Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
What gestures reveal about cognitive deficits in Williams Syndrome

ABSTRACT Gestures have a central role in speaking and thinking about spatial information. The goal of the present study is to examine the function of gestures in Williams Syndrome (WS), a genetic disorder characterized by spatial impairments and a preservation of communication. The study’s subjects were 11 WS individuals and 22 typically-developing controls who performed a narrative task. We analyzed offline gesture production and its relation with language and spatial information. Compared to the control groups, WS individuals produced more representational gestures that anticipated, supplemented, or gesture-only communication. Gestures produced by WS participants serve a compensatory role particularly in representing spatial contents.
A novel data reduction technique with fault-tolerance for internet-of-things

Data reduction or data filtering using IoT-gateway is now on the rise in IoT research to facilitate the huge increase of data generated from IoT deployment, and solving problems such as network congestion, limitation of storage and bandwidth. However, existing solutions fall short in two problems, firstly lack of high availability concept to solve single point of failure (SPOF). Secondly, there is not state-of-the-art high availability solution that can be deployed without significant increase of cost and duplication of data. Therefore, this paper will present a concept that utilizing redundant IoT-gateway to improve the availability of data reduction by dividing the task among the IoT-gateways, without generating or sending any duplicated data to the defined end-point (e.g. database in the cloud). The concept is validated with our results that showing in the worst case, we can still achieve 76% accuracy by forwarding only 10% of data.
Daily access to sucrose impairs aspects of spatial memory tasks reliant on pattern separation and neural proliferation in rats

High sugar diets reduce hippocampal neurogenesis, which is required for minimizing interference between memories, a process that involves “pattern separation. ” We provided rats with 2 h daily access to a sucrose solution for 28 d and assessed their performance on a spatial memory task. Sucrose consuming rats discriminated between objects in novel and familiar locations when there was a large spatial separation between the objects, but not when the separation was smaller. Neuroproliferation markers in the dentate gyrus of the sucrose-consuming rats were reduced relative to controls. Thus, sucrose consumption impaired aspects of spatial memory and reduced hippocampal neuroproliferation.
Ulk1 over-expression in human gastric cancer is correlated with patients' T classification and cancer relapse

Ulk1 is a key autophagy protein. Here, we tested expression and potential function of Ulk1 in human gastric cancer. Ulk1 mRNA and protein were significantly elevated in multiple fresh human gastric cancer tissues. Its level was relatively low in surrounding normal epithelial tissues. Ulk1 over-expression was also observed in several gastric cancer cell lines (AGS, HGC-27, and SNU601). Remarkably, Ulk1 knockdown by targeted-shRNA inhibited AGS gastric cancer cell survival and proliferation. On the other hand, exogenous Ulk1 over-expression could further promote AGS cell survival and proliferation. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining assay of 145 paraffin-embedded gastric cancer tissues showed that Ulk1 was over-expressed in majority (114 out of 145) of gastric cancer tissues. Importantly, high Ulk1 expression in gastric cancer was correlated with patients’ T classification and cancer relapse. Together, we demonstrate that Ulk1 over-expression in human gastric cancer is pro-survival. Its over-expression is associated with patients’ T classification and cancer relapse.
SprintNet: A high performance server-centric network architecture for data centers

This paper presents the design, implementation and evaluation of SprintNet, a novel network architecture for data centers. SprintNet achieves high performance in network capacity, fault tolerance, and network latency. SprintNet is also a scalable, yet low-diameter network architecture where the maximum shortest distance between any pair of servers can be limited by no more than four and is independent of the number of layers. The specially designed routing schemes for SprintNet strengthen its merits. Both theoretical analysis and simulation experiments are conducted to evaluate its overall performance with respect to average path length, aggregate bottleneck throughput, and fault tolerance.
Extracellular Signal-Regulated Kinases 1 and 2 and TRPC1 Channels are Required for Calcium-Sensing Receptor-Stimulated MCF-7 Breast Cancer Cell Proliferation

The calcium-sensing receptor (CaR), is a G protein-dependent receptor that responds to increments in extracellular Ca<sup>2+</sup> ([Ca<sup>2+</sup>]<sub>o</sub>). We previously reported that an increase in [Ca<sup>2+</sup>]<sub>o</sub> induced a release of intracellular calcium and Ca<sup>2+</sup> entry via store operated channels (SOCs). We also demonstrated that MCF-7 cells express Transient Receptor Potential canonical 1 (TRPC1) channels. Herein, we investigated CaR intracellular signaling pathways and examined the role of TRPC1 in CaR-induced cell proliferation, through the extracellular signal-regulated Kinases 1 & 2 (ERK1/2) pathways. Treatment by [Ca<sup>2+</sup>]<sub>o</sub> increased both MCF-7 cell proliferation and TRPC1 expression. Both the [Ca<sup>2+</sup>]<sub>o</sub> proliferative effect and TRPC1 protein levels were abolished by the ERK1/2 inhibitors. Moreover, [Ca<sup>2+</sup>]<sub>o</sub> failed to increase cell proliferation either in the presence of CaR or TRPC1 siRNAs. Both [Ca<sup>2+</sup>]<sub>o</sub> and the selective CaR activator spermine, elicited time and dose-dependent ERK1/2 phosphorylation. ERK1/2 phosphorylation was almost completely inhibited by treatment with the phospholipase C and the protein kinase C inhibitors. Treatment with 2-aminoethoxydiphenyl borate (2-APB), and SKF-96365 or by siTRPC1 diminished both [Ca<sup>2+</sup>]<sub>o</sub>- and spermine-stimulated ERK1/2 phosphorylation. Moreover, down-regulation of TRPC1 by siRNA reduced the Ca<sup>2+</sup> entry induced by CaR activation. We conclude that the CaR activates ERK1/2 via a PLC/PKC-dependent pathway. Moreover, TRPC1 is required for the ERK1/2 phosphorylation, Ca<sup>2+</sup> entry and the CaR-proliferative effect.
Leader-following rendezvous and flocking for second-order nonlinear multi-agent systems

This paper studies the leader-following rendezvous and flocking problems with connectivity preservation for a class of second-order nonlinear multi-agent systems subject to both external disturbances and plant uncertainties. By combining the potential function method, the adaptive control technique and the distributed observer method, both the leader-following rendezvous and flocking problems are solved. Finally, one simulation example for a group of Van der Pol oscillators is given to illustrate our design.
Dating texts by multi-class classification with sliding time intervals

We propose a practical method to date texts by classification with sliding time intervals (STI). This further explores the advantage of multi-class text classification, while drawing upon temporal characteristics in the training corpus. Extensive experiments were made on English and medieval Irish texts. Results showed that our STI dating method significantly outperformed classifiers with fixed time intervals (FTI). The Naïve Bayes Multinomial (NBM) with STI achieved the state-of-the-art dating precision on DTE Subtask 2 though only involving features of n-gram characters and words. Experiments on dating long documents and further analysis also indicated some promising points for further text dating research and other humanities fields.
Nonlinear non-negative matrix factorization with fractional power inner-product kernel for face recognition

It is known that a fractional power polynomial cannot necessarily serve as a Mercer kernel function because it does not ensure to generate a positive semi-definite Gram matrix. This paper constructs a fractional power inner-product function which is theoretically shown to be a Mercer kernel function and presents a novel nonlinear non-negative feature representation approach by integrating kernel non-negative matrix factorization (KNMF) and fractional power inner-product kernel (FPK) for face recognition. The proposed fractional power inner-product kernel NMF (FPKNMF) is based on the cost function with squared Frobenius norm. The update rules of FPKNMF are derived out by means of gradient descent method in reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS). We experimentally analyze the convergence and the performance of our FPKNMF method. Compared with some state of the art kernel based methods on ORL and FERET face databases, experimental results demonstrate that the proposed FPKNMF algorithm has superior performance.
Single shot 2D3D image regisraton

In this paper, we present a very deep, 11 weights layers, Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) regression model for single shot and real-time 2D/3D registration. Different from optimization-based methods, which iteratively optimize the transformation parameters over a scalar-valued metric function representing the quality of the registration, the proposed method exploits the information embedded in the appearances of the Digitally Reconstructed Radiograph(DRR) and X-ray images and employs CNN regressors to directly estimate the transformation parameters. Unlike previous CNN approach which adopts an indirect way to cast the original complicated problem as several parts, we train a much deeper network to handle this registration problem by continuing to endeep the Convolutional Neural Network. To fit zooming in and out of DRRs more effectively we further more design a multi scale convolution kernel network. Our experiment results demonstrate the advantage of the proposed method in computational efficiency and accuray. The research may indicate that powerful Convolutional Neural Network can learn the highly complex regression function that mapping the raw image data to the registration parameters thus achieve high accuracy and real-time in 2D/3Dregistration in a direct way.
Estimation of equivalent circuit parameters of induction motor based on FEM with modelling and experimental verification

This paper presents a generalized methodology to study the performance of one of widely used motors that is the three-phase induction motor. The equivalent circuit parameters are estimated by finite element analysis based on its real dimensions. Then the estimated parameters are forwarded to a dynamic model that is built with MATLAB®/SIMULINK® where a thorough performance analysis can be achieved. The approach validity was verified by experimental measurements and testing on a real-life case study (medium voltage induction motor) with the help of a power analyzer equipment which assures that the approach can be used to estimate the parameters and study the performance for any other three-phase induction motor.
Simultaneous wireless information and power transfer in relay networks with finite blocklength codes

This paper considers simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) mechanisms in a relaying network with finite blocklength (FBL) codes. The reliability of the network is optimized under both a power splitting (PS) protocol and a proposed joint PS and time switching (TS) protocol. Under both protocols, we first determine the overall error probability formulation of the SWIPT-enabled two-hop transmission in the FBL regime. Subsequently, we state and solve optimization problems minimizing the overall error probability. Via numerical analysis, we show the appropriateness of our analytical model and demonstrate the performance advantage of the proposed protocol in comparison to TS and PS protocols. In addition, we provide interesting insights on the system behavior by characterizing the impact of the blocklength, transmit power and packet size on the reliability performance.
Inverse Problem of Ultrasound Beamforming With Sparsity Constraints and Regularization

Ultrasound (US) beamforming is the process of reconstructing an image from acquired echo traces on several transducer elements. Typical beamforming approaches, such as delay-and-sum, perform simple projection operations, while techniques using statistical information also exist, e.g., adaptive, phase coherence, delay-multiply-and-sum, and sparse coding approaches. Inspired by the feasibility and success of inverse problem (IP) formulations in several image reconstruction problems, such as computed tomography, we herein devise an IP approach for US beamforming. We define a linear forward model for the synthesis of the beamformed image, and solve its IP thanks to several intuitive and physics-based constraints and regularization terms proposed. These reflect the prior knowledge about the spectra of carrier signal and spatial coherence of modulated signal. These constraints admit effective formulation through sparse representations. Our proposed method was evaluated for plane-wave imaging (PWI) that transmits unfocused waves, enabling high frame rates with large field of view at the expense of much lower image quality with conventional beamforming techniques. Results are evaluated in numerical simulations, as well as tissue-mimicking phantoms and in vivo data provided by PWI challenge in medical US. The best results achieved by our proposed techniques are 0.39-mm full-width at half-maximum for spatial resolution and 16.3-dB contrast-to-noise ratio, using a single plane-wave transmit.
Short-Term Exposure of Mytilus coruscus to Decreased pH and Salinity Change Impacts Immune Parameters of Their Haemocytes

With the release of large amounts of CO2, ocean acidification is intensifying and affecting aquatic organisms. In addition, salinity also plays an important role for marine organisms and fluctuates greatly in estuarine and coastal ecosystem, where ocean acidification frequently occurs. In present study, flow cytometry was used to investigate immune parameters of haemocytes in the thick shell mussel Mytilus coruscus exposed to different salinities (15, 25, and 35‰) and two pH levels (7.3 and 8.1). A 7-day in vivo and a 5-h in vitro experiments were performed. In both experiments, low pH had significant effects on all tested immune parameters. When exposed to decreased pH, total haemocyte count (THC), phagocytosis (Pha), esterase (Est), and lysosomal content (Lyso) were significantly decreased, whereas haemocyte mortality (HM) and reactive oxygen species (ROS) were increased. High salinity had no significant effects on the immune parameters of haemocytes as compared with low salinity. However, an interaction between pH and salinity was observed in both experiments for most tested haemocyte parameters. This study showed that high salinity, low salinity and low pH have negative and interactive effects on haemocytes of mussels. As a consequence, it can be expected that the combined effect of low pH and changed salinity will have more severe effects on mussel health than predicted by single exposure.
Quantification of Twist from the Central Lines of β-Strands

Since the discovery of right-handed twist of a β-strand, many studies have been conducted to understand the twist. Given the atomic structure of a protein, twist angles have been defined using atomic positions of the backbone. However, limited study is available to characterize twist when the atomic positions are not available, but the central lines of β-strands are. Recent studies in cryoelectron microscopy show that it is possible to predict the central lines of β-strands from a medium-resolution density map. Accurate measurement of twist angles is important in identification of β-strands from such density maps. We propose an effective method to quantify twist angles from a set of splines. In a data set of 55 pairs of β-strands from 11 β-sheets of 11 proteins, the spline measurement shows comparable results as measured using the discrete method that uses atomic positions directly, particularly in capturing twist angle change along a pair, different levels of twist among different pairs, and the average of twist angles. The proposed method provides an alternative method to characterize twist using the central lines of a β-sheet.
The dark face of AMPK as an essential tumor promoter

Numerous studies have shown that supraphysiological activation of AMPK could inhibit tumor growth. On the other hand, accumulating data also suggest that AMPK activity is required for tumor growth and migration. These findings suggest that physiological activation of AMPK is critical for tumor growth/migration, possibly through maintenance of ATP levels. Our recent study provides the first evidence that the maintenance of cellular NADPH homeostasis is the predominant mechanism by which AMPK promotes tumor cell survival and solid tumor formation. We showed that AMPK activation is required to maintain intracellular NADPH levels through the activation of fatty acid oxidation (FAO) or the inhibition of fatty acid synthesis (FAS) during glucose deprivation or matrix detachment respectively. Through these processes AMPK activation inhibits the rise in reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels and promotes metabolic adaptation in response to metabolic stress. This finding also provides a new therapeutic opportunity through targeting metabolic adaptation of cancer cells, either alone or in combination with conventional anti-cancer drugs that cause metabolic stress.
The effect of trunk training on muscle thickness and muscle activity: a systematic review

Abstract Objective: A systematic review to examine the effect of static or dynamic trunk training compared to standard care or control therapy on muscle activity and muscle thickness of the trunk and lower limb muscles in stroke survivors. Materials and methods: This review was registered on PROSPERO (no: CRD42017063771) and was written according to the PRISMA guidelines. The search strategy included studies from the first indexed article until September 2017 and was performed in the electronical databases PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Ovid Medline and PEDro. Two independent reviewers screened, assessed risk of bias by means of the PEDro scale and extracted data. Results: Eight studies were included of which three investigated the effects of trunk training on muscle thickness, the remaining five investigated muscle activity. The following muscles were investigated: erector spinae, multifidi, paravertebralis, transversus abdominis, internal and external oblique abdominis, rectus abdominis, quadriceps femoris, hamstrings, soleus and tibialis anterior. Trunk exercises significantly improved the muscle activity of the internal oblique abdominis and increased muscle thickness of transversus abdominis. Conclusions: Trunk training is effective in restoring symmetry in muscle thickness to improve muscle strength. The gain in muscle thickness is specific to the applied exercise program, suggesting that therapeutic goal setting is of great importance. However, no conclusion could be made concerning changes in muscle activity due to a high risk of bias. Implications for rehabilitation: Trunk training seems to be effective in restoring symmetry in trunk muscle thickness. Not all muscle groups benefit from specific trunk exercises. Patients suffering from chronic stroke are still capable of restoring muscle function.
Scalable and Obfuscation-Resilient Android App Repackaging Detection Based on Behavior Birthmark

Repackaged Android apps are the major source of Android malware, which not only compromise the pecuniary profit of original authors, but also pose threat to security and privacy of mobile users. Although a large number of birthmark based approaches have been proposed for Android repackaging detection, the majority of them heavily rely on the code instruction details, thus suffering from the following two limitations: (1) subject to code/resource obfuscation technologies; (2) fail to large scale repackaging detection. In this paper, we propose a novel behavior based approach for Android repackaging detection to meet scalability and obfuscation-resilience at the same time. As the repackaged app always keeps the basic functionalities of the original one for leveraging its popularity, they usually have similar behaviors. This observation inspires us to design the new behavior based birthmark for Android repackaging detection, namely, API dependency graph. To further improve the detection performance, we also introduce a system dependency summary graph based ADG extraction approach for high efficiency birthmark construction. We implement a prototype system named ACFinder and evaluate our system using 13,917 apps of 22 categories collected from APK-DL. Experiments show that ACFinder can extract behavior birthmark efficiently (average 52.9s per app), and that our behavior birthmark is resilient to complex code obfuscation technologies (average app similarity all are 1.0 for 11 code obfuscation algorithms) and capable to large scale detection (average 0.37s per app pair).
Adrenalectomy abolishes hypergravity-induced gastric acid hyposecretion

Jet fighter pilots experience high gravitational acceleration forces in the cephalocaudal direction (+Gz), causing severe stress. Stress affects different physiological functions of the gastrointestinal tract. Although the effects of exposure to hypergravity on cardiovascular and cerebral functions have been the subject of numerous studies, crucial information regarding potential pathophysiological alterations following hypergravity exposure in the gastrointestinal tract is lacking. We recently documented a significant decrease in gastric secretory activity in rats after acute exposure to hypergravity. In the present study, we investigated the effects of adrenalectomy on gastric acid secretion and plasma gastrin level in hypergravity-exposed rats. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were adrenalectomized and exposed to +10Gz three times for 3 min. Gastric juice and blood samples were collected, and the volume and total acidity of gastric juice and plasma level of gastrin were measured. Consistent with our previous data, acute exposure to +10Gz significantly altered the gastric juice parameters in the sham-operated rats. The volume (P < 0.001) and acidity (P < 0.001) of gastric juice in the hypergravity-exposed rats were significantly lower than those in the nonexposed rats. In contrast, in adrenalectomized rats, the differences in the gastric juice volume (P = 0.712) and acidity (P = 0.279) were not statistically significant between the hypergravity-exposed and nonexposed rats. We demonstrated that adrenalectomy abolished hypergravity-induced gastric acid hyposecretion, but did not influence gastrin release. These findings suggest that the adrenal glands are required for hypergravity-induced gastric acid hyposecretion.