Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modelling visual-olfactory integration in free-flying Drosophila

Flying fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) locate a concealed appetitive odour source most accurately in environments containing vertical visual contrasts (Frye et al, 2003). To investigate how visuomotor and olfactory responses interact to cause this phenomenon, I implement a tracking system capable of recording flies’ flight trajectories in three dimensions. I examine free-flight behaviour in three different visual environments, with and without food odour present. While odour localisation is facilitated by a random chequerboard pattern compared to a horizontally striped one, a single vertical landmark also facilitates odour localisation, but only if the odour source is situated close to the landmark. I implement a closed-loop systems-level model of visuomotor control consisting of three parallel subsystems which use wide-field optic flow cues to control flight behaviour. These are: an optomotor response to stabilise the model fly’s yaw orientation; a collision avoidance system to initiate rapid turns (saccades) away from looming obstacles; and a speed regulation system. This model reproduces in simulation many of the behaviours I observe in flies, including distinctive visually mediated ‘rebound’ turns following saccades. Using recordings of real odour plumes, I simulate the presence of an odorant in the arena, and investigate ways in which the olfactory input could modulate visuomotor control. In accordance with the principle of Occam’s razor, I identify the simplest mechanism of crossmodal integration that reproduces the observed pattern of visual effects on the odour localisation behaviour of flies. The resulting model uses the change in odour intensity to regulate the sensitivity of collision avoidance, resulting in visually mediated chemokinesis. Additionally, it is necessary to amplify the optomotor response whenever odour is present, increasing the model fly’s tendency to steer towards features of the visual environment. This could be viewed as a change in behavioural context brought about by the possibility of feeding. A novel heterogeneous visual environment is used to validate the model. While its predictions are largely borne out by experimental data, it fails to account for a pronounced odour-dependent attraction to regions of exclusively vertical contrast. I conclude that visual and olfactory responses of Drosophila are not independent, but that relatively simple interaction between these modalities can account for the observed visual dependence of odour source localisation.
Iterated Support Vector Machines for Distance Metric Learning

Distance metric learning aims to learn from the given training data a valid distance metric, with which the similarity between data samples can be more effectively evaluated for classification. Metric learning is often formulated as a convex or nonconvex optimization problem, while many existing metric learning algorithms become inefficient for large scale problems. In this paper, we formulate metric learning as a kernel classification problem, and solve it by iterated training of support vector machines (SVM). The new formulation is easy to implement, efficient in training, and tractable for large-scale problems. Two novel metric learning models, namely Positive-semidefinite Constrained Metric Learning (PCML) and Nonnegative-coefficient Constrained Metric Learning (NCML), are developed. Both PCML and NCML can guarantee the global optimality of their solutions. Experimental results on UCI dataset classification, handwritten digit recognition, face verification and person re-identification demonstrate that the proposed metric learning methods achieve higher classification accuracy than state-of-the-art methods and they are significantly more efficient in training.
Array‐CGH defined chromosome 1p duplication in a patient with autism spectrum disorder, mild mental deficiency, and minor dysmorphic features

Array-CGH Defined Chromosome 1p Duplication in a Patient With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Mild Mental Deficiency, and Minor Dysmorphic Features Maria Piccione, Vincenzo Antona, Roberta Antona, Giovanna Gambino, Mauro Pierluigi, Michela Malacarne, Simona Cavani, and Giovanni Corsello* Unit a Operativa di Pediatria e Terapia Intensiva Neonatale, Dipartimento Materno Infantile, Universit a degli Studi di Palermo, Palermo, Italy U.O. S. Centro per la Diagnosi e la Terapia delle Sindromi Autistiche, Palermo, Italy S.C. Laboratorio di Genetica, Dipartimento di Scienze Genetiche, Perinatali e Ginecologiche, E.O. Ospedali Galliera di Genova, Genova, Italy
Nonlinear filtering of pseudonoise signals using high-order Markov chain model

The problem to be considered in this paper is code synchronization in data communication systems using pseudonoise (PN) signals based on linear feedback shift register (LFSR) sequences. A novel non-linear filtering algorithm for such systems that uses high-order Markov chain for signal representation is proposed. This algorithm shows the ability to reduce PN signal synchronization time.
Characterization of an antigenically conserved heat-modifiable major outer membrane protein of Branhamella catarrhalis

Branhamella catarrhalis is a common cause of otitis media in children and of respiratory infections in adults with chronic bronchitis. Little is known about the antigenic structure of the outer membrane proteins (OMPs). In this study, two murine monoclonal antibodies, 7D6 and 5E8, were developed and used to characterize the major heat-modifiable OMP (OMP C/D) of B. catarrhalis. Immunoblot assays indicated that OMP C/D is heat modifiable, having a molecular mass of 55 kDa at room temperature and a mass of 60 kDa when heated under reducing conditions. Expression of the epitopes is independent of growth phase and growth media. Both epitopes are present in 51 of 51 strains of B. catarrhalis tested and are highly specific for Branhamella strains, being absent from a variety of other gram-negative species. Antibody 5E8 recognizes an epitope which is expressed on the surface of the intact bacterium. We conclude that OMP C/D is a major, heat-modifiable OMP antigen that expresses at least one stable, conserved epitope on the surface of B. catarrhalis. Future studies should focus on the role of OMP C/D in pathogenesis and on its potential role as a vaccine antigen.
Performance Study of Nonrigid Registration Algorithm for Investigating Lung Disease on Clusters

This paper presents a performance study of a nonrigid registration algorithm for investigating lung disease on clusters. Our algorithm combines two conventional acceleration techniques in order to achieve fast registration: a data-parallel processing technique for accelerating the registration procedure; and a precomputation technique for reducing the computational complexity. We perform some experiments on three clusters with different CPU and network performance in order to make clear what kinds of acceleration techniques and computing environments provide higher performance. The results show that a cluster with Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) network is the most cost effective solution that reduces registration time from ten hours to ten minutes with a linear speedup.
CLINICAL CONCEPTS AND COMMENTARY

THE pain that accompanies thoracic surgery is notable for its intensity and duration. Acutely, moderate to severe levels of pain may not decrease substantially over the course of hospitalization and the first postoperative month. Chronically, pain can last for months to years, and even low levels of pain can decrease function. Other than pain syndromes associated with limb amputation, pain after thoracic surgery may be the most recognized pain syndrome associated with a specific surgery. Although used with increasing frequency, thoracoscopic approaches have not had the favorable impact on pain that many had anticipated. Given that the adverse effects of thoracic surgery on pulmonary function can be mitigated by effective perioperative analgesia, it is not surprising that thoracic surgeons have joined anesthesiologists in becoming strong advocates of analgesic interventions known to limit the pain accompanying thoracic surgery. Here, we review evidence-based strategies for preventing and treating this type of pain.
Functional expression of p‐glycoprotein and multidrug resistance‐associated protein (mrp1) in primary cultures of rat astrocytes

Although it has been well established that the drug efflux pump P‐glycoprotein (P‐gp) protects the brain against the entry of cytotoxic drugs, its real in situ localization, i.e., at brain capillary endothelial cells or on astrocyte foot processes, is still controversial. The aim of this study was to compare the expression of P‐gp and of multidrug resistance‐associated protein (Mrp1), another drug efflux pump, in cultured neonatal rat brain astrocytes and in cultured brain capillary endothelial cells. Reverse transcriptase‐polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) analysis showed that the mdr1b gene was preferentially expressed in astrocytes, whereas both mdr1a and mdr1b mRNA were detected in endothelial cells. Moreover, the mrp1 gene encoding Mrp1 was expressed in both cell types. Western blotting analysis revealed higher expression of P‐gp in endothelial cells as compared with astrocytes, but higher expression of Mrp1 in astrocytes. Moreover, P‐gp and Mrp1 expression was not modified in more differentiated astrocytes obtained when cultured with db‐cAMP for 48 hr. Our functional analysis of P‐gp showed a modest effect of P‐gp modulators (CsA, verapamil, PSC 833) on the uptake of colchicine (a substrate of P‐gp) by astrocytes, whereas they increased by about 50% the uptake of vincristine (a common substrate of P‐gp and MRP) by astrocytes. MRP modulators (genistein, probenecid, and sulfinpyrazone) did not modify the uptake of colchicine but increased that of vincristine with a major effect found for sulfinpyrazone. Moreover, indomethacin, probenecid, and sulfinpyrazone increased the uptake of fluorescein (a substrate of MRP but not of P‐gp). Taken together, our results provide the first biochemical and functional evidence supporting the expression of P‐gp and Mrp1 in rat cultured astrocytes. J. Neurosci. Res. 60:594–601, 2000 © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Operating Systems Should Provide Transactions

Current operating systems provide programmers an insufficient interface for expressing consistency requirements for accesses to system resources, such as files and interprocess communication. To ensure consistency, programmers must to be able to access system resources atomically and in isolation from other applications on the same system. Although the OS updates system resources atomically and in isolation from other processes within a single system call, not all operations critical to the integrity of an application can be condensed into a single system call. Operating systems should support transactional execution of system calls, providing a simple, comprehensive mechanism for atomic and isolated accesses to system resources. Preliminary results from a Linux prototype implementation indicate that the overhead of system transactions can be acceptably low.
Lateral Trench Gate Super-Junction SOI-LDMOSFETs with Low On-Resistance

This paper describes low on-resistance lateral trench gate super-junction LDMOSFETs on SOI. The specific on-resistance ( ) of the SOI-LDMOSFETs is effectively improved by the super-junction concept together with the lateral trench gate. The super-junction helps to increase the doping concentration of the n-drift layer, and the lateral trench gate allow to increase the channel area. It can be achieved to reduce the on-resistance both of the n-drift and channel regions, respectively. Using the threedimensional numerical simulator MINIMOS-NT, we confirm that the of the proposed lateral trench gate superjunction SOI-LDMOSFETs is about 60% of conventional SOI-LDMOSFETs. With the larger n column width than that of the p column the doping in the drift region can be reduced to 70% of the value of standard super-junction devices without degrading the on-resistance. As a result the sensitivity of the breakdown voltage to the charge imbalance can be improved in the proposed device.
Improved Detectability in Medical Microwave Radio-Thermometers as Obtained by Active Antennas

Microwave radiometry is a spectral measurement technique for resolving blackbody radiation of heated matter above absolute zero. The emission levels vary with frequency and are at body temperatures maximized in the infrared spectral band. Medical radio-thermometers are mostly noninvasive short-range instruments that can provide temperature distributions in subcutaneous biological tissues when operated in the microwave region. However, a crucial limitation of the microwave radiometric observation principle is the extremely weak signal level of the thermal noise emitted by the lossy material (-174 dBm/Hz at normal body temperature). To improve the radiometer SNR, we propose to integrate a tiny, moderate gain, low-noise preamplifier (LNA) close to the antenna terminals as to obtain increased detectability of deep seated thermal gradients within the volume under investigation. The concept is verified experimentally in a lossy phantom medium by scanning an active antenna across a thermostatically controlled water phantom with a hot object embedded at 38 mm depth. Three different setups were investigated with decreasing temperature contrasts between the target and ambient medium. As a direct consequence of less ripple on the raw radiometric signal, statistical analysis shows a marked increase in signal-to-clutter ratio of the brightness temperature spatial scan profiles, when comparing active antenna operation with conventional passive setups.
An analytic solution to joint channel and carrier offset estimation in CDMA

The problem of joint carrier offset and channel estimation in code division multiple access (CDMA) communications is studied. An analytic algorithm that provides closed-form channel and carrier offset estimates is proposed. The algorithm first converts the multiuser estimation problem into single-user problems, and then analytically solves the resulting nonlinear multivariate optimization problems utilizing polynomial matrix manipulation. Computer simulations are provided to verify the efficacy of the proposed algorithm.
On Demand Phenotype Ranking through Subspace Clustering

High throughput biotechnologies have enabled scientists to collect a large number of genetic and phenotypic attributes for a large collection of samples. Computational methods are in need to analyze these data for discovering genotype-phenotype associations and inferring possible phenotypes from genotypic attributes. In this paper, we study the problem of on demand phenotype ranking. Given a query sample, for which only its genetic information is available, we want to predict the possible phenotypes it may have, ranked in descending order of their likelihood. This problem is challenging since genotype-phenotype databases are updated often and explicitly mine and maintain all patterns is impractical. We propose an on-demand ranking algorithm that uses a modified pattern-based subspace clustering algorithm to effectively identify the subspaces where these relevant clusters may reside. Using this algorithm, we can compute the clusters and their prediction significance for any phenotypes on the fly. Our experiments demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of our algorithm.
Benchmarking separable natural evolution strategies on the noiseless and noisy black-box optimization testbeds

Natural Evolution Strategies (NES) are a recent member of the class of real-valued optimization algorithms that are based on adapting search distributions. Separable NES (SNES) are a variant of NES that scale linearly with problem dimension and are particularly appropriate for large, separable problems. This report provides the the most extensive empirical results on that algorithm to date, on both the noise-free and noisy BBOB testbeds.
The predictive skill of species distribution models for plankton in a changing climate

Statistical species distribution models (SDMs) are increasingly used to project spatial relocations of marine taxa under future climate change scenarios. However, tests of their predictive skill in the real‐world are rare. Here, we use data from the Continuous Plankton Recorder program, one of the longest running and most extensive marine biological monitoring programs, to investigate the reliability of predicted plankton distributions. We apply three commonly used SDMs to 20 representative plankton species, including copepods, diatoms, and dinoflagellates, all found in the North Atlantic and adjacent seas. We fit the models to decadal subsets of the full (1958–2012) dataset, and then use them to predict both forward and backward in time, comparing the model predictions against the corresponding observations. The probability of correctly predicting presence was low, peaking at 0.5 for copepods, and model skill typically did not outperform a null model assuming distributions to be constant in time. The predicted prevalence increasingly differed from the observed prevalence for predictions with more distance in time from their training dataset. More detailed investigations based on four focal species revealed that strong spatial variations in skill exist, with the least skill at the edges of the distributions, where prevalence is lowest. Furthermore, the scores of traditional single‐value model performance metrics were contrasting and some implied overoptimistic conclusions about model skill. Plankton may be particularly challenging to model, due to its short life span and the dispersive effects of constant water movements on all spatial scales, however there are few other studies against which to compare these results. We conclude that rigorous model validation, including comparison against null models, is essential to assess the robustness of projections of marine planktonic species under climate change.
Social Capital and Self-Rated Health Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults in China

This study examined the association between social capital, at both the individual and the community level, and self-rated health among older adults in China. Using data from the 2008 Pilot Survey of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, a series of multilevel logistic models were estimated in SAS 9.2. The association between social capital and self-rated health was examined among 996 adults aged 45 or older from two provinces in China, while controlling for demographic characteristics and socioeconomic variables. Our results suggest the significant association between certain aspects of social capital, at both the individual and the community level, and self-rated health. The individual-level social capital in the form of perceived help in the future and the social capital of community in the form of the availability of amenities and associations within the community were significantly related to self-rated health. A significant cross-level interaction effect between individual- and community-level social capital was also observed.
Inhibition of rac1 reduces PDGF-induced reactive oxygen species and proliferation in vascular smooth muscle cells.

In vascular smooth muscle cells, reactive oxygen species (ROS) were known to mediate platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF)-induced cell proliferation and NADH/NADPH oxidase is the major source of ROS. NADH/NADPH oxidase is controlled by rac1 in non-phagocytic cells. In this study, we examined whether the inhibition of rac1 by adenoviral-mediated gene transfer of a dominant negative rac1 gene product (Ad.N17rac1) could reduce the proliferation of rat aortic vascular smooth muscle cells (RASMC) stimulated by PDGF via decreasing intracellular ROS. RASMC were stimulated by PDGF (80 ng/mL) with or without N-acetylcysteine 1 mM or infected with 100 mutiplicity of infection of Ad.N17rac1. Intracellular ROS levels were measured at 12 hr using carboxyl-2', 7'-dichlorodihydrofluorescein diacetate confocal microscopy. At 72 hr, cellular proliferation was evaluated by cell number counting and XTT assay. Compared with control, ROS levels were increased by 2-folds by PDGF. NAC and Ad.N17rac1 inhibited PDGF-induced increase of ROS by 77% and 65%, respectively. Cell number was increased by PDGF by 1.6-folds compared with control. NAC and Ad.N17rac1 inhibited PDGF-induced cellular growth by 45% and 87%, respectively. XTT assay also showed similar results. We concluded that inhibition of rac1 in RASMCs could reduce intracellular ROS levels and cellular proliferation induced by PDGF.
A Novel Single-Stage High-Power-Factor Electronic Ballast for Metal-Halide Lamps Free of Acoustic Resonance

This paper proposes a novel single-stage high-power-factor electronic ballast for metal-halide lamps. By integrating two buck-boost converters, a full-bridge inverter and a bidirectional buck converter, a single-stage electronic ballast with symmetrical circuit topology is derived. The circuit component count can be effectively reduced and circuit energy-conversion efficiency is improved. With a tactful control scheme, the proposed electronic ballast can output a low-frequency square-wave voltage to drive metal-halide lamps. The problematic phenomena of acoustic resonance can be eliminated. Both the buck-boost converters serve as power-factor correction (PFC) circuits, which are operated at discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) to obtain a unity power factor at the input line. The operation modes, design equations, and design steps for the circuit parameters are proposed. A prototype circuit designed for a 70-W metal-halide lamp was built and tested to verify the analytical predictions. Satisfactory performances are obtained from the experimental results.
Antioxidant Potential, DNA Protection, and HPLC-DAD Analysis of Neglected Medicinal Jurinea dolomiaea Roots

Jurinea dolomiaea Boiss. , family Compositae, is a medicinally important plant of alpine region. Its tuberous roots are used in various ailments in folk medicine. This study was undertaken to estimate total phenolic (TPC) and total flavonoid contents (TFC) and to determine anti-free radical potential by diverse in vitro antioxidant assays. Crude methanol extract (JDME) was fractionated into n-hexane (JDHE), chloroform (JDCE), ethyl acetate (JDEE), n-butanol (JDBE), and aqueous (JDAE) fractions. The results indicated that JDEE and JDCE constituted the highest amount of TFC (807 ± 7.2 mg rutin equivalent/g sample) and TPC (757 ± 9.4 mg gallic acid equivalent/g sample), respectively. Significant correlation of TFC with IC50 values was recorded for •OH (R 2 = 0.91), H2O2 (R 2 = 0.82), and ABTS (R 2 = 0.82) assay. It could be made clear that JDEE was the most potent in antioxidant activity as compared to others, with generally lower IC50 values for DPPH (41.1 ± 1.0 μg/mL), ABTS (46.7 ± 0.6 μg/mL), H2O2 (42.2 ± 0.9 μg/mL), •OH (61.1 ± 1.1 μg/mL), O2 − (152 ± 1.1 μg/mL), and antilipid peroxidation (54.3 ± 1.6 μg/mL). HPLC chromatogram of JDEE revealed the presence of catechin, caffeic acid, and rutin. The results indicated the antioxidant activities of J. dolomiaea roots and merit further investigations for their use in oxidative stress related disorders.