Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interaction between Depth Order and Density Affects Vection and Postural Sway

Objective Vection, a feeling of self-motion while being physically stationary, and postural sway can be modulated by various visual factors. Moreover, vection and postural sway are often found to be closely related when modulated by such visual factors, suggesting a common neural mechanism. One well-known visual factor is the depth order of the stimulus. The density, i.e. number of objects per unit area, is proposed to interact with the depth order in the modulation of vection and postural sway, which has only been studied to a limited degree. Methods We therefore exposed 17 participants to 18 different stimuli containing a stationary pattern and a pattern rotating around the naso-occipital axis. The density of both patterns was varied between 10 and 90%; the densities combined always added up to 100%. The rotating pattern occluded or was occluded by the stationary pattern, suggesting foreground or background motion, respectively. During pattern rotation participants reported vection by pressing a button, and postural sway was recorded using a force plate. Results Participants always reported more vection and swayed significantly more when rotation was perceived in the background and when the rotating pattern increased in density. As hypothesized, we found that the perceived depth order interacted with pattern density. A pattern rotating in the background with a density between 60 and 80% caused significantly more vection and postural sway than when it was perceived to rotate in the foreground. Conclusions The findings suggest that the ratio between fore- and background pattern densities is an important factor in the interaction with the depth order, and it is not the density of rotating pattern per se. Moreover, the observation that vection and postural sway were modulated in a similar way points towards a common neural origin regulating both variables.
Applications of a Context Ontology Language

In this paper we analyse the applicability of our Context Ontology Language (CoOL), considering a range of use cases. After wrapping up the model in use within this language, we introduce some interesting applications of the language, based on a scenario showing the challenges in context aware service interactions. We focus on two submodels of our model for context aware service interactions, namely Context Bindings and Context Obligations, and demonstrate how to integrate them into existing service architectures.
An empirical study of workers' behavior in spatial crowdsourcing

With the ubiquity of smartphones, spatial crowdsourcing (SC) has emerged as a new paradigm that engages mobile users to perform tasks in the physical world. Thus, various SC techniques have been studied for performance optimization. However, little research has been done to understand workers' behavior in the real world. In this study, we designed and performed two real world SC campaigns utilizing our mobile app, called Genkii, which is a GPS-enabled app for users to report their affective state (e.g., happy, sad). We used Yahoo! Japan Crowdsourcing as the payment platform to reward users for reporting their affective states at different locations and times. We studied the relationship between incentives and participation by analyzing the impact of offering a fixed reward versus an increasing reward scheme. We observed that users tend to stay in a campaign longer when the provided incentives gradually increase over time. We also found that the degree of mobility is correlated with the reported information. For example, users who travel more are observed to be happier than the ones who travel less. Furthermore, analyzing the spatiotemporal information of the reports reveals interesting mobility patterns that are unique to spatial crowdsourcing.
Mind the Gap: Subspace based Hierarchical Domain Adaptation

Domain adaptation techniques aim at adapting a classifier learnt on a source domain to work on the target domain. Exploiting the subspaces spanned by features of the source and target domains respectively is one approach that has been investigated towards solving this problem. These techniques normally assume the existence of a single subspace for the entire source / target domain. In this work, we consider the hierarchical organization of the data and consider multiple subspaces for the source and target domain based on the hierarchy. We evaluate different subspace based domain adaptation techniques under this setting and observe that using different subspaces based on the hierarchy yields consistent improvement over a non-hierarchical baseline
Single-chain Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Variant with Antagonist Activity*

Vascular endothelial growth factor is a specific endothelial cell mitogen that is essential for the formation of the vascular system but in the adult individual is involved in several pathological conditions, including cancer. It is a homodimeric protein that activates its receptor by binding two receptor molecules and inducing dimerization. By mixing two vascular endothelial growth factor monomers, each with different substitutions, heterodimers with only one active receptor binding site have previously been prepared. These heterodimers bind the receptor molecule but are unable to induce dimerization and activation. However, preparation of heterodimers is cumbersome, involving separate expression of different monomers, refolding the mixture, and separating heterodimers from homodimers. Here we show that a fully functional ligand can efficiently be expressed as a single protein chain containing two monomers. Single-chain vascular endothelial growth factor is functionally equivalent to the wild-type protein. By monomer-specific mutagenesis, one receptor binding site was altered. This variant competitively and specifically antagonizes the mitogenic effect of the wild-type protein on endothelial cells. The results obtained with the single-chain antagonist show the feasibility of the single-chain approach in directing alterations to single specific regions in natural homodimeric proteins that would be impossible to target in other ways.
Efficient Constrained Path Planning via Search in State Lattices

An addressable subscription television decoder includes an input stage including an IF amplifier for converting a scrambled RF television signal to a composite baseband video signal. The baseband video signal comprises either a nominal sync component or a sync component having suppressed horizontal sync pulses during video fields and having non-suppressed sync pulses during vertical intervals, the vertical intervals also including selected encoded data signals. An AGC voltage for controlling the gain of the IF amplifier is developed by a circuit exhibiting a relatively short time constant whenever the composite baseband video signal is characterized by nominal level sync pulses, the time constant being increased in response to suppressed horizontal sync pulses. The sync pulses produced during the vertical intervals of the composite baseband video signal are thereby not subjected to excessive IF gain for facilitating processing of the data signals by the decoder.
Registration and segmentation based analysis of microscopy images

Lorenz, Kevin S. Ph.D., Purdue University, August 2012. Registration and Segmentation Based Analysis of Microscopy Images. Major Professors: Edward J. Delp and Paul Salama. Optical microscopy exhibits many challenges for digital image analysis. In general, microscopy volumes are inherently anisotropic, suffer from decreasing contrast with tissue depth, lack object edge detail, and characteristically have low signal levels. Image analysis is motivated by the desire to quantify biological characteristics such as cell count and tissue volume. This thesis describes methods for an integrated approach to segmentation and registration of intravital microscopy image sets. Image data are acquired using one of two distinct techniques. One data set type consists of a series of images corresponding to focal planes looking deeper in the tissue (three dimensional data), and a second type consists of a series of images corresponding to a sequence of time instances imaging a single focal plane (time-series data). Analysis is performed via a combination of segmentation and registration techniques, but is complicated by factors such as live specimen motion during image acquisition. In particular, we describe a method that utilizes image enhancement, spatial filtering, rigid and non-rigid registration, and temporal filtering. Experimental results indicate our methods are promising based on the analysis of several sets of liver, kidney, lung, and salivary gland images. By lacking ground truth data to evaluate accuracy of results, analysis consistency is evaluated using flipped image volumes and reverse image acquisition. Registration validation is performed using motion vector analysis, a non-traditional application of a technique borrowed from motion estimation.
PRDM1 controls the sequential activation of neural, neural crest and sensory progenitor determinants

ABSTRACT During early embryogenesis, the ectoderm is rapidly subdivided into neural, neural crest and sensory progenitors. How the onset of lineage determinants and the loss of pluripotency markers are temporally and spatially coordinated in vivo is still debated. Here, we identify a crucial role for the transcription factor PRDM1 in the orderly transition from epiblast to defined neural lineages in chick. PRDM1 is initially expressed broadly in the entire epiblast, but becomes gradually restricted as cell fates are specified. We find that PRDM1 is required for the loss of some pluripotency markers and the onset of neural, neural crest and sensory progenitor specifier genes. PRDM1 directly activates their expression by binding to their promoter regions and recruiting the histone demethylase Kdm4a to remove repressive histone marks. However, once neural lineage determinants become expressed, they in turn repress PRDM1, whereas prolonged PRDM1 expression inhibits neural, neural crest and sensory progenitor genes, suggesting that its downregulation is necessary for cells to maintain their identity. Therefore, PRDM1 plays multiple roles during ectodermal cell fate allocation. Summary: PRDM1 mediates transcriptional activation of neural and sensory progenitor genes by recruiting histone demethylases such as Kdm4a to their promoters, but must then be repressed to maintain neural, neural crest and placode cell fates.
Performance emulation of mobile video transmission in high-speed rail environment

In recent years, wireless video transmission attracts more and more attention from both academia and industry with the advancement of wireless communications and Internet technologies. However, by now, most studies focus on video transmission in static or low-speed mobile environment. To the best of our knowledge, the performance of video transmission in high-speed mobile environment (such as high-speed railway) has not been investigated yet. Considering the unique features of wireless channels in high-speed rail environment, in this work, we developed a novel mobile video emulation platform to evaluate the performance of video transmission in high-speed rail environment. This mobile video emulation platform is based on a software radio system (a.k.a. “Sora”) developed by Microsoft Research. The performance of video transmission under different moving speeds and channel conditions are tested and compared. The emulation results show that, in general, the lower the train speed, the better the received video quality. A lot of challenging research issues have to be addressed in order to improve the Quality of Service (QoS) or Quality of Experience (QoE) for mobile video transmission in high-speed rail environment, especially under the Rayleigh fading channels with significant Doppler spread.
Analyzing the Impact of Antipatterns on Change-Proneness Using Fine-Grained Source Code Changes

Antipatterns are poor solutions to design and implementation problems which are claimed to make object oriented systems hard to maintain. Our recent studies showed that classes with antipatterns change more frequently than classes without antipatterns. In this paper, we detail these analyses by taking into account fine-grained source code changes (SCC) extracted from 16 Java open source systems. In particular we investigate: whether classes with antipatterns are more change-prone (in terms of SCC) than classes without, (2) whether the type of antipattern impacts the change-proneness of Java classes, and (3) whether certain types of changes are performed more frequently in classes affected by a certain antipattern. Our results show that: 1) the number of SCC performed in classes affected by antipatterns is statistically greater than the number of SCC performed in classes with no antipattern, 2) classes participating in the three antipatterns Complex Class, Spaghetti Code, and SwissArmyKnife are more change-prone than classes affected by other antipatterns, and 3) certain types of changes are more likely to be performed in classes affected by certain antipatterns, such as API changes are likely to be performed in classes affected by the Complex Class, Spaghetti Code, and SwissArmyKnife antipatterns.
Inositol 1,4,5‐trisphosphate activates pharmacomechanical coupling in smooth muscle of the rabbit mesenteric artery.

To clarify the nature of the noradrenaline (NA)‐induced contraction, the effects of NA on inositol phospholipid metabolism and the actions of inositol 1,4,5‐trisphosphate (InsP3) on skinned muscle of the rabbit mesenteric artery were investigated. NA, in concentrations over 1 nM, reduced the amount of phosphatidylinositol 4,5‐bisphosphate (PI‐P2) and increased the amount of phosphatidic acid (PA). The maximum reduction in the amount of PI‐P2 and the maximum increase in the amount of PA were observed in the presence of 1 microM‐NA. With prolonged application of NA, the PI‐P2 was gradually restored to near the control level, but with repeated applications of NA separated by rinses with Krebs solution, there was a consistent reduction of PI‐P2. The NA‐induced PI‐P2 breakdown was inhibited by the alpha 1‐adrenoceptor blocking agent, prazosin. After incubation of the tissue with radioactive inositol‐containing solution, NA transiently increased the amount of radioactive InsP3 which was followed by increases in the amount of inositol 1,4‐bisphosphate (InsP2) and inositol monophosphate (InsP). After accumulation of Ca by saponin‐treated muscle cells of the dog mesenteric artery dispersed by collagenase, InsP3 released Ca stored in cells but InsP2 did not. A23187 (5 microM) but not InsP3 (up to 10 microM), depleted Ca accumulated in the presence of ATP. In saponin‐treated skinned muscle tissues, InsP3 in concentrations over 0.3 microM, produced contraction following accumulation of Ca into the store site. InsP3 released Ca from the same source as caffeine. The release of Ca by InsP3 appeared in a concentration‐dependent manner and this release also depended on the amount of Ca stored in cells (the median effective dose (ED50) was 3.0 microM in 0.1 microM‐Ca and 1.0 microM in 0.3 microM‐Ca). We concluded that NA activates alpha 1‐adrenoceptors, thus hydrolysing PI‐P2 and synthesizing InsP3. This product can release Ca stored in cells as estimated from the contraction in skinned muscle tissues, and also reduces the residual amount of Ca stored in skinned dispersed muscle cells. Contraction evoked by NA through pharmacomechanical coupling can be explained as a function of InsP3.
Type- and Content-Driven Synthesis of SQL Queries from Natural Language

This paper presents a new technique for automatically synthesizing SQL queries from natural language. Our technique is fully automated, works for any database without requiring additional customization, and does not require users to know the underlying database schema. Our method achieves these goals by combining natural language processing, program synthesis, and automated program repair. Given the user's English description, our technique first uses semantic parsing to generate a query sketch, which is subsequently completed using type-directed program synthesis and assigned a confidence score using database contents. However, since the user's description may not accurately reflect the actual database schema, our approach also performs fault localization and repairs the erroneous part of the sketch. This synthesize-repair loop is repeated until the algorithm infers a query with a sufficiently high confidence score. We have implemented the proposed technique in a tool called Sqlizer and evaluate it on three different databases. Our experiments show that the desired query is ranked within the top 5 candidates in close to 90% of the cases.
Sounds Let Your Eyes Predict : Prediction Accuracy of Pupillary Responses to Random Alerting and Neutral

This study investigates the prediction accuracy of anticipatory pupil dilation responses in humans prior to the random presentation of alerting or neutral sounds. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that the autonomous nervous system may react prior to the presentation of random stimuli. A total of 80 participants, who were matched according to gender to take into account individual differences, were asked to listen to a random sequence of 10 neutral and 10 alerting sounds. Their pupil dilation was continuously recorded and the diameter of their pupils was used to predict the category of sound, alerting, or neutral. The pupil dilation of both males and females predicted alerting sounds approximately 10% more accurately than would be expected by chance, whereas neutral sounds were predicted at the chance level. This result was confirmed using a frequentist and a Bayesian statistical approach. Following the results of the study, practical and theoretical implications of these results are discussed.
Blind spots at oncological CT: lessons learned from PET/CT

Abstract Improved accuracy in oncological computed tomography (CT) could lead to a decrease in morbidity and improved survival for oncology patients. Visualization of metabolic activity using the glucose analogue [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) in combination with the high anatomic resolution of CT in an integrated positron emission tomography (PET)/CT examination has the highest sensitivity and specificity for the detection of primary and metastatic lesions. However, PET/CT costs are high and patient access is limited; thus CT remains the primary imaging modality in oncology patients. We have noted that subtle lesions are more easily detected on CT by radiologists with PET/CT experience. We aimed to provide a brief review of the literature with comparisons of multi-detector computed tomography (MDCT) and PET/CT in primary and metastatic disease with an emphasis on findings that may be overlooked on MDCT in cancer of the breast, lung, colon, and ovaries, and in melanoma, as well as thrombosis in oncology patients. We further reviewed our experience for illustrative comparisons of PET/CT and MDCT studies. Experience in interpreting conventional CT scans alongside PET/CT can help the reader develop an appreciation for the subtle appearance of some lesions on CT that might otherwise be missed. This could improve detection rates, reduce errors, and improve patient management.
Fourier-Mukai transforms and semi-stable sheaves on nodal Weierstraß cubics

Abstract We completely describe all semi-stable torsion free sheaves of degree zero on nodal cubic curves using the technique of Fourier-Mukai transforms. The Fourier-Mukai images of such sheaves are torsion sheaves of finite length, which we compute explicitly. We show that the twist functors, which are associated to the structure sheaf and the structure sheaf k(p 0) of a smooth point p 0, generate an SL(2, ℤ)-action (up to shifts) on the bounded derived category of coherent sheaves on any Weierstraß cubic.
Epidemiology and Natural History of Acute Patellar Dislocation

Background The goals of this study were to (1) define the epidemiology of acute patellar dislocation, (2) determine the risk of subsequent patellar instability episodes (subluxation and/or redislocation) during the study period, and (3) identify risk factors for subsequent instability episodes. Study Design Prospective cohort study. Methods The authors prospectively followed 189 patients for a period of 2 to 5 years. Historical data, injury mechanisms, and physical and radiographic measurements were recorded to identify potential risk factors for poor outcomes. Results Risk was highest among females 10 to 17 years old. Patients presenting with a prior history of instability were more likely to be female (P < .05) and were older than first-time dislocation patients (P < .05). Fewer first-time dislocators (17%) had episodes of instability during follow-up than patients with a previous history of instability (49%) (P < .01). After adjusting for demographics, patients with a prior history had 7 times higher odds of subsequent instability episodes during follow-up than first time dislocators (adjusted odds ratio = 6.6, P < .001). Conclusions Patellar dislocators who present with a history of patellofemoral instability are more likely to be female, are older, and have greater risk of subsequent patellar instability episodes than first-time patellar dislocators. Risk of recurrent patellar instability episodes in either knee is much higher in this group than in first-time dislocators.
COBALT PROTOPORPHYRIN PROTECTS AGAINST HEPATIC PARENCHYMAL INJURY AND MICROVASCULAR DYSFUNCTION DURING EXPERIMENTAL RHABDOMYOLYSIS

Although heme is necessary in many life-sustaining functions, its overwhelming systemic release with rhabdomyolysis (RM) is believed to be the cause of subsequent organ injury and dysfunction. We investigated the acute effects of experimental RM on hepatic parenchymal viability and microvascular function in vivo, while also determining the impact of cobalt protoporphyrin (CoPP) on its outcome. With a murine model of RM induced by hind limb glycerol administration (11.5 μL/g, i.m.), we show that plasma heme is elevated as early as 30 min after hind limb glycerol. However, significant hepatic heme accumulation did not occur until 3 h later, with a return to basal levels by 6 h. Using in vivo digital microscopy, hepatic parenchymal viability and microvascular function were found to be significantly compromised by 3 h of RM. Moreover, this response included the upregulation of hepatic heme oxygenase protein expression and activity. The administration of CoPP (5 mg/kg, i.p.) protected hepatic parenchymal and microvascular integrity in the face of the RM insult. This hepatoprotection appears to involve the rapid degradation of heme by heme oxygenase, with subsequent alterations in hepatic microvascular resistance and heme accumulation. The evidence from this investigation suggests that RM mediates a detrimental response in the hepatic parenchyma and microcirculation, and that these responses can be mediated by the rapid degradation of hepatic heme via CoPP-induced heme oxygenase activity.
Budding yeast CAN1 gene as a selection marker in fission yeast.

Most cloning systems in fission yeast are based on mutations in either the leul gene or the ura4 gene (1). They allow use of three selectable markers, LEU2 and URA3 from budding yeast and ura4 from fission yeast. The URA3 and ura4 markers can be selected for on minimal plates and against on plates containing 5-fluoro-orotic acid and uracil (2). There is obviously need for additional markers, especially when maldng strains with multiple disruptions or when transforming strains with disruptions. Even more urgent is the need for an inexpensive system allowing selection against a genetic marker. Such a marker could be used for selection against plasmids and in cloning of repressing factors through methods taking advantage of promoter fusions. Here we describe such a system based on the canl mutation characterised by Fantes and Creanor (3). 1 is for