Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cortex-inspired Developmental Learning Networks for Visual Attention and Object Recognition Table of Contents 1 Multi-layered In-place Cortical Learning Networks 1 Multi-layered In-place Cortical Learning Networks 1.1 Background 1.1.1 Autonomous Mental Development 1.1.2 Visual Recognition and Invari

Autonomous Mental Development [78] (AMD) intends to advance the AI field through the developmental approach, based on the mechanisms of perceptual and cognitive learning and development in humans from infancy to adulthood. In AMD, the program that controls learning and operation is called a developmental program, inspired by the genetic program that drives the growth of an intelligent human being from the single-celled zygote. It is not task-specific — in contrast to traditional, task-specific programs in AI and in robotics. AMD emphasizes embodiment, autonomy, and task-nonspecific learning. In autonomous learning, the emergence of behaviors and skills is a result of the interaction between the learner and the environment. These behaviors and skills are not necessarily hard-coded to appear. So, in an autonomous-learning program, the mechanisms of learning must then be entirely contained within the program itself. Tasks will be learned as a combination of " innate " , or preprogrammed, drives and values, and learning algorithms that interact with sensory and motor (action) experience in such a way that task learning automatically emerges, given a necessary set of environmental aspects conductive to learning that task — such as a teacher. 1 The learning agent's developmental program contains all the mechanisms necessary for the agent to learn all tasks it might need to learn, even tasks that the programmer might not have thought of. In contrast, task-specific programs are limited by the programmer's choice of task. No matter how sophisticated a robot's physical properties, i.e., sensors and effectors, it can never use them to do anything beyond that task. If it desirable that the robot learn a new task, a new program must be written. AMD attempts to avoid this restriction. A developmental program must provide a broad developmental framework for sensory, cog-nitive and motivational growth. In terms of design, it must be able to fulfill some difficult requirements , such as incremental learning given high-dimensional sensory signals, real-time performance , performing while being taught, and adaptation to unexpected environments. Our primary sensory modality is vision. We learn a large number of different categories and can easily classify or identify an observed object despite a wide range of variations, such as position, rotation, size, pose, lighting, etc. In computer vision, no program is currently performing at a human-level. Most (there is some innate ability to recognize faces [50]) categories are learned through our interactions with the environment, and we are able …
Propagation of North Pacific interdecadal subsurface temperature anomalies in an ocean GCM

Propagation of subsurface North Pacific interdecadal variations is investigated with an ocean general circulation model forced by observed sea surface temperature anomalies. Subsurface temperature anomalies subducted in the central subtropical North Pacific take a more westward pathway than a passive “temperature” tracer and reach the western boundary to the north of the bifurcation latitude. This prevents them from extending into the equator. On the boundary between the subtropical and the subarctic gyres, on the other hand, the upper 500 m heat content anomaly is found to propagate eastward as high vertical modes of Rossby waves advected by the mean eastward current. This notion is supported by a sign reversal in temperature anomaly underneath.
Activated Notch1 maintains the phenotype of radial glial cells and promotes their adhesion to laminin by upregulating nidogen

Radial glia are neural stem cells that exist only transiently during central nervous system (CNS) development, where they serve as scaffolds for neuronal migration. Their instability makes them difficult to study, and therefore we have isolated stabilized radial glial clones from E14.5 cortical progenitors (e.g., L2.3) after expression of v‐myc. Activated Notch1 intracellular region (actNotch1) promotes radial glia in the embryonic mouse forebrain (Gaiano et al., ( 2000 ), and when it was introduced into E14.5 cortical progenitors or radial glial clone L2.3, the cells exhibited enhanced radial morphology and increased expression of the radial glial marker BLBP. A representative clone of L2.3 cells expressing actNotch1 called NL2.3‐4 migrated more extensively than L2.3 cells in culture and in white matter of the adult rat spinal cord. Microarray and RT‐PCR comparisons of mRNAs expressed in these closely related clones showed extensive similarities, but differed significantly for certain mRNAs including several cell adhesion molecules. Cell adhesion assays demonstrated significantly enhanced adhesion to laminin of NL2.3‐4 by comparison to L2.3 cells. The laminin binding protein nidogen was the most highly induced adhesion molecule in NL2.3‐4, and immunological analyses indicated that radial glia synthesize and secrete nidogen. Adhesion of NL2.3‐4 cells to laminin was inhibited by anti‐nidogen antibodies and required the nidogen binding region in laminin, indicating that nidogen promotes cell adhesion to laminin. The combined results indicate that persistent expression of activated Notch1 maintains the phenotype of radial glial cells, inhibits their differentiation, and promotes their adhesion and migration on a laminin/nidogen complex. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Expression of Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV) Nef in Astrocytes during Acute and Terminal Infection and Requirement of Nef for Optimal Replication of Neurovirulent SIV In Vitro

ABSTRACT As the most numerous cells in the brain, astrocytes play a critical role in maintaining central nervous system homeostasis, and therefore, infection of astrocytes by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) in vivo could have important consequences for the development of HIV encephalitis. In this study, we establish that astrocytes are infected in macaques during acute SIV infection (10 days postinoculation) and during terminal infection when there is evidence of SIV-induced encephalitis. Additionally, with primary adult rhesus macaque astrocytes in vitro, we demonstrate that the macrophage-tropic, neurovirulent viruses SIV/17E-Br and SIV/17E-Fr replicate efficiently in astrocytes, while the lymphocyte-tropic, nonneurovirulent virus SIVmac239 open-nef does not establish productive infection. Furthermore, aminoxypentane-RANTES abolishes virus replication, suggesting that these SIV strains utilize the chemokine receptor CCR5 for entry into astrocytes. Importantly, we show that SIV Nef is required for optimal replication in primary rhesus macaque astrocytes and that normalizing input virus by particle number rather than by infectivity reveals a disparity between the ability of a Nef-deficient virus and a virus encoding a nonmyristoylated form of Nef to replicate in these central nervous system cells. Since the myristoylated form of Nef has been implicated in functions such as CD4 and major histocompatibility complex I downregulation, kinase association, and enhancement of virion infectivity, these data suggest that an as yet unidentified function of Nef may exist to facilitate SIV replication in astrocytes that may have important implications for in vivo pathogenesis.
A review of software operational profile in software reliability engineering

Software reliability engineering is evolving in tandem with the growth of software engineering research and practice. The software operational profile has proven its merits in reliability and quality enhancement. It has become essential tool and guidance to testers. Simultaneously, it saves cost, time, and effort. Software operational profile development requires improvements with the evolution of interrelated technologies, growing scales of software, incorporation of new frameworks and matured requirements of the customers. This research focuses on the review of a software operational profile, its extension, enactment, and shortcomings. In the literature review procedure, a study selection criterion is shaped to guide the literature search process. The research summarizes the outcome of 30 main (51% of the total 58) studies that are filtered and selected. The findings of the research is an initial step leading to the construction of a comprehensive software operational profile eliminating common issues in it and enhancing software performance overall.
Impact of long-term high-intensity interval and moderate-intensity continuous training on subclinical inflammation in overweight/obese adults

Obesity is a risk factor able to trigger several inflammatory alterations and the imbalance between pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokine productions. Physical exercise is an important strategy for reduction of inflammatory established process. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of 16 weeks of three exercise training programs in the inflammatory profile and insulin resistance in overweight/obesity. Thirty two men and women (46.4±10.1 years; 162.0±9.1 cm; 82.0±13.6 kg) were divided into three groups for training on a treadmill: continuous at 70% maximum heart rate (HRmax) 5 times a week (CONT); 1×4 min (1-bout) and 4×4 min (high intensity interval training, HIIT) at 90% HRmax 3 times a week. Interleukin (IL) 6 and IL-10, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), insulin and adiponectin levels were analyzed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and homeostasis model assessment insulin resistance was calculated. After 16 weeks of training blood concentrations of IL-6 decreased in the HIIT group (P=0.035), TNF-α decreased in the CONT (P=0.037) and increased in HIIT (P=0.001) and adiponectin decreased in the three training models. There was a trend towards decreased body weight and body mass index (BMI) after HIIT only (P=0.059 and P=0.060, respectively). Despite the decrease of adiponectin and the increase of TNF-α in HIIT group, insulin sensitivity showed a trend for improvement (P=0.08). HIIT program decreased IL-6 at rest and although not significant was the only who tended to decrease total body weight and BMI. Taken together, our data suggest that both HIIT as well as CONT exercises training program promotes changes in inflammatory profile in overweight/obesity, but dissimilar response is seen in TNF-α levels.
Obstacle Avoidance of mobile robot using PSO based Neuro Fuzzy Technique

Navigation and obstacle avoidance are very important issues for the successful use of an autonomous mobile robot. To allow the robot to move between its current and final configurations without any collision within the surrounding environment, motion planning needs much treatment. Thus to generate collision free path it should have proper motion planning as well as obstacle avoidance scheme. This work mainly deals with the obstacle avoidance of a wheeled mobile robot in structured environment by using PSO based neuro-fuzzy approach. Here three layer neural network with PSO is used as learning algorithm to determine the optimal collision-free path.
Fbxw7 Controls Angiogenesis by Regulating Endothelial Notch Activity

Notch signaling controls fundamental aspects of angiogenic blood vessel growth including the selection of sprouting tip cells, endothelial proliferation and arterial differentiation. The E3 ubiquitin ligase Fbxw7 is part of the SCF protein complex responsible for the polyubiquitination and thereby proteasomal degradation of substrates such as Notch, c-Myc and c-Jun. Here, we show that Fbxw7 is a critical regulator of angiogenesis in the mouse retina and the zebrafish embryonic trunk, which we attribute to its role in the degradation of active Notch. Growth of retinal blood vessel was impaired and the Notch ligand Dll4, which is also a Notch target, upregulated in inducible and endothelial cell-specific Fbxw7 iECKO mutant mice. The stability of the cleaved and active Notch intracellular domain was increased after siRNA knockdown of the E3 ligase in cultured human endothelial cells. Injection of fbxw7 morpholinos interfered with the sprouting of zebrafish intersegmental vessels (ISVs). Arguing strongly that Notch and not other Fbxw7 substrates are primarily responsible for these phenotypes, the genetic inactivation of Notch pathway components reversed the impaired ISV growth in the zebrafish embryo as well as sprouting and proliferation in the mouse retina. Our findings establish that Fbxw7 is a potent positive regulator of angiogenesis that limits the activity of Notch in the endothelium of the growing vasculature.
Liberating Knowledge: A Librarian's Manifesto for Change

FALL 2010 83 Though students flock to libraries as places to socialize, study, and work on research, and librarians are doing their best to meet their needs and the needs of scholars working in their labs, offices, and (who knows? ) their cars as they commute from one officeless work assignment to another, the identity of the library as an intellectual commons, an enlightened and morally uncompromised public sphere where ideas mingle and give rise to new knowledge, is endangered. According to the most recent study of faculty attitudes conducted by Ithaka, the Libraries are an interesting instance of the radical transformations that higher education is experiencing. The neoliberal turn that has led to the commodification of what scholars do—teach and create knowledge—has had a profound effect on the academic library. But the political economy of the transformed library is invisible to many if not most faculty. The current financial problems libraries face—escalating cost of subscriptions to journals and databases, a shrinking budget, and cuts in both professional staff and student employment hours that lead to locking the doors early (in at least one case leading students to set up their own outdoor study area during finals in front of a closed library in protest)—are a natural outcome of the trend to treat students as consumers, the faculty as individuals contracted to teach courses but to leave the management of the university to a growing cadre of administrators, and knowledge as intellectual property to be monetized. Liberating Knowledge: A Librarian’s Manifesto for Change
Selection of Auxiliary Objectives with Multi-Objective Reinforcement Learning

Efficiency of evolutionary algorithms may be increased using multi-objectivization. Multi-objectivization is performed by adding some auxiliary objectives. We consider selection of these objectives during a run of an evolutionary algorithm. One of the selection methods is based on reinforcement learning. There are several types of rewards previously used in reinforcement learning for adjusting of evolutionary algorithms. However, there is no superior reward. At the same time, reinforcement learning itself may be enhanced by multi-objectivization. So we propose a method for selection of auxiliary objectives based on multi-objective reinforcement learning, where the reward is composed of the previously used single rewards. Hence, we have double multi-objectivization: several rewards are involved in selection of several auxiliary objectives. We run the proposed method on different benchmark problems and compare it with a conventional evolutionary algorithm and a method based on single-objective reinforcement learning. Multi-objective reinforcement shows competitive behavior and is especially useful in the case when we do not know in advance which of the single rewards is efficient.
Incident investigation: on a collision course towards a national standardised approach

The investigation of rail incidents is a highly specialised and important area within the rail industry. Historically training for investigators has been disjointed, with no standard approach being applied consistently. Currently in Australia, rail incidents are investigated by the various rail operators and regulators of each State, with the more serious incidents investigated by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB). However, it is hoped with the introduction of a National Safety Regulator for the industry, a standardised competency framework for rail incident investigators can be developed. Consequently, this will also lead to more standardised training across the industry for these specialised career paths. A previous scoping report published by the CRC for Rail Innovation highlighted a need within the industry for a standardised competency framework and training package. Based on the results of the scoping report, a comprehensive Training Needs Analysis for the rail industry was undertaken. This paper will examine potential barriers and facilitators that the industry may face when implementing this national training. Furthermore, based on the results of the Training Needs Analysis, differences and similarities in the needs of rail organisations as well as between operators and regulators will be examined.
Applying VLC in 5G Networks: Architectures and Key Technologies

Visible light communication has gained tremendous attention recently and has become a favorable complementary technology to millimeter- wave communication in short-range communication scenarios for future 5G networks. VLC possesses a number of prominent features to address the highly demanding 5G system requirements for high capacity, high data rate, high spectral efficiency, high energy efficiency, low battery consumption, and low latency. These prominent features include but are not limited to abundant license-free spectrum, the ability to provide multiple gigabit-per-second data rates, low energy consumption, and low implementation costs. In this article a heterogeneous multi-layer 5G cellular architecture with a control plane and user plane separation scheme is presented. Three layers - the macrocell layer operating below 3 GHz, the picocell layer operating in the mmWave spectrum, and the optical attocell layer operating at the visible spectrum - are considered in this architecture, with each layer targeting a different coverage and communication need. We further address potential solutions for uplink communications, backhaul connections, and downlink communications in an optical attocell. Several key technologies employed in VLC downlink communications, including modulation, multiple access, and error control schemes, are also discussed.
Delay test generation

Conflicting needs complicate the task of testing LSI chips. As system designs come to require better and more predictable performance, it becomes increasingly difficult to develop tests for application at the product I/O pins to verify that each internal device has been manufactured correctly. Any of numerous kinds of random manufacturing defect, though allowing correct dc operation, can cause a device to perform at a speed below that specified for it. This type of defect has led to the development of several testing methods that have become conventional. For numerous reasons, however, the conventional methods cannot be extended to LSI without certain design constraints. For the LSSD—level-sensitive scan design—constraints, dc fault-oriented testing has been extended to delay faults. The strategy is to delay-test each block input and/or output in both its longest and its shortest sensitizable delay paths. An algorithm for automatic generation of such delay tests has been developed, and extended to generate delay tests for designer-specified critical paths.
A Chaos-Theory Metaphor for Strategic Planning in Higher Education: An Exploratory Study.

This dissertation is based on the ideas that: (1) metaphor is essential to the conception of and life in organizations; (2) the dominant organizational metaphor of life within universities, particularly from an administrative perspective, is Newtonian/mechanical; and (3) a metaphoric perspective grounded in chaos theory might be helpful in approaching the specific institutional function of planning. Put forward are 10 propositions derived from a coincident consideration of chaos theory--the study of complex, replicated patterns in seemingly random phenomena--and of classic and progressive prescriptions for strategic planning. These propositions include: (1) the ideal outcome of planning is planning, not a plan; (2) planning begins with a distillation of the institution's key values and purposes; (3) the widest possible universe of information should be made available to all members of the institution--this universe includes ongoing, rich, and current feedback; and (4) dissent and conflict are creative, healthy, and real. These propositions were examined in the context of planning experiences at four diverse institutions. The propositions and the descriptive enrichment they received through the case-study database formed an extended metaphor that provided a conceptual coherence for successful practices in strategic planning, and therefore, a general, prescriptive approach or model for institutions embarking on planning efforts. (Contains 133 references.) (GC) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. o A CHAOS-THEORY METAPHOR FOR STRATEGIC PLANNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Education Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville U.S. DEPARTMENT OP EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION )43 CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. 0 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY
Link-Heterogeneous Work Stealing

Random work-stealing has been proved to be extremely beneficial in dynamically load-balancing irregular applications. However, it is known to perform loosely in non-homogenous distributed systems where communications costs are a major obstacle for high performance. In this paper, we investigate the design of an effective work-stealing protocol dealing with the heterogeneity of network link latencies. We propose a generic distributed algorithm which can be easily implemented to fit different types of heterogeneity. The proposed algorithm extends on reference approaches, namely Probabilistic Work Stealing (PWS), and Adaptive Cluster-aware Random Stealing (ACRS), by introducing new adaptive control operations that are shown to be highly accurate in increasing work locality and decreasing steals cost. We provide a comprehensive analysis including: (i) a comparative study on a broad range of harsh network scenarios, and (ii) an in-depth analysis of protocols' behavior at the aim of gaining new insights into dynamic load-balancing in heterogeneous distributed environments. Over all experimented configurations, our results show that although the proposed protocol is not tailored for a specific networked platform, it can save 30% execution time in average compared to its competitors, while demonstrating high quality self-adjusting capabilities.