Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Binding of hippocampal CA1 neural activity to multiple reference frames in a landmark-based navigation task

The behavioral correlates of rat hippocampal CA1 cells were examined in a spatial navigation task in which two cylindrical landmarks predicted the location of food. The landmarks were maintained at a constant distance from each other but were moved from trial to trial within a large arena surrounded by static background cues. On each trial, the rats were released from a box to which they returned for additional food after locating the goal. The box also was located variably from trial to trial and was moved to a new location while the animals were searching for the goal site. The discharge characteristics of multiple, simultaneously recorded cells were examined with respect to the landmarks, the static background cues, and the box in which each trial started and ended. Three clear categories of cells were observed: (1) cells with location-specific firing (place cells); (2) goal/landmark-related cells that fired in the vicinity of the goal or landmarks, regardless of their location in the arena; and (3) box-related cells that fired either when the rat was in the box or as it was leaving or entering the box, regardless of its location in the arena. Disjunctive cells with separate firing fields in more than one reference frame also were observed. These results suggest that in this task a subpopulation of hippocampal cells encodes location in the fixed spatial frame, whereas other subpopulations encode location with respect to different reference frames associated with the task-relevant, mobile objects.
Automatic Indian currency denomination recognition system based on artificial neural network

Automatic detection and recognition of Indian currency note has gained a lot of research attention in recent years particularly due to its vast potential applications. In this paper we introduce a new recognition method for Indian currency using computer vision. It is shown that Indian currencies can be classified based on a set of unique non discriminating features such as color, dimension and most importantly the Identification Mark (unique for each denomination) mentioned in RBI guidelines. Firstly the dominant color and the aspect ratio of the note are extracted. After this the segmentation of the portion of the note containing the unique I.D. Mark is done. From these segmented image, feature extraction is done using Fourier Descriptors. As each note has a unique shape as the I.D. Mark, the classification of these shapes is done with the help of Artificial Neural Network. After feature extraction, the denominations are recognized based on the developed algorithm. The success rate of the proposed system is 97% requiring a processing time of 2.52 seconds.
Experimental assessment of factors mediating the naturalization of a globally invasive tree on sandy coastal plains: a case study from Brazil

Long-term seed persistence in the soil, broad germination requirements (temperature and light conditions) and the capacity to survive in a wide range of light intensity favours Casuarina equisetifolia naturalization. This species exhibited high germination plasticity, although young plants showed low plasticity. The positive effect of phenotypic integration on plastic expression in the shade shows that in stressful environments traits that show greater phenotypic plasticity values may have significant phenotypic correlations with other characters. However, C. equisetifolia did not tolerate water stress and deep shade, which limit its potential to become naturalized on sandy coastal plain.
Regulation of ecto‐apyrase CD39 (ENTPD1) expression by phosphodiesterase III (PDE3)

The ectoenzyme CD39 suppresses thrombosis and inflammation by suppressing ATP and ADP to AMP. However, mechanisms of CD39 transcriptional and post‐translational regulation are not well known. Here we show that CD39 levels are modulated by inhibition of phosphodiesterase 3 (PDE3). RAW macrophages and human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) were treated with the PDE3 inhibitors cilostazol and milrinone, then analyzed using qRT‐PCR, immunoprecipitation/Western blot, immunofluorescent staining, radio‐thin‐layer chromatography, a malachite green assay, and ELISA. HUVECs expressed elevated CD39 protein (2‐fold [P<0.05] for cilostazol and 2.5‐fold [P<0.01] for milrinone), while macrophage CD39 mRNA and protein were both elevated after PDE3 inhibition. HUVEC ATPase activity increased by 25% with cilostazol and milrinone treatment (P<0.05 and P<0.01, respectively), as did ADPase activity (47% and 61%, P<0.001). There was also a dose‐dependent elevation of soluble CD39 after treatment with 8‐Br‐cAMP, with maximal elevation of 60% more CD39 present compared to controls (1 mM, P<0.001). Protein harvested after 8‐Br‐cAMP treatment showed that ubiquitination of CD39 was decreased by 43% compared to controls. A DMSO or PBS vehicle control was included for each experiment based on solubility of cilostazol, milrinone, and 8‐Br‐cAMP. These results indicate that PDE3 inhibition regulates endothelial CD39 at a post‐translational level. —Baek, A. E. , Kanthi, Y. , Sutton, N. R. , Liao, H. , Pinsky, D. J. Regulation of ecto‐apyrase CD39 (ENTPD1) expression by phosphodiesterase III (PDE3). FASEB J. 27, 4419–4428 (2013). www.fasebj. org
Acid-Base Disorders in Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: A Pathophysiological Review

The authors describe the pathophysiological mechanisms leading to development of acidosis in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and its deleterious effects on outcome and mortality rate. Renal compensatory adjustments consequent to acidosis are also described in detail with emphasis on differences between acute and chronic respiratory acidosis. Mixed acid-base disturbances due to comorbidity and side effects of some drugs in these patients are also examined, and practical considerations for a correct diagnosis are provided.
AID Induces Double-Strand Breaks at Immunoglobulin Switch Regions and c-MYC Causing Chromosomal Translocations in Yeast THO Mutants

Transcription of the switch (S) regions of immunoglobulin genes in B cells generates stable R-loops that are targeted by Activation Induced Cytidine Deaminase (AID), triggering class switch recombination (CSR), as well as translocations with c-MYC responsible for Burkitt's lymphomas. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, stable R-loops are formed co-transcriptionally in mutants of THO, a conserved nuclear complex involved in mRNP biogenesis. Such R-loops trigger genome instability and facilitate deamination by human AID. To understand the mechanisms that generate genome instability mediated by mRNP biogenesis impairment and by AID, we devised a yeast chromosomal system based on different segments of mammalian S regions and c-MYC for the analysis of chromosomal rearrangements in both wild-type and THO mutants. We demonstrate that AID acts in yeast at heterologous S and c-MYC transcribed sequences leading to double-strand breaks (DSBs) which in turn cause chromosomal translocations via Non-Homologous End Joining (NHEJ). AID–induced translocations were strongly enhanced in yeast THO null mutants, consistent with the idea that AID–mediated DSBs depend on R-loop formation. Our study not only provides new clues to understand the role of mRNP biogenesis in preventing genome rearrangements and the mechanism of AID-mediated genome instability, but also shows that, once uracil residues are produced by AID–mediated deamination, these are processed into DSBs and chromosomal rearrangements by the general and conserved DNA repair functions present from yeast to human cells.
Joint iris boundary detection and fit: a real-time method for accurate pupil tracking

A range of applications in visual science rely on accurate tracking of the human pupil’s movement and contraction in response to light. While the literature for independent contour detection and fitting of the iris-pupil boundary is vast, a joint approach, in which it is assumed that the pupil has a given geometric shape has been largely overlooked. We present here a global method for simultaneously finding and fitting of an elliptic or circular contour against a dark interior, which produces consistently accurate results even under non-ideal recording conditions, such as reflections near and over the boundary, droopy eye lids, or the sudden formation of tears. The specific form of the proposed optimization problem allows us to write down closed analytic formulae for the gradient and the Hessian of the objective function. Moreover, both the objective function and its derivatives can be cast into vectorized form, making the proposed algorithm significantly faster than its closest relative in the literature. We compare methods in multiple ways, both analytically and numerically, using real iris images as well as idealizations of the iris for which the ground truth boundary is precisely known. The method proposed here is illustrated under challenging recording conditions and it is shown to be robust.
Radio Wavelength Constraints on the Sources of the Far-Infrared Background

The cosmic far-infrared background detected recently by the COBE-DIRBE team is presumably due, in large part, to the far-infrared (FIR) emission from all galaxies. We take the well-established correlation between FIR and radio luminosity for individual galaxies and apply it to the FIR background. We find that these sources make up about half of the extragalactic radio background, the other half being due to active galactic nuclei (AGNs). This is in agreement with other radio observations, which leads us to conclude that the FIR-radio correlation holds well for the very faint sources making up the FIR background and that the FIR background is indeed due to star formation activity (not AGNs or other possible sources). If these star-forming galaxies have a radio spectral index between 0.4 and 0.8 and make up 40%-60% of the extragalactic radio background, we find that they have redshifts between roughly 1 and 2, which is in agreement with recent estimates by Madau et al. of the redshift of peak star formation activity. We compare the observed extragalactic radio background to the integral over the logN-logS curve for star-forming radio sources and find that the slope of the curve must change significantly below about 1 μJy. At 1 μJy, the faint radio source counts predict about 25 sources per square arcminute, and these will cause the Space Infrared Telescope Facility to be confusion limited at 160 μm.
Lean Mass of Children in Various Nutritional States: Comparison between Dual‐Energy X‐Ray Absorptiometry and Anthropometry

PAOLO BRAMBILLA,a,b MARIE-FRANÇOISE ROLLAND-CACHERA,c CORRADO TESTOLIN,a ANDRÉ BRIEND,c ALESSANDRO SALVATONI,d GIULIO TESTOLIN,e AND GIUSEPPE CHIUMELLOa aPediatric Department, Scientific Institute, San Raffaele Hospital, Milan, Italy cISTNA CNAM, Paris, France dPediatric Department, University of Insubria, Varese, Italy eInternational Centre of the Assessment of Nutritional Status (ICANS), University of Milan, Italy
Detecting Community Structure in Weighted Email Network

Corresponding to real-world organizational structure, email networks have a natural property: community structure. In this paper, we propose an algorithm to detect the community structure in weighted email networks by deleting all the boundaries. In order to measure how much an edge could be a boundary between two communities, a composite index named mediumness is defined, which is derived from betweenness centrality. After the graph becomes unconnected via removing the boundary edges, two inspecting criteria are employed to identify the qualifications of sub-graphs for being communities. We test the algorithm on a large computer-generated network which is constructed by randomizing rules. The results show that it can detect all the potential communities in this email network.
Type III Group B Streptococcal Polysaccharide Induces Antibodies That Cross-React with Streptococcus pneumoniae Type 14

ABSTRACT Covalent linkage of a bacterial polysaccharide to a protein greatly enhances the carbohydrate's immunogenicity and its binding to solid surfaces in immunoassays. These findings have spurred the development of glycoconjugate vaccines to prevent serious bacterial infections as well as the use of glycoconjugates as coating antigens in bioassays. We evaluated sera from women immunized with unconjugated group B streptococcal (GBS) type III (GBS III) polysaccharide (IIIPS) or with IIIPS covalently linked to tetanus toxoid to assess specificity, sensitivity, and parallelism in dilution curves in two GBS III enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs). One assay used IIIPS mixed with methylated human serum albumin (IIIPS + mHSA) as the coating antigen, and the other used IIIPS covalently linked to HSA (III-HSA). Each coating antigen was associated with a highly specific GBS III bioassay. The sensitivity was higher in the III-HSA ELISA, in which conjugated IIIPS is bound to the plates. Parallelism in titration curves was observed in the III-HSA but not in the IIIPS + mHSA ELISA. The excellent correlation between the concentrations of GBS IIIPS-specific immunoglobulin G (IgG) and the opsonophagocytic activity of these antibodies indicated that the III-HSA assay can predict functionality of vaccine-induced IgG against GBS III disease. The structure of the repeating unit of the capsular polysaccharide of GBS III differs from that of Streptococcus pneumoniae type 14 (Pn14 PS) only by the presence on GBS III of a sialic acid residue at the end of the side chain. The majority of healthy adults responding to GBS III vaccines with a fourfold or greater increase in GBS III-specific IgG antibodies developed antibodies cross-reacting with Pn14 PS (i.e., desialylated GBS IIIPS). The proportion of GBS vaccine responders who developed IgG to the desialylated IIIPS did not depend on whether IIIPS was given in the unconjugated or conjugated form. When present, these vaccine-induced cross-reacting antibodies conferred in vitro antibody-mediated opsonophagocytosis and killing of both GBS III and Pn14, two pathogens that cause invasive disease in young infants.
HEAP: Reliable Assessment of BGP Hijacking Attacks

The detection of BGP prefix hijacking attacks has been the focus of research for more than a decade. However, the state-of-the-art techniques fall short of detecting more elaborate types of attack. To study such attacks, we devise a novel formalization of Internet routing, and apply this model to routing anomalies in order to establish a comprehensive attacker model. We use this model to precisely classify attacks and to evaluate their impact and detectability. We analyze the eligibility of attack tactics that suit an attacker's goals and demonstrate that related work mostly focuses on less impactful kinds of attacks. We further propose, implement, and test the Hijacking Event Analysis Program (HEAP), a new approach to investigate hijacking alarms. Our approach is designed to seamlessly integrate with the previous work in order to reduce the high rates of false alarms inherent to these techniques. We leverage several unique data sources that can reliably disprove malicious intent. First, we make use of an Internet routing registry to derive business or organizational relationships between the parties involved in an event. Second, we use a topology-based reasoning algorithm to rule out events caused by legitimate operational practice. Finally, we use Internet-wide network scans to identify SSL/TLS-enabled hosts, which helps to identify non-malicious events by comparing public keys prior to and during an event. In our evaluation, we prove the effectiveness of our approach, and show that day-to-day routing anomalies are harmless for the most part. More importantly, we use HEAP to assess the validity of publicly reported alarms. We invite researchers to interface with HEAP in order to crosscheck and narrow down their hijacking alerts.
Acquiring hand-action models in task and behavior levels by a learning robot through observing human demonstrations

This paper describes our current research on learning tasks (what to do) and behaviors (how to do it) by a robot through observation of human demonstrations. We focus on human hand actions and represent such hand actions in symbolic behavior and task models. We propose frameworks of such models, derived a method to acquire those models through observation, evaluated them by using a human-form robot, and considered a method to improve such models automatically. We approach the problems on two levels: task and behavior. At task level acquisition, which obtains what-todo information, we propose a method for constructing a human task model by attention point (AP) analysis, which can efficiently integrate multiple input from several observation devices distributed in space and time, and then construct an abstract task model. As behavior level acquisition, which obtains how-to-do information, we present a method for segmenting a human assembly behavior into primitive behavior models, referred to as sub-skills; this method consists of analyzing face-contact transitions of manipulated objects in a human demonstration. We also describe the structure of the robot that we developed for learning and performing such hand-actions, and present experimental demonstrations performed by the robot.
Statin-induced calcification in human mesenchymal stem cells is cell death related

Statins are widely used in clinics to lower cholesterol levels. Recently, they have been shown to positively affect bone formation and bone mass in a rat model. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of pravastatin, simvastatin and lovastatin on the osteoblastic differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in vitro. Cell number, alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity, matrix mineralization and gene expression pattern were determined. Pravastatin did not affect cell differentiation. Simvastatin and lovastatin enhanced bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP‐2) mRNA levels. In contrast, ALP activity and mRNA levels were suppressed by statins, as well as the DNA content and cell activity (MTT). An increase in apoptotic events was observed at high concentrations of statins, along with high Ca‐45 incorporation. Lower concentrations of statins did not increase apoptotic staining, but also failed to induce calcification. When statin‐induced calcification did occur, the morphology of the deposits was very different from the conventional nodule formation; the calcium was laid down along the membranes of the rounded cells suggesting it was as a result of cell death. Our results indicate that statins are not able to differentiate human MSCs into osteoblasts and that high concentrations of statins (>1 μM) have a cytotoxic effect.
The A55T and K153R polymorphisms of MSTN gene are associated with the strength training-induced muscle hypertrophy among Han Chinese men

Abstract Myostatin, encoded by the MSTN gene, is a strong regulator of skeletal muscle growth. The present study aimed to investigate whether the A55T and K153R polymorphisms of MSTN were associated with the strength training-induced muscle hypertrophy among Han Chinese men. A total of 94 healthy, untrained men were recruited for an 8-week strength training programme. The thicknesses of biceps and quadriceps, along with anthropometric measurements of the participants, were assessed before and after the programme. The MSTN polymorphisms were subsequently genotyped employing polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism technique and confirmed by DNA sequencing. One-way analysis of variance was used to compare the pre- and post-training measurements between carriers of different polymorphic genotypes. Our results indicated that individuals with AT + TT genotype of the A55T polymorphism showed a significant increase in the thickness of biceps (0.292 ± 0.210 cm, P = 0.03), but not quadriceps (0.254 ± 0.198 cm, P = 0.07), compared to carriers of AA genotype. For the K153R polymorphism, the increases in the thicknesses of both biceps (0.300 ± 0.131 cm) and quadriceps (0.421 ± 0.281 cm) were significantly higher among individuals with KR than those with KK genotypes (P < 0.01 for both muscles). The results obtained therefore suggested a possible association between the two polymorphisms and the strength training-induced muscle hypertrophy among men of Han Chinese ethnicity.
Traffic-aware adaptive wake-up-interval for preamble sampling MAC protocols of WSN

Medium access control MAC layer plays an important role for energy management in wireless sensor network (WSN). In this paper we present an adaptive wake-up-interval scheme for preamble sampling (MAC) protocols for variable traffic in WSN. The wake-up-interval is updated based on the traffic status register (whose contents depend on the presence of messages for a particular node). The proposed algorithm considers dominant effect of recent traffic with regards to the old traffic and also it relies on the occurrence of consecutive data packets. The results show that the sensor node adapts and converges its wake-up-interval to the best trade-off value for fixed and variable traffic patterns. Two optimization parameters (length of traffic status register and initial wake-up-interval value) are also tuned to achieve fast convergence speed for different traffic rates and variations.
Large-Scale Industrial Alarm Reduction and Critical Events Mining Using Graph Analytics on Spark

In current industrial practice, thousands of industrial alarms generating millions of alarm events, are built into digital control systems typically found in power generation facilities, power grid and communication networks, oil refineries, petrochemical plants, and other manufacturing plants. Given the increasing complexity of such systems, an effective approach to managing alarms and the stream of data they generate becomes imperative. Hitherto, much of alarm management techniques are mostly rule-based with intensive engineering domain expertise requiring an understanding of the underlying physical processes and special skills on the part of the plant operator. This paper describes a novel graph-based data mining approach that can be used to analyze industrial alarm data. Our method leverages the availability of large timestamped historical alarm events datasets. Using these historical datasets, we developed a graph analytics model that identifies redundant alarms and the series of alarms associated with or leading to critical events. Our experiments using real-world (a power generation station and an oil refinery) industrial alarm datasets demonstrate that our proposed method is both scalable and efficient.
The Possibility of Normal Gait Analysis Based on a Smart Phone for Healthcare

In this paper, through the inertial sensors or a smart phone to collect human walking gait data and then with periodic gait analysis to establish personal health counseling application. Based on regularly gait data analysis, it could find some special features of the person, such as dynamic symmetry of gait, cyclic stability of gait, and the walking patterns, also their changes with weekly or monthly. If the irregular or abnormal walking patterns like asymmetry or skew, stumbles or slip could be often detected, it may make early warning to the person that he or she may has the problem of body, possibly the falls risk.