sensitive hash

Deduplication is often used in storage systems in order to save storage space, communication bandwidth, write energy, and recovery and error-protection infrastructure. However, deduplication overhead increases latency and computation energy. Determining whether a data chunk is already stored by comparing signatures constitutes a significant fraction of this deduplication overhead. In this paper, we propose a statistical chunk classifier based on a neural network. Our technique is based on learning the patterns of locality-sensitive hashing of the data. Our experiments show an acceleration of chunk processing, leading to reduction in deduplication overhead.
Urodilatin, a natriuretic factor from kidneys, can modify renal and cardiovascular function in men.

Urodilatin is a newly identified analogue of human atrial natriuretic factor-(99-126) [ANF-(99-126)], which has recently been isolated from human urine and has 32 amino acid residues [ANF-(95-126)]. To investigate renal and cardiovascular effects in men, eight healthy subjects received injections of 25, 50, and 100 micrograms urodilatin iv compared with 50 micrograms ANF-(99-126) and placebo. Blood pressure decreased (P less than 0.05) after 50 micrograms ANF-(99-126), whereas urodilatin lowered diastolic blood pressure only at the highest dose (P less than 0.01). Heart rate increased (P less than 0.05-0.01) dose dependently after urodilatin injections. Glomerular filtration rate rose after 100 micrograms (from 120 +/- 3 to 156 +/- 7 ml.min-1.1.73 m-2, P less than 0.001) and 50 micrograms urodilatin (from 116 +/- 7 to 149 +/- 13 ml.min-1.1.73 m-2, P less than 0.01) but not after 25 micrograms urodilatin, ANF-(99-126), or placebo. Effective renal plasma flow was not significantly modified. Diuresis and excretion of sodium, chloride, and guanosine 3',5'-cyclic monophosphate increased (P less than 0.001) dose dependently; effects of 25 micrograms urodilatin equaled those of 50 micrograms ANF-(99-126). Plasma renin, aldosterone, and catecholamines were unchanged. We conclude that urodilatin can acutely modify renal and cardiovascular function in men and seems to exert more potent renal effects than ANF-(99-126).
A Unified Maximum Likelihood Approach for Estimating Symmetric Properties of Discrete Distributions

Symmetric distribution properties such as support size, support coverage, entropy, and proximity to uniformity, arise in many applications. Recently, researchers applied different estimators and analysis tools to derive asymptotically sample-optimal approximations for each of these properties. We show that a single, simple, plug-in estimator—profile maximum likelihood (PML)– is sample competitive for all symmetric properties, and in particular is asymptotically sampleoptimal for all the above properties.
Molybdenum oxides as highly effective dehydrative cyclization catalysts for the synthesis of oxazolines and thiazolines.

In the presence of molybdenum oxide the dehydrative cyclization of N-acylserines, N-acylthreonines, and N-acylcysteines can be carried out under Dean-Stark conditions in toluene to give oxazolines and thiazolines. The ammonium salts (NH(4))(6)Mo(7)O(24). 4H(2)O and (NH(4))(2)MoO(4) have excellent catalytic activities for the dehydrative cyclization of serine and threonine derivatives, and the acetylacetonate complex MoO(2)(acac)(2) has a remarkable catalytic activity for the dehydrative cyclization of cysteine derivatives. In addition, polyaniline-supported MoO(2)(acac)(2) can easily be recovered and reused.
Ligand-independent Dimerization of CXCR4, a Principal HIV-1 Coreceptor*

CXCR4, a member of the G protein-coupled receptor family of proteins, is the receptor for stromal cell-derived factor (SDF-1α) and is a principal coreceptor for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). CXCR4 has also been implicated in breast cancer metastasis. We examined the ability of CXCR4 to homomultimerize in detergent-solubilized cell lysates and in the membranes of intact cells. CXCR4 was found to multimerize in cell lysates containing the detergents CHAPSO or Cymal-7 but not other detergents that have been shown to disrupt the native conformation of CXCR4. CXCR4 expression levels did not affect the observed multimerization and differentially tagged CXCR4 molecules associated only when coexpressed in the same cell. CXCR4 did not interact with CCR5, the other principal HIV-1 coreceptor, when the two proteins were coexpressed. Using bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET2), we demonstrated that CXCR4 multimers are found naturally in the intact cell membrane, in both the presence and absence of multiple CXCR4 ligands. Ligand binding did not significantly alter the observed BRET2 signal, suggesting that CXCR4 exists as a constitutive oligomer. In cell lysates prepared with non-denaturing detergents, CXCR4 sedimented in a manner consistent with a dimer, whereas CCR5 sedimented as a monomer under these conditions. The stable, constitutive dimerization of CXCR4 may contribute to its biological functions in chemokine binding, signaling, and HIV-1 entry.
Effect of acute hypoxia on blood flow in vertebral and internal carotid arteries

• What is the central question of this study? Does hypoxia enhance blood flow to all parts of the brain uniformly? • What is the main finding and its importance? During hypoxia, internal carotid artery flow is maintained despite a reduction in (end‐tidal) carbon dioxide tension, while vertebral artery blood flow increases. Only with maintained end‐tidal carbon dioxide tension is there an increase in both vertebral and internal carotid blood flow during hypoxia.
The average X-ray/gamma-ray spectrum of radio-quiet Seyfert 1s

We have obtained the average 1--500 keV spectrum of radio-quiet Seyfert 1s using data from EXOSAT, Ginga, HEAO, and GRO/OSSE. The spectral fit to the combined average EXOSAT and OSSE data is fully consistent with that for Ginga and OSSE, confirming results from an earlier Ginga/OSSE sample. The average spectrum is well-fitted by a power-law X-ray continuum with an energy spectral index of $\alpha \simeq 0.9$ moderately absorbed by an ionized medium and with a Compton reflection component. A high-energy cutoff (or a break) in the the power-law component at a few hundred keV or more is required by the data. We also show that the corresponding average spectrum from HEAO A1 and A4 is fully compatible with that obtained from EXOSAT, Ginga and OSSE. These results confirm that the apparent discrepancy between the results of Ginga (with $\alpha \simeq 0.9$) and the previous results of EXOSAT and HEAO (with $\alpha \simeq 0.7$) is indeed due to ionized absorption and Compton reflection first taken into account for Ginga but not for the previous missions. Also, our results confirm that the Seyfert-1 spectra are on average cut off in gamma-rays at energies of at least a few hundred keV, not at $\sim 40$ keV (as suggested earlier by OSSE data alone). The average spectrum is compatible with emission from either an optically-thin relativistic thermal plasma in a disk corona, or with a nonthermal plasma with a power-law injection of relativistic electrons.
Low-Dose Pramipexole in the Management of Restless Legs Syndrome

Dopaminergic agents are considered the treatment of choice for restless legs syndrome (RLS); levodopa is the only substance licensed for this disorder in some European countries. However, in a substantial proportion of patients symptoms are not adequately controlled for a whole night due to the short half-life of levodopa or because symptom augmentation may develop. To further investigate the impact of pramipexole on the management of RLS we performed a short-term open label trial with pramipexole in 17 patients who were being insufficiently treated with levodopa or for whom pramipexole was primarily being considered because of the severity of the RLS symptoms. A single dose of 0.125–0.75 mg pramipexole (mean 0.3 ± 0.2 mg) in the evening resulted in a significant improvement of subjective RLS symptoms as rated by the International RLS Study Group Severity Scale (IRLS scores: 29.8 ± 4.7 baseline vs. 7.3 ± 5.9 endpoint; p = 0.0001). Polysomnographic recordings showed a significant improvement of the periodic leg movements (PLM) index, PLM sleep arousal index, sleep-onset latency, total sleep time and sleep efficiency. All patients who had developed a worsening of RLS symptoms under levodopa recovered from daytime symptoms after their medication was switched to pramipexole. Since pramipexole was well tolerated, an ideal dosage to control RLS symptoms could be reached rapidly. Pramipexole has proven a suitable alternative in patients with moderate to severe RLS, particularly when their therapy has to be switched to a dopamine agonist.
Adenomatoid odontogenic tumour: a clinico-pathological analysis and melanin pigmentation study of 31 Nigerian cases.

AIM Clinicopathological analysis and melanin pigmentation occurrence in adenomatoid odontogenic tumour (AOT) diagnosed and managed at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital during a 29- year period. METHODS Records of 31 cases were reviewed and standard epidemiological data were obtained. Haematoxylin and eosin stained slides of the cases were retrieved and reevaluated for reconfirmation of diagnosis. Celloidinised paraffin sections of all cases were subjected to Fontana Masson stain and melanin bleach to assess presence of melanin pigment. RESULTS AOT is an uncommon type of odontogenic tumour that is commoner in younger age group (8-35 years) with site predilection for the anterior maxilla (64.5%). Occurrence of melanin pigment in AOT was very rare as there was positive melanin pigmentation in only one case in spite of the fact that the study was carried out in a predominantly Black population. CONCLUSION Pattern of occurrence of AOT observed in this Lagos series is similar to previous studies in the scientific literature. Melanin pigmentation is rarely demonstrated in AOT even in a predominantly Black population.
Protection Afforded by Heat Shock Protein 60 from Francisella tularensis Is Due to Copurified Lipopolysaccharide

ABSTRACT Heat shock proteins (Hsps) have attracted significant attention as protective antigens against a range of diseases caused by bacterial pathogens. However, more recently there have been suggestions that the protective response is due to the presence of peptide components other than Hsps. We have shown that mice that had been immunized with purified heat shock protein 60 (Hsp60) isolated from Francisella tularensis were protected against a subsequent challenge with some strains of the bacterium. However, this protection appeared to be due to trace amounts of lipopolysaccharide, which were too low to be detected by using the Limulus amoebocyte lysate assay. This finding raises the possibility that the protection afforded by other bacterial Hsp60 proteins may be due to trace quantities of polysaccharide antigens carried by and acting in conjunction with the Hsps.
Single Mott transition in the multiorbital Hubbard model

The Mott transition in a multiorbital Hubbard model involving subbands of different widths is studied within the dynamical mean-field theory. Using the iterated perturbation theory for the quantum impurity problem it is shown that at low temperatures interorbital Coulomb interactions give rise to a single first-order transition rather than a sequence of orbital selective transitions. Impurity calculations based on the Quantum Monte Carlo method confirm this qualitative behavior. Nevertheless, at finite temperatures, the degree of metallic or insulating behavior of the subbands differs greatly. Thus, on the metallic side of the transition, the narrow band can exhibit quasi-insulating features, whereas on the insulating side the wide band exhibits pronounced bad-metal behavior. This complexity might partly explain contradictory results between several previous works.
Far‐upstream elements are dispensable for tissue‐specific proenkephalin expression using a Cre‐mediated knock‐in strategy

Several cis‐regulatory DNA elements are present in the 5′ upstream regulatory region of the enkephalin gene (ENK) promoter. To determine their role in conferring organ‐specificity of ENK expression in mice and to circumvent the position effects from random gene insertion that are known to often frustrate such analysis in transgenic mice, we used a Cre‐mediated gene knock‐in strategy to target reporter constructs to a ‘safe haven’loxP‐tagged locus in the hypoxanthine phosphoribosyltransferase (HPRT) gene. Here we report reliable and reproducible reporter gene expression under the control of the 5′ upstream regulatory region of the mouse ENK gene in gene‐modified mice using this Cre‐mediated knock‐in strategy. Comparison of two 5′ENK regulatory regions (one with and the other without known cis‐regulatory DNA elements) in the resulting adult mice showed that conserved far‐upstream cis‐regulatory DNA elements are dispensable for correct organ‐specific gene expression. Thus the proximal 1.4 kb of the murine ENK promoter region is sufficient for organ‐specificity of ENK gene expression when targeted to a safe‐haven genomic locus. These results suggest that conservation of the far‐upstream DNA elements serves more subtle roles, such as the developmental or cell‐specific expression of the ENK gene.
JourneyMap: Visualising the time-bound student journey

A student's view of higher education is often talked about as 'transformative' and as a 'journey' or 'pathway'. The student experience of university is time-bound, covering a clearly specified duration. From a learner's perspective the Higher Education (HE) journey begins at induction and ends at graduation. Through discrete and highly personal steps students move from one state, fresher, to another, graduate. This personal journey is explicitly linear, rather than the cyclic, annualised, time-perspective of the university. The paper investigates how to visualise, in a temporal sense, this transformative journey. Incorporating necessary time bound events that appear in a students academic calendar and time table but in a student centric way that illustrates directly the journey the student takes and reinforces the time-bound, delineated nature of the student's HE experience. We document the results from development and present recommendations for future work.
Privacy Preserving Record Linkage using LSH Blocking Approach and Secure Multiparty Computation with Set Intersection Technique

the need of creating this paper is to introduce a basic overview of Locality-Delicate Hashing which is base blocking methodology for saving the security of record linkage. For record pairs which sense the anonymous transmission, LSH framework is implemented. For L-fold Redundant Blocking System which is used for separating record sets that sensed an anonymization transmission, the Locality-Sensitive Hashing technique is act as a base. In this scenario we have demonstrate, how the method is useful and evaluation of the efficiency of various types of groups of hash capacities is used for blocking. We also demonstrated that the efficiency gained is linked to the distance preserving attributes of the anonymization group used. The blocking plan test is selected wisely so we complete the most elevated conceivable exactness at all conceivable running time. We also gives a protocol depending on SMC for comparing the formulated record pairs similarly also we prevented a possibility of security break of basic records as well as similarity to search the similar records.
Knowledge transfer for learning robot models via Local Procrustes Analysis

Learning of robot kinematic and dynamic models from data has attracted much interest recently as an alternative to manually defined models. However, the amount of data required to learn these models becomes large when the number of degrees of freedom increases and collecting it can be a time-intensive process. We employ transfer learning techniques in order to speed up learning of robot models, by using additional data obtained from other robots. We propose a method for approximating non-linear mappings between manifolds, which we call Local Procrustes Analysis (LPA), by adopting and extending the linear Procrustes Analysis method. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method offers an accurate transfer of data and significantly improves learning of the forward kinematics model. Furthermore, it allows learning a global mapping between two robots that can be used to successfully transfer trajectories.