Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Method of displaying optical effects within water using accumulation buffer

A precise shading model is required to display realistic images. Recently research on global illumination has been widespread. In global illumination, problems of diffuse reflection have been solved fairly well, but some optical problems after specular reflection and refraction still remain. Some natural phenomena stand out in reflected/refracted light from the wave surface of water. Refracted light from water surface converges and diverges, and creates shafts of light due to scattered light from particles. The color of the water is influenced by scattering/absorption effects of water molecules and suspensions. For these effects, the intensity and direction of incident light to particles plays an important role, and it is difficult to calculate them in conventional ray-tracing because light refracts when passing through waves. Therefore, the pre-processing tracing from light sources is necessary. The method proposed here can effectively calculate optical effects, shaft of light, caustics, and color of the water without such pre-processing by using a scanline Z-buffer and accumulation buffer.
Pharmacology of retinotectal transmission in the goldfish: effects of nicotinic ligands, strychnine, and kynurenic acid

The goal of this study was to evaluate different neurotransmitters and their receptors that might be involved in retinotectal transmission in the goldfish. Sections of tectum were isolated and maintained in vitro while pharmacological agents were administered via the tissue bath. Field potentials were elicited by electrical stimulation of the optic nerve and recorded at 50 micron depth intervals, and profiles of current source densities (CSDs) were computed from the second spatial derivatives of these potentials. The preparations were treated with low [Ca2+]/high [Mg2+] media, various cholinergic agonists and antagonists, eserine, strychnine, or kynurenic acid, via the tissue bath. Prior to treatment, depth profiles of these in vitro field potentials and CSDs closely resembled those previously reported in vivo, including 2 prominent sink-source pairs with their sinks in the superficial optic neuropil, followed by a smaller and more prolonged sink-source pair of opposite polarity. These were rapidly and reversibly eliminated by low [Ca2+]/high [Mg2+] bathing media, and substantially reduced by 0.5 or 1.0 mM kynurenic acid. By contrast, d-tubocurarine (d-TC; up to 0.16 mM) reduced peak response amplitudes by less than 40%, eliminated the third sink-source pair, and more than doubled the duration of decay of sink-source pairs 1 and 2 in a concentration-dependent manner. Strychnine had a similar action to d-TC but was slightly more potent. The time course and amplitudes of responses were not much affected by the following nicotinic agonists or antagonists (concentrations in microM): mecamylamine, 50; dihydro-beta-erythroidine, 50; nicotine, 200; tetramethylammonium, 500; ACh (protected by eserine, 20), 200; alpha-bungarotoxin, 2 microM for 2.5 hr, and 0.4 microM for up to 10.5 hr; and lophotoxin, 32 microM for up to 94 min. Eserine (20 microM) and carbachol (200 microM) increased peak response amplitudes by up to 80% within 5–10 min, and amplitudes remained elevated during 20–33 min of continued treatment. The onset of the effects of d-TC, strychnine, and kynurenic acid began in 5–10 min and was completed in 30 min or less, indicating that test substances could adequately penetrate into the interior of the isolated sections of tectum. The failure of these cholinergic ligands to prevent postsynaptic responses indicates that excitatory retinotectal transmission does not depend on an intact nicotinic (or other cholinergic) system, as previously proposed. The action by kynurenic acid suggests the involvement of an excitatory amino acid neurotransmitter in retinotectal transmission. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
TANGLE: Two-Level Support Vector Regression Approach for Protein Backbone Torsion Angle Prediction from Primary Sequences

Protein backbone torsion angles (Phi) and (Psi) involve two rotation angles rotating around the Cα-N bond (Phi) and the Cα-C bond (Psi). Due to the planarity of the linked rigid peptide bonds, these two angles can essentially determine the backbone geometry of proteins. Accordingly, the accurate prediction of protein backbone torsion angle from sequence information can assist the prediction of protein structures. In this study, we develop a new approach called TANGLE (Torsion ANGLE predictor) to predict the protein backbone torsion angles from amino acid sequences. TANGLE uses a two-level support vector regression approach to perform real-value torsion angle prediction using a variety of features derived from amino acid sequences, including the evolutionary profiles in the form of position-specific scoring matrices, predicted secondary structure, solvent accessibility and natively disordered region as well as other global sequence features. When evaluated based on a large benchmark dataset of 1,526 non-homologous proteins, the mean absolute errors (MAEs) of the Phi and Psi angle prediction are 27.8° and 44.6°, respectively, which are 1% and 3% respectively lower than that using one of the state-of-the-art prediction tools ANGLOR. Moreover, the prediction of TANGLE is significantly better than a random predictor that was built on the amino acid-specific basis, with the p-value<1.46e-147 and 7.97e-150, respectively by the Wilcoxon signed rank test. As a complementary approach to the current torsion angle prediction algorithms, TANGLE should prove useful in predicting protein structural properties and assisting protein fold recognition by applying the predicted torsion angles as useful restraints. TANGLE is freely accessible at http://sunflower.kuicr. kyoto-u.ac. jp/~sjn/TANGLE/.
THE EVOLUTION OF LOCOMOTOR RHYTHMICITY IN TETRAPODS

Differences in rhythmicity (relative variance in cycle period) among mammal, fish, and lizard feeding systems have been hypothesized to be associated with differences in their sensorimotor control systems. We tested this hypothesis by examining whether the locomotion of tachymetabolic tetrapods (birds and mammals) is more rhythmic than that of bradymetabolic tetrapods (lizards, alligators, turtles, salamanders). Species averages of intraindividual coefficients of variation in cycle period were compared while controlling for gait and substrate. Variance in locomotor cycle periods is significantly lower in tachymetabolic than in bradymetabolic animals for datasets that include treadmill locomotion, non‐treadmill locomotion, or both. When phylogenetic relationships are taken into account the pooled analyses remain significant, whereas the non‐treadmill and the treadmill analyses become nonsignificant. The co‐occurrence of relatively high rhythmicity in both feeding and locomotor systems of tachymetabolic tetrapods suggests that the anatomical substrate of rhythmicity is in the motor control system, not in the musculoskeletal components.
A material point method for snow simulation

Snow is a challenging natural phenomenon to visually simulate. While the graphics community has previously considered accumulation and rendering of snow, animation of snow dynamics has not been fully addressed. Additionally, existing techniques for solids and fluids have difficulty producing convincing snow results. Specifically, wet or dense snow that has both solid- and fluid-like properties is difficult to handle. Consequently, this paper presents a novel snow simulation method utilizing a user-controllable elasto-plastic constitutive model integrated with a hybrid Eulerian/Lagrangian Material Point Method. The method is continuum based and its hybrid nature allows us to use a regular Cartesian grid to automate treatment of self-collision and fracture. It also naturally allows us to derive a grid-based semi-implicit integration scheme that has conditioning independent of the number of Lagrangian particles. We demonstrate the power of our method with a variety of snow phenomena including complex character interactions.
Content Replication in Mobile Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks

Vehicular ad-hoc network (VANET) is a special type of mobile networks that has received significant attention from the academia and the industry in recent years. VANET applications are emerging as new opportunities for the automobile industry to provide advanced services to connected vehicles and their users. Most of those services, like information, safety, and entertainment systems, require a variety of content to be delivered to vehicles. An useful concept in this case is the one of content replication, which defines that content should be placed close to its potential clients. However, existing replicating solutions, as originally proposed for the Internet, are not suitable to VANETs because of their particular characteristics, such as highly dynamic topology, existence of push-based applications, information-centric nature, location- and time-dependent content, and intermittent connections. Therefore, we propose and evaluate in this work new techniques to replicate content in VANETs that rely on the vehicles' origin-destination (O-D) points. Theresults reveal that our solutions were able to increase the content availability in two case studies, named city-wide and region-wide.
Coping with network failures: routing strategies for optimal demand oblivious restoration

Link and node failures in IP networks pose a challenge for network control algorithms. Routing restoration, which computes new routes that avoid failed links, involves fundamental tradeoffs between efficient use of network resources, complexity of the restoration strategy and disruption to network traffic. In order to achieve a balance between these goals, obtaining routings that provide good performance guarantees under failures is desirable.In this paper, building on previous work that provided performance guarantees under uncertain (and potentially unknown) traffic demands, we develop algorithms for computing optimal restoration paths and a methodology for evaluating the performance guarantees of routing under failures. We then study the performance of route restoration on a diverse collection of ISP networks. Our evaluation uses a competitive analysis type framework, where performance of routing with restoration paths under failures is compared to the best possible performance on the failed network. We conclude that with careful selection of restoration paths one can obtain restoration strategies that retain nearly optimal performance on the failed network while minimizing disruptions to traffic flows that did not traverse the failed parts of the network.
Efficient network for non-binary QC-LDPC decoder

This paper presents approaches to develop efficient network for non-binary quasi-cyclic LDPC (QC-LDPC) decoders. By exploiting the intrinsic shifting and symmetry properties of the check matrices, significant reduction of memory size and routing complexity can be achieved. Two different efficient network architectures for Class-I and Class-II non-binary QC-LDPC decoders have been proposed, respectively. Comparison results have shown that for the code of the 64-ary (1260, 630) rate-0.5 Class-I code, the proposed scheme can save more than 70.6% hardware required by shuffle network than the state-of-the-art designs. The proposed decoder example for the 32-ary (992, 496) rate-0.5 Class-II code can achieve a 93.8% shuffle network reduction compared with the conventional ones. Meanwhile, based on the similarity of Class-I and Class-II codes, similar shuffle network is further developed to incorporate both classes of codes at a very low cost.
2 What , if anything , is a Wolf ?

EDITORS WILL ADD WOLF DRAWING AT HIGH RESOLUTION HERE " In short, we will have to treat species in the same manner as those naturalists treat genera, who admit that genera are merely artificial combinations made for convenience. This may not be a cheering prospect; but we shall at least be freed from the vain search for the undiscovered and the undiscoverable essence of the term species.
Meter placement for low voltage system state estimation with distributed generation

Accurate and reliable state estimation is the core stone for flexible operation and control of active smart grids. Through the current expansion of integrating DG units in low voltage networks, the network operation is becoming more complex than before. However, real-time monitoring and control through state estimation is a routine task for the transmission system operators (TSO's) due to the availability of measurement data. The distribution system operators (DSO's) are trying to extend their monitoring and control for medium and low voltage network in order to enable smart grid applications. With the current rollout of smart meters, which are considered as a key component of future smart grids, there would be enough metering data in the distribution networks (voltage, current, active and reactive power consumption and generation) available at every customer connection point. This paper aims to develop a method to solve the problem of meter placement for low voltage system state estimation through deciding which measurement data from the installed smart meters should be considered in the state estimation algorithms in order to improve on the uncertainty of the estimated voltage and its phase angle at every node in the network. (4 pages)
Morphological plasticity of motor axons in Drosophila mutants with altered excitability

An anatomical and electrophysiological study of Drosophila mutants has been made to determine the effect of altered electrical activity on the development and maintenance of larval neuromuscular junctions. We examined motor axon terminals of (1) hyperexcitable mutants Shaker (Sh), ether a go-go (eag), Hyperkinetic (Hk), and Duplication of para+ (Dp para+); and (2) mutants with reduced excitability, no action potential (napts) and paralytic (parats 1). Nerve terminals innervating larval body-wall muscles were visualized by using anti-HRP immunocytochemistry, which specifically stains neurons in insect species. In wild-type larvae, motor axon terminals were distributed in a stereotypic fashion. However, in combinations of eag and Sh alleles, the basic pattern of innervation was altered. There was an increase in both the number of higher-order axonal branches over the muscles and the number of varicosities on the neurites. A similar phenomenon was found in the double mutant Hk eag and, to a lesser extent, in Dp para+ and Dp para+ Sh mutants. It is known that at permissive temperature the napts, but not parats 1, mutation decreases excitability of larval motor axons and suppresses the behavioral phenotypes of Sh, eag, and Hk. In the mutant napts (reared at permissive temperature), a slight decrease in the extent of branching was observed. Yet, when combined with eag Sh, napts completely reversed the morphological abnormality in eag Sh mutants. No such reversion was observed in parats 1 eag Sh mutants. The endogenous patterns of electrical activity at the neuromuscular junction were analyzed by extracellular recordings in a semi-intact larval preparation. Recordings from wild-type body-wall muscles revealed rhythmic bursts of spikes. In eag Sh mutants, this rhythmic activity was accompanied by or superimposed on periods of strong tonic activity. This abnormal pattern of activity could be partially suppressed by napts in combination with eag Sh.
Input and transistor reordering for NBTI and HCI reduction in complex CMOS gates

As CMOS feature size scales to the nanometer regime, transistor aging mostly due to Negative Bias Temperature Instability (NBTI) and Hot Carrier Injection (HCI), has emerged as a major reliability concern. Threshold voltage shift causes the circuit to fail, once the post-aging delay exceeds the timing constraint. In this paper, we investigate the stacking effect of transistors on aging and propose a novel input/transistor reordering approach to alleviate the effect of NBTI and HCI during the active mode operation of the circuit. According to the results, the circuit failing due to aging effect is postponed by increasing the operational lifetime for ISCAS benchmarks by 23.6%, in average, while it has a negligible effect on delay, area, and power compared to the original cell input ordering.
Computing text similarity using Tree Edit Distance

In this paper, we propose the application of the Tree Edit Distance (TED) for calculation of similarity between syntactic n-grams for further detection of soft similarity between texts. The computation of text similarity is the basic task for many natural language processing problems, and it is an open research field. Syntactic n-grams are text features for Vector Space Model construction extracted from dependency trees. Soft similarity is application of Vector Space Model taking into account similarity of features. First, we discuss the advantages of the application of the TED to syntactic n-grams. Then, we present a procedure based on the TED and syntactic n-grams for calculating soft similarity between texts.
Assessment of Diagnostic and Prognostic Role of Copeptin in the Clinical Setting of Sepsis

The diagnostic and prognostic usefulness of copeptin were evaluated in septic patients, as compared to procalcitonin assessment. In this single centre and observational study 105 patients were enrolled: 24 with sepsis, 25 with severe sepsis, 15 with septic shock, and 41 controls, divided in two subgroups (15 patients with gastrointestinal bleeding and 26 with suspected SIRS secondary to trauma, acute coronary syndrome, and pulmonary embolism). Biomarkers were determined at the first medical evaluation and thereafter 24, 48, and 72 hours after admission. Definitive diagnosis and in-hospital survival rates at 30 days were obtained through analysis of medical records. At entry, copeptin proved to be able to distinguish cases from controls and also sepsis group from septic shock group, while procalcitonin could distinguish also severe sepsis from septic shock group. Areas under the ROC curve for copeptin and procalcitonin were 0.845 and 0.861, respectively. Noteworthy, patients with copeptin concentrations higher than the threshold value (23.2 pmol/L), calculated from the ROC curve, at admission presented higher 30-day mortality. No significant differences were found in copeptin temporal profile among different subgroups. Copeptin showed promising diagnostic and prognostic role in the management of sepsis, together with its possible role in monitoring the response to treatment.
Forensics Aided Steganalysis of Heterogeneous Bitmap Images with Different Compression History

Two practical forensics aided steganalyzers (FA-steganalyzer) for heterogeneous bitmap images are constructed, which can properly handle steganalysis problems for mixed image sources consisting of raw uncompressed images and JPEG decompressed images with different quality factors. The first FA-steganalyzer consists of a JPEG decompressed image identifier followed by two corresponding steganalyzers, one of which is used to deal with uncompressed images and the other is used for mixed JPEG decompressed images with different quality factors. In the second FA-steganalyzer scheme, we further estimate the quality factors for JPEG decompressed images, and then steganalyzers trained on the corresponding quality factors are used. Extensive experimental results show that the proposed two FA-steganalyzers outperform the existing steganalyzer that is trained on a mixed dataset, especially at embedding rate 10%.
Controlling Production Firing: The FCL Language

While implementing a diagnostic expert system, FAITH, we have developed a new language, FCL, for controlling the firing of productions. FCL greatly simplifies the task of the user to direct this firing in a coherent and purposeful way without sacrificing some of the main advantages enjoyed by production systems. One of the interesting features of the language is the use of declarative forms to direct the firing of proper production sequences in a diagnostic expert system. Declarative forms which represent circuit diagrams and problem families control goal-directed processes like tracing through circuits and searching for symptoms to confirm or deny closely related problems. Because we have the FCL facility at our disposal, we have been able to incorporate a larger than usual number of diagnostic strategies in FAITH, with the assurance that they will be employed under the right circumstances.
Urban Single sodium channels from human ventricular muscle in planar lipid bilayers

Sodium channels from human ventricular muscle membrane vesicles were incorporated into planar lipid bilayers and the steady-state behavior of single sodium channels were examined in the presence of batrachotoxin. In symmetrical 500 mM NaCl the averaged single channel conductance was 24.7 ± 1.3 pS and the channel fractional open time was 0.85 ± 0.04. The activation midpoint potential was –99.5 ± 3.1 mV. Extracellular tetrodotoxin blocked the channel with a k1/2 of 414 nM at 0 mV. In 7 out of 13 experiments subconductance states were observed (9.2 ± 1.2 pS). When sodium chloride concentration was lowered to 100 mM, single channel conductance decreased to 19.0 ± 0.9 pS, steady-state activation shifted by –17.3 ± 5.1 mV, tetrodotoxin sensitivity increased to 324 nM, and sub-conductance states were invariably observed in single channel records (7.9 ± 0.7 pS). In the planar lipid bilayer system the properties of cardiac sodium channels from different species are not very different, but there are significant differences between sodium channels from human heart and from human CNS.
A novel domain of caveolin-2 that controls nuclear targeting: regulation of insulin-specific ERK activation and nuclear translocation by caveolin-2

Herein, we report that insulin‐activated extracellular signal‐regulated kinase (ERK) is translocated to the nuclear envelope by caveolin‐2 (cav‐2) and associates with lamin A/C in the inner nuclear membrane in response to insulin. We identified that the Ser154–Val155–Ser156 domain on the C‐terminal of cav‐2 is essential for insulin‐induced phosphorylation and nuclear targeting of ERK and cav‐2. In human embryonic kidney 293T cells, ERK was not activated and translocated to the nucleus by insulin in comparison to insulin‐like growth factor‐1 (IGF‐1). However, insulin‐stimulated activation of ERK was induced by exogenous addition of cav‐2. The activated ERK associated and translocated with the cav‐2 to the nucleus. In turn, cav‐2 promoted phospho‐ERK interaction with lamin A/C in the inner nuclear membrane. In contrast, ERK, but not cav‐2, was phosphorylated and translocated to the nucleus by IGF‐1. The nuclear targeted phospho‐ERK failed to localize in the nuclear envelope in response to IGF‐1. Together, our data demonstrate that translocation of phospho‐ERK to the nuclear envelope is mediated by Ser154–Val155–Ser156 domain of cav‐2 and this event is an insulin‐specific action.