Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spatial Release from Masking with a Moving Target

In the visual domain, a stationary object that is difficult to detect usually becomes far more salient if it moves while the objects around it do not. This “pop out” effect is important for parsing the visual world into figure/ground relationships that allow creatures to detect food, threats, etc. We tested for an auditory correlate to this visual effect by asking listeners to identify a single word, spoken by a female, embedded with two or four masking words spoken by males. Percentage correct scores were analyzed and compared between conditions where target and maskers were presented from the same position vs. when the target was presented from one position while maskers were presented from different positions. In some trials, the target word was moved across the speaker array using amplitude panning, while in other trials that target was played from a single, static position. Results showed a spatial release from masking for all conditions where the target and maskers were not located at the same position, but there was no statistically significant difference between identification performance when the target was moving vs. when it was stationary. These results suggest that, at least for short stimulus durations (0.75 s for the stimuli in this experiment), there is unlikely to be a “pop out” effect for moving target stimuli in the auditory domain as there is in the visual domain.
Detection, Diagnosis, and Isolation of Control and Data Attacks in Sensor Networks

Detection, Diagnosis, and Isolation of Control and Data Attacks in Sensor Networks Issa Khalil, Saurabh Bagchi, Cristina Nita-Rotaru, Ness B. Shroff Center for Wireless Systems and Applications (CWSA) School of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Department of Computer Science Purdue University Email: {ikhalil, sbagchi, crisn, shroff}@purdue.edu Contact Author: Saurabh Bagchi Abstract Sensor networks enable a wide range of applications in both military and civilian domains. However, the deployment scenarios, the functionality requirements, and the limited capabilities of these networks expose them to a wide-range of attacks against control traffic (such as wormholes, rushing, Sybil attacks, etc) and data traffic (such as selective forwarding). In this paper we propose a framework called DICAS that mitigates such attacks by detecting, diagnosing, and isolating the malicious nodes. DICAS uses as a fundamental building block the ability of a node to oversee its neighboring nodes’ communication. On top of DICAS, we build a secure routing protocol, LSR, that provides additional protection against malicious nodes by supporting multiple node-disjoint paths. We analyze the security guarantees of DICAS and use ns-2 simulations to show its effectiveness against representative control and data attacks. The overhead analysis we present shows that DICAS is a lightweight protocol appropriate for securing resource constrained sensor networks.
Efficient mobility management support for wireless data services

The paper describes a mobile data network architecture with a novel predictive mobility management algorithm to support global mobile data accessing. The concept of a mobile distributed system platform with mobile-floating agents is proposed to support service and resource mobility, that is, to distribute network services and resources closer to mobile users. Furthermore, by combining the predictive mobility management algorithm with mobile-floating agent functions, the services and user data are generally pre-connected and pre-assigned at the locations to which the user is moving. Thus, the user can immediately receive services and/or data with essentially the same efficiency as at the prior location.
The Pathways for Intelligible Speech: Multivariate and Univariate Perspectives

An anterior pathway, concerned with extracting meaning from sound, has been identified in nonhuman primates. An analogous pathway has been suggested in humans, but controversy exists concerning the degree of lateralization and the precise location where responses to intelligible speech emerge. We have demonstrated that the left anterior superior temporal sulcus (STS) responds preferentially to intelligible speech (Scott SK, Blank CC, Rosen S, Wise RJS. 2000. Identification of a pathway for intelligible speech in the left temporal lobe. Brain. 123:2400–2406.). A functional magnetic resonance imaging study in Cerebral Cortex used equivalent stimuli and univariate and multivariate analyses to argue for the greater importance of bilateral posterior when compared with the left anterior STS in responding to intelligible speech (Okada K, Rong F, Venezia J, Matchin W, Hsieh IH, Saberi K, Serences JT,Hickok G. 2010. Hierarchical organization of human auditory cortex: evidence from acoustic invariance in the response to intelligible speech. 20: 2486–2495.). Here, we also replicate our original study, demonstrating that the left anterior STS exhibits the strongest univariate response and, in decoding using the bilateral temporal cortex, contains the most informative voxels showing an increased response to intelligible speech. In contrast, in classifications using local “searchlights” and a whole brain analysis, we find greater classification accuracy in posterior rather than anterior temporal regions. Thus, we show that the precise nature of the multivariate analysis used will emphasize different response profiles associated with complex sound to speech processing.
Identification of Two New HLA-A*1101-Restricted Tax Epitopes Recognized by Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes in an Adult T-Cell Leukemia Patient after Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation

ABSTRACT We previously reported that Tax-specific CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs), directed to single epitopes restricted by HLA-A2 or A24, expanded in vitro and in vivo in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from some adult T-cell leukemia (ATL) patients after but not before allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Here, we demonstrated similar Tax-specific CTL expansion in PBMC from another post-HSCT ATL patient without HLA-A2 or A24, whose CTLs equally recognized two newly identified epitopes, Tax88-96 and Tax272-280, restricted by HLA-A11, suggesting that these immunodominant Tax epitopes are present in the ATL patient in vivo.
The Friend of GATA Transcriptional Co-Regulator, U-Shaped, Is a Downstream Antagonist of Dorsal-Driven Prohemocyte Differentiation in Drosophila

Recent studies suggest that mammalian hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) respond directly to infection and inflammatory signaling. These signaling pathways also regulate HSPCs during steady-state conditions (absence of infection), and dysregulation may lead to cancer or age-related loss of progenitor repopulation capacity. Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are a major class of pathogen recognition receptors, and are expressed on the surface of immune effector cells and HSPCs. TLR/NF-κB activation promotes HSPCs differentiation; however, the mechanisms by which this signaling pathway alters the intrinsic transcriptional landscape are not well understood. Although Drosophila prohemocytes are the functional equivalent of mammalian HSPCs, a prohemocyte-specific function for Toll signaling has not been reported. Using Drosophila transgenics, we identified prohemocyte-specific roles for Toll pathway members, Dorsal and Cactus. We showed that Dorsal is required to limit the size of the progenitor pool. Additionally, we showed that activation of Toll signaling in prohemocytes drives differentiation in a manner that is analogous to TLR/NF-κB-driven HSPC differentiation. This was accomplished by showing that over-expression of Dorsal, or knockdown of Cactus, promotes differentiation. We also investigated whether Dorsal and Cactus control prohemocyte differentiation by regulating a key intrinsic prohemocyte factor, U-shaped (Ush), which is known to promote multipotency and block differentiation. We showed that Dorsal repressed Ush expression levels to promote differentiation, whereas Cactus maintained Ush levels to block differentiation. Additionally, we showed that another Toll antagonist, Lesswright, also maintained the level of Ush to block differentiation and promote proliferative quiescence. Collectively, these results identify a novel role for Ush as a downstream target of Toll signaling.
Multiple IgH Isotypes Including IgD, Subclasses of IgM, and IgY Are Expressed in the Common Ancestors of Modern Birds

Although evolutionarily just as ancient as IgM, it has been thought for many years that IgD is not present in birds. Based on the recently sequenced genomes of 48 bird species as well as high-throughput transcriptome sequencing of immune-related tissues, we demonstrate in this work that the ostrich (Struthio camelus) possesses a functional δ gene that encodes a membrane-bound IgD H chain with seven CH domains. Furthermore, δ sequences were clearly identified in many other bird species, demonstrating that the δ gene is widely distributed among birds and is only absent in certain bird species. We also show that the ostrich possesses two μ genes (μ1, μ2) and two υ genes (υ1, υ2), in addition to the δ and α genes. Phylogenetic analyses suggest that subclass diversification of both the μ and υ genes occurred during the early stages of bird evolution, after their divergence from nonavian reptiles. Although the positions of the two υ genes are unknown, physical mapping showed that the remaining genes are organized in the order μ1-δ-α-μ2, with the α gene being inverted relative to the others. Together with previous studies, our data suggest that birds and nonavian reptile species most likely shared a common ancestral IgH gene locus containing a δ gene and an inverted α gene. The δ gene was then evolutionarily lost in selected birds, whereas the α gene lost in selected nonavian reptiles. The data obtained in this study provide significant insights into the understanding of IgH gene evolution in tetrapods.
In-pixel generation of gaussian pyramid images by block reusing in 3D-CMOS

This paper introduces an architecture of a switched-capacitor network for Gaussian pyramid generation. Gaussian pyramids are used in modern scale- and rotation-invariant feature detectors or in visual attention. Our switched-capacitor architecture is conceived within the framework of a CMOS-3D-based vision system. As such, it is also used during the acquisition phase to perform analog storage and Correlated Double Sampling (CDS). The paper addresses mismatch, and switching errors like feedthrough and charge injection. The paper also gives an estimate of the area occupied by each pixel on the 130nm CMOS-3D technology by Tezzaron. The validity of our proposal is assessed through object detection in a scale- and rotation-invariant feature detector.
Complete Genome Sequence of Paracoccus yeei TT13, Isolated from Human Skin

ABSTRACT Paracoccus yeei TT13 was isolated from human skin because of its ability to degrade propylene glycol. Here, we present the whole-genome sequence of this strain; it possesses one 3.58-Mb chromosome and six plasmids. TT13 genome analysis indicated that this bacterium has denitrification potential.
Clafer tools for product line engineering

Clafer is a lightweight yet expressive language for structural modeling: feature modeling and configuration, class and object modeling, and metamodeling. Clafer Tools is an integrated set of tools based on Clafer. In this paper, we describe some product-line variability modeling scenarios of Clafer Tools from the viewpoints of product-line owner, product-line engineer, and product engineer.
Amino acid composition and thermal stability of protein structures: the free energy geography of the Protein Data Bank

We study the combined influence of amino acid composition and chain length on the thermal stability of protein structures. A new parameterization of the internal free energy is considered, as the sum of hydrophobic effect, hydrogen-bond and de-hydration energy terms. We divided a non-redundant selection of protein structures from the Protein Data Bank into three groups: i) rich in order-promoting residues (OPR proteins); ii) rich in disorder-promoting residues (DPR proteins); iii) belonging to a twilight zone (TZ proteins). We observe a partition of PDB in several groups with different internal free energies, amino acid compositions and protein lengths. Internal free energy of 96% of the proteins analyzed ranges from -2 to -6.5 kJ/mol/res. We found many DPR and OPR proteins with the same relative thermal stability. Only OPR proteins with internal energy between -4 and -6.5 kJ/mol/res are observed to have chains longer than 200 residues, with a high de-hydration energy compensated by the hydrophobic effect. DPR and TZ proteins are shorter than 200 residues and they have an internal energy above -4 kJ/mol/res, with a few exceptions among TZ proteins. Hydrogen-bonds play an important role in the stabilization of these DPR folds, often higher than contact energy. The new parameterization of internal free energy let emerge a geography of thermal stabilities of PDB structures. Amino acid composition per se is not sufficient to determine the stability of protein folds, since. DPR and TZ proteins generally have a relatively high internal free energy, and they are stabilized by hydrogen-bonds. Long DPR proteins are not observed in the PDB, because their low hydrophobicity cannot compensate the high de-hydration energy necessary to accommodate residues within a highly packed globular fold.
Text Information Retrieval Based on Concept Semantic Similarity

In this paper, an improved method of calculating ontology semantic similarity is proposed to enhance the information retrieval recall and precision. To filter out the document which have smaller related degree with original query, the scores of search results document is re-calculated by use of ontology semantic similarity. A new definition of the iterative query expansion parameters is put forward which can reduce the number of expansion and further improve the efficiency of the query. The use of open source tools for text semantic retrieval test, i.e., Jena and Lucene, has verified the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.
The uncertainty and fragility of learning to teach: a Britzmanian lens on a student teacher story

This paper turns the kaleidoscopic lens of Professor Deborah Britzman’s writings on a student teacher story of learning to teach. It begins by briefly setting the context for the research. It then explains the study’s ontological and epistemological focus on experience and how student teacher and researchers create expressions of experience through an interpretative process. This leads to the design for interpretation in this study and to an explanation of why the work of Britzman became part of the interpretative layering for understanding student teacher Ciara’s texts. It continues by explicating Britzman’s concept of ‘struggle for voice’ as a metaphor for learning to teach and briefly makes comparison with the work of Bakhtin and his concept of the dialogical imagination. It then presents the layered interpretation in the form of indicative excerpts in a chronological story. Finally it focuses on the salient and pervading theme of affect and offers a brief commentary on its significance in initial teacher education and the need for developing an understanding for the feeling world of learning to teach.
Multistage interference cancellation with frequency domain equalization for uplink transmission of single carrier cyclic prefix assisted CDMA system

In this paper we suggest a new single carrier cyclic prefix assisted multiple access scheme for the asynchronous broadband CDMA system in uplink. Frequency domain equalization is applied instead of conventional RAKE combining or time domain equalization. A new serial type multistage interference cancellation in frequency domain is proposed to cancel the multiple access interference while keeping low computational complexity. We also investigated the effects of interference rejection weight control for this multistage interference cancellation. Another hybrid system combining the successive interference cancellation and parallel interference cancellation is also proposed, which can reach the similar performance of the serial type while reducing the processing delay greatly.
Integrated Registration , Segmentation , and Interpolation for 3 D / 4 D Sparse Data Adeline Paiement

We address the problem of object modelling from 3D and 4D sparse data acquired as different sequences which are misaligned with respect to each other. Such data may result from various imaging modalities and can therefore present very diverse spatial configurations and appearances. We focus on medical tomographic data, made up of sets of 2D slices having arbitrary positions and orientations, and which may have different gains and contrasts even within the same dataset, as illustrated by the cine cardiac MRI in Fig. 1 and the multi-modal brain MRI in Fig. 2. The analysis of such tomographic data is essential for establishing a diagnosis or planning surgery. (a) (b) (c) (d) Figure 1: Cardiac cine MRI: A typical example of tomographic data having varying spatial configurations, gaps, and intensities. (a) spatial configuration of slices, (b) one vertical (long-axis) and one horizontal (shortaxis) slice both showing the same region of the heart, (c) and (d) output 4D model of the left ventricle of the heart seen at two timeframes. Modelling from sparse and misaligned data requires solving the three inherently related problems of registration, segmentation, and interpolation. We propose a new method to integrate these stages in a level set framework. Registration is particularly challenging by the limited number of intersections present in a sparse dataset, and interpolation has to handle images that may have very different appearances [1]. Hence, registration and interpolation exploit segmentation information, rather than pixel intensities, for increased robustness Correspondence to: <csatmp@bristol.ac. uk> Recommended for acceptance by Jorge Bernal DOI http://dx.doi. org/10.5565/rev/elcvia.712 ELCVIA ISSN:1577-5097 Published by Computer Vision Center / Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain Paiement et al. / Electronic Letters on Computer Vision and Image Analysis 14(3):6-8, 2015 7
Effect of Antecedent Glucose Control on Cerebral Function During Hypoglycemia

Objective The incidence of both severe and asymptomatic hypoglycemia is increased threefold in intensively treated diabetic patients. To examine whether this reflects cerebral adaptation to low blood glucose levels, we investigated the effect of preceding glycemic experience on hormonal, EEG, and evoked potential responses to experimentally induced hypoglycemia with the slow-fall clamp. Research Design and Methods Three groups were examined: well-controlled diabetic patients and patients with insulinoma (group 1), poorly controlled diabetic patients (group 2), and nondiabetic subjects (group 3). Results The glucose threshold for epinephrine release was lower in group 1 (2.3 ± 0.1 vs. 3.0 ± 0.3 and 3.1 ± 0.1 mM, P < 0.02), and the peak epinephrine response was reduced (1.29 ± 0.36 vs. 5.48 ± 1 and 5.62 ± 1.2 nM, P < 0.01) compared with groups 2 and 3, whereas symptoms were not perceived until a lower blood glucose level had been reached (2.0 ± 0.2 vs. 3.3 ± 0.4 and 2.6 ± 0.2 mM, P < 0.01). Other counterregulatory responses were similarly delayed and diminished. In contrast, EEG changes that were compatible with hypoglycemia were detected in all subjects in group 1 (blood glucose 1.9 ± 0.1 mM) but in only two in group 2 and none in group 3, despite similar blood glucose nadirs. Conclusions The glycemic threshold for hormonal responses to hypoglycemia falls in individuals with intensively treated diabetes or insulinomas, but these patients are more likely to develop EEG abnormalities during hypoglycemia. This disparity helps explain the increased vulnerability of intensively treated patients to severe hypoglycemia.
Serum adiponectin and bone mineral density in women.

CONTEXT Bone mineral density (BMD) is positively associated with body weight. This association persists even at non-load bearing sites, suggesting that a nonmechanical factor such as an adipocyte-derived hormone may modulate BMD. OBJECTIVE The objective of the study was to evaluate the relationship between adiponectin, an adipocyte-derived hormone, and BMD. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS A total of 1735 nondiabetic women were recruited from a large, population-based cohort (mean age, 50.0 yr). We employed linear regression methods to estimate the relationship between adiponectin and BMD. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Percentage change in BMD (as measured at total hip, spine, femoral neck, and forearm) and markers of bone turnover associated with a doubling of fasting serum adiponectin levels were measured. RESULTS Employing age-adjusted analysis, each doubling of serum adiponectin was associated with a mean 2.7% decrease in BMD [total hip, -3.2% (95% confidence interval, -4.1, -2.3); femoral neck, -3.1% (-4.0, -2.1); forearm, -2.0 (-2.6, -1.4); spine, -2.6 (-3.5, -1.7)]. After adjustment for potential confounding factors, including BMI, serum leptin, central fat mass, hormone replacement therapy, smoking, and exercise, this relationship persisted, although decreased in magnitude. When stratified by menopausal status, the relationship between serum adiponectin and BMD strengthened in postmenopausal women but disappeared in premenopausal women. Serum adiponectin was positively associated with serum osteocalcin but not with urine deoxypyridinoline. CONCLUSIONS After adjustment of measures of body fat, increasing levels of adiponectin were associated with a decrease in BMD, even at non-load bearing sites. These data suggest that adiponectin, an adipocyte-derived hormone, may play a role in bone metabolism through nonmechanical mechanisms and that this effect may be mediated by menopausal status.
2 Pesticides , Preference Heterogeneity and Environmental Taxes

In this paper we present results from two Choice Experiments (CE) designed to take account of the different negative externalities associated with pesticide use in agricultural production. For cereals production the most likely impact of pesticide use is a reduction in environmental quality. For fruit and vegetable production, the negative externality is on consumer health. Using latent class models we find evidence of the presence of preference heterogeneity regarding pesticide reduction in the population. With respect to consumer health, respondents’ WTP for a 100 percent reduction in the use of pesticides in the UK is a 105 percent increase in the weekly fruit and vegetable food bill. For the environmental quality the WTP for a 100 percent reduction in the pesticide use in the UK is a 184 percent increase in the price of a loaf. To place our WTP estimates in a policy context we convert them into an equivalent pesticide tax by type of externality. Our tax estimates suggest that pesticide taxes based on the primary externality resulting from a particular mode of agricultural production are a credible policy option that warrant further consideration.
Adequacy–Fluency Metrics: Evaluating MT in the Continuous Space Model Framework

This work extends and evaluates a two-dimensional automatic evaluation metric for machine translation, which is designed to operate at the sentence level. The metric is based on the concepts of adequacy and fluency, aiming at decoupling both semantic and syntactic components of the translation process to provide a more balanced view on translation quality. These two elements are independently evaluated by using continuous space and n-gram language modeling frameworks, respectively. Two different implementations are evaluated: a monolingual version that fully operates on the target language side, and a cross-language version that has the main advantage of not requiring reference translations. Both implementations are evaluated by comparing their performance with state-of-the-art automatic metrics over a dataset involving five different European languages.