Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intratrigeminal and thalamic projections of nucleus caudalis in the squirrel monkey (Saimiri sciureus): A degeneration and autoradiographic study ,

In order to test the hypothesis that thalamic efferents of trigeminal nucleus caudalis (NC) are the cranial analogue of the spinothalamic system, lesion and autoradiographic studies were carried out in the squirrel monkey, and the terminal projection fields in thalamus were noted. Results showed that NC, including lateral reticular formation (LRF), projects to contralateral VPM, the VPM‐VPL border and medial VPL, and a region dorsal to ventroposterior nucleus (VP) proper which contains cells larger than those in VPM yet which stain as darkly as VPL neurons; this latter zone of termination may be homologous with VPLo (Vim) in other species, which is that area receiving lemniscal and cerebellar afferents (Mehler, '71; Walsh and Ebner, '73; Boivie, '74). In addition, a small projection is noted in an area intercalated between dorsomedial MG, limitans nucleus and posterior VP which closely agrees with the medial division of Posterior nucleus (Po) described in rhesus and squirrel monkey (Burton and Jones, '76). No terminations were observed in the gustatory nucleus medial to VPM.
Noise-Robust Hidden Markov Models for Limited Training Data for Within-Species Bird Phrase Classification

Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) have been studied and used extensively in speech and birdsong recognition, but they are not robust to limited training data and noise. This paper presents two novel approaches to training continuous and discrete HMMs with extremely limited data. First, the algorithm learns the global Gaussian Mixture Models (GMMs) for all training phrases available. GMM parameters are then used to initialize state parameters of each individual model. For the GMM-HMM framework, the number of states and the mixture components for each state are determined by the acoustic variation of each phrase type. The (high-energy) time-frequency prominent regions are used to compute the state emitting probability to increase noise-robustness. For the discrete HMM framework, the probability distribution of each state is initialized by the global GMMs in training. In testing, the probability of each codebook is estimated using the prominent regions of each state to increase noise-robustness. In Cassins Vireo phrase classification using 75 phrase types, the new GMM-HMM approach achieves 79.5% and 87% classification accuracy using 1 and 2 phrases, respectively, while HTK’s GMM-HMM framework makes guess predictions resulting in 1.33% accuracy. The performance of the other algorithm is presented in the paper. 1
The Effects of Teaching a Summary Skills Strategy to Students Identified as Learning Disabled on Their Comprehension of Science Text

The effects of a summary skills learning strategy on the comprehension of science text were examined with 5 elementary-age urban minority special education students in a summer remedial program. The program's effect on the overall completeness of the students' written summaries and the maintenance of the strategy also were examined. Following baseline, the summary skills strategy was introduced in both group and individual reading settings according to a multiple baseline across settings design. Student performance was assessed in both setting, and maintenance was probed at 4 weeks in the individual reading setting. The strategy produced clear improvement in the comprehension of science text, which was associated with similar improvements in the completeness of the written summaries. The students reported that the summary skills strategy was effective for helping them understand science text. Furthermore, a group of 15 general education elementary school teachers thought that the strategy was effective and that it would be easy to implement.
Grazing ecology of female lambs on Italian ryegrass plus red clover pasture under different defoliation intensities

The relationship between pasture dynamics and ingestive behavior of female lambs was studied on Italian ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum Lam.) plus red clover (Trifolium pratense L.) mixture under a range of defoliation intensities. Rotational grazing was used and the grazing interval was determined by the thermal sum of 313 degree days. The initial pre-grazing canopy height disappearance values were 65 (very high), 58 (high), 47 (medium) and 37% (low). The sward vertical structure was similar among defoliation intensities. The forage allowance decreased linearly as defoliation intensities increased, with 0.35 bite/minute reduction for each 1% increase in forage allowance. The bite rate and number of bites/feeding station decreased with reduced contribution of leaves in the sward structure. It was associated, respectively, with an increase and a decrease of NDF and CP levels in forage as grazed by female lambs. The pasture cycle proves to be more important than defoliation intensities as a source for changes in feeding stations and displacement patterns of female lambs.
New Fiber Formation in the Interstitial Spaces of Rat Skeletal Muscle During Postnatal Growth

The purpose of this study was to determine whether fiber hyperplasia occurs in the rat plantaris muscle during postnatal weeks 3–20. Total muscle fiber number, obtained via the nitric acid digestion method, increased by 28% during the early postnatal rapid growth phase (3–10 weeks), whereas the number of branched fibers was consistently low. Whole-muscle mitotic activity and amino acid uptake levels showed an inverse relationship to the increase in total fiber number. The expression of MyoD mRNA (RT-PCR) levels decreased from 3 to 20 weeks of age, as did the detection of anti-BrdU- and MyoD-positive cells in histological sections. Immunohistochemical staining patterns for MyoD, myogenin, or developmental myosin heavy chain on sections stained for laminin (identification of the basal lamina) and electron micrographs clearly indicate that de novo fiber formation occurred in the interstitial spaces. Myogenic cells in the interstitial spaces were negative for the reliable specific satellite cell marker M-cadherin. In contrast, CD34 (an established marker for hematopoietic stem cells)-positive cells were located only in the interstitial spaces, and their frequency and location were similar to those of MyoD- and/or myogenin-positive cells. These findings are consistent with fiber hyperplasia occurring in the interstitial spaces of the rat plantaris muscle during the rapid postnatal growth phase. Furthermore, these data suggest that the new fibers may be formed from myogenic cells in the interstitial spaces of skeletal muscle and may express CD34 that is distinct from satellite cells.
On the Impact of Antenna Correlation and CSI Errors on the Pilot-to-Data Power Ratio

In systems employing pilot-symbol aided channel estimation, the pilot-to-data power ratio is known to have a large impact on performance. Therefore, previous works proposed methods setting the pilot power such that either the weighted sum of the mean squared error (MSE) of the estimated data symbols is minimized or the overall spectral efficiency (SE) is maximized. However, previous works did not take into account the impact of correlated antennas and channel state information (CSI) errors on the optimal pilot power setting. In this paper, we consider the uplink of a multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MU MIMO) system employing a receiver that minimizes the MSE of the received data symbols in the presence of CSI errors and derive closed-form expressions for the MSE and the achievable SE. These expressions take into account the impact of antenna correlation and CSI errors, and are a function of pilot power and the number of receive antennas. The analytical and numerical results can help set the pilot power, minimizing the MSE in multiple antenna systems.
PiccSIM Toolchain - design, simulation and automatic implementation of wireless networked control systems

This paper presents the PiccSIM Toolchain: a graphical user interface with design tools for the network and control co-simulation platform PiccSIM. The proposed tool-chain enables easy network and control design and improved co-simulation via an integrated graphical user interface. It supports implementation of the simulated algorithms on actual wireless sensor network nodes. The developments presented here include automatic network configuration script generation for the ns-2 network simulator, control design and tuning tools, and automatic code generation from Simulink models to wireless sensor nodes. It also summarizes several improvements to the PiccSIM simulation tool, such as network and control simulation synchronization, and extensions, e.g., network indoor shadowing model, done to the platform.
Novel echocardiographic techniques for the evaluation of athletes’ heart: A focus on speckle-tracking echocardiography

Background The development and rapid dissemination of two-dimensional echocardiography led to important further advances in our understanding of athletes’ heart that has been the subject of several echocardiographic studies involving many thousands of athletes. The description of ventricular chamber enlargement, myocardial hypertrophy and atrial dilatation has led to a more comprehensive understanding of cardiac adaptation to exercise conditioning. Most recently, advanced echocardiographic techniques have begun to clarify significant functional adaptations of the myocardium that accompany previously reported morphological features of athletes’ heart. In particular, speckle-tracking echocardiography (STE) has recently provided further insights into the characterisation of myocardial properties. Discussion STE is a relatively new, largely angle-independent, non-invasive imaging technique that allows for an objective and quantitative evaluation of global and regional myocardial function. STE has enhanced our understanding of athletes’ heart through a comprehensive characterisation of biventricular and biatrial function, providing novel insights into the investigation of physiological adaptation of the heart to exercise conditioning. These peculiarities can provide further useful data to distinguish between athletes’ heart and cardiomyopathies. Furthermore, STE represents a promising tool to address new concerns on right ventricular function and to increase understanding of the complexity of the non-systemic circulation, especially in the athletic population. Conclusion This review article analyses new data on cardiac function in athletes by novel echocardiographic techniques with a particular attention to the application of STE to characterise biventricular and biatrial function in athletes.
NHE1 mediates migration and invasion of HeLa cells via regulating the expression and localization of MT1‐MMP

Na+/H+ exchanger 1 (NHE1), acting as an important regulator of intracellular pH (pHi) and extracellular pH (pHe), has been known to play a key role in the metastasis of many solid tumours. However, the exact mechanism underlying these processes, especially in cervical cancer, is still poorly understood. In the current study, we first showed that the inhibition of NHE1 activity by the specific inhibitor cariporide could suppress migration and invasion of HeLa cells in vitro. Moreover, cariporide also reversed the enhanced migration and invasion in HeLa cells by overexpressed membrane‐type 1 matrix metalloproteinase (MT1‐MMP). Subsequently, our results showed that NHE1 regulated the expression of MT1‐MMP at both messenger RNA and protein levels as well as its localization. Meanwhile, we observed slight modification in the morphology of HeLa cell after treating with cariporide. The present work indicates that NHE1 mediates HeLa cell metastasis via regulating the expression and localization of MT1‐MMP and provides a theoretical basis for the development of novel therapeutic strategies targeting cervical cancer. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Real-time video smoothing for small RC helicopters Marynel Vazquez and

We present a real–time smoothing methodology for the stabilization of videos captured from small robotic helicopter platforms. We suppress supposedly unintended vibrations considering relative rotation and displacements between successive frames. We propose a similar, an affine or a bilinear transformation to model global motion assuming that camera movement dominates the motion field of aerial footage. A similar model gave worst results in comparison to the others, however all can effectively be employed to stabilize video and should be used depending on particular circumstances. In our implementation all transformations can be estimated by iterative least squares, and an affine model can also be adjusted by a proposed iterative total least squares procedure. Field experiments were carried out with a tele–operated helicopter that transmits wireless video to a receiver in ground where digital smoothing is done. With this configuration we stabilized video at an average speed between 20 and 28 fps, while surpassing problems generated because of the presence of high–levels of noise. We improved our system performance by predicting camera motion and got satisfactory results with even just a small delay of 3 frames. Extending our smoother with more complex vision understanding processes seems straightforward given its flexibility and robustness.
Effects of DU-6859 a , a New Quinolone Antimicrobial , on Theophylline Metabolism in In Vitro and In Vivo Studies

In vitro and in vivo studies were conducted to investigate the drug interaction between a new quinolone antimicrobial, DU-6859a, and theophylline (TP). The effect of DU-6859a on TP metabolism was evaluated in vitro by measuring the rate of TP metabolite formation by using human liver microsomes. DU-6859a inhibited the metabolism of TP, especially the formation of 1-methylxanthine, in vitro, but to a lesser extent than other drugs that are known to interact with TP. TP was administered alone (200 mg twice a day [b.i.d.] for 9 days) or in combination with DU-6859a (50 or 100 mg b.i.d. for 5 days) to six healthy subjects. DU-6859a administered at a dose of 50 mg resulted in no changes in serum TP concentrations, and slight increases in serum TP concentrations were observed at a dose of 100 mg. Moreover, the administration of 100 mg of DU-6859a resulted in decreases in all urinary TP metabolites, with significant differences. It appears that although DU6859a has a weak inhibitory effect on TP metabolism in vitro, its concomitant use with TP at clinical dosage levels does not cause any adverse effects, showing only a slight increase in blood TP concentrations and a decrease in urinary metabolites.
Analysis of Thermal Performance in a Bidirectional Thermocycler by Including Thermal Contact Characteristics

This paper illustrates an application of a technique for predicting the thermal characteristics of a bidirectional thermocycling device for polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The micromilling chamber is oscillated by a servo motor and contacted with different isothermal heating blocks to successfully amplify the DNA templates. Because a comprehensive database of contact resistance factors does not exist, it causes researchers to not take thermal contact resistance into consideration at all. We are motivated to accurately determine the thermal characteristics of the reaction chamber with thermal contact effects existing between the heater surface and the chamber surface. Numerical results show that the thermal contact effects between the heating blocks and the reaction chamber dominate the temperature variations and the ramping rates inside the PCR chamber. However, the influences of various temperatures of the ambient conditions on the sample temperature during three PCR steps can be negligible. The experimental temperature profiles are compared well with the numerical simulations by considering the thermal contact conductance coefficient which is empirical by the experimental fitting. To take thermal contact conductance coefficients into consideration in the thermal simulation is recommended to predict a reasonable temperature profile of the reaction chamber during various thermal cycling processes. Finally, the PCR experiments present that Hygromycin B DNA templates are amplified successfully. Furthermore, our group is the first group to introduce the thermal contact effect into theoretical study that has been applied to the design of a PCR device, and to perform the PCR process in a bidirectional thermocycler.
Knowledge Construction through Social Interaction in Computer Conferencing Systems

Computer-mediated communication (CMC), specifically computer conferencing, has captured the interest of educators and psychologists especially in developing collaborative and participatory learning communities to promote higher-order conceptual learning and analytical thinking skills, and to support social construction of knowledge (Curtis & Lawson, 2001; Harasim, 2000; Kanuka & Anderson, 1998). Computer conferencing has the capability of creating flexible communication patterns (Berge & Collins, 1996), removing time and space restrictions, promoting self-reflective dialogues (Harasim, 1993), and creating a (discussion) forum for the construction of knowledge in the teaching and learning process (Heller & Kearsley, 1996; Henri, 1992). Computer conferencing can provide intellectual on-going discussion focusing on a topic or relevant concepts within the course. In addition, it allows the learner to participate in-depth discussions by checking references, referring back to preceding topics and taking any amount of time to prepare a detailed comment or argument. Furthermore, computer conferencing can be used to facilitate group project work and encourage interactive participation and interpersonal collaboration between instructor and learners and among learners. Computer-mediated conferencing, in particular asynchronous online discussion, is becoming increasingly a common instructional strategy in higher education because of its potential to support social interaction, collaborative learning, knowledge building, and critical thinking. Despite its popularity, there are few theories and limited amount of empirical evidence for the claims made about the potential benefits of this medium (Henri, 1992; Mason, 1992; Gunawardena et al., 1997; Garrison et al., 2001). There is still a lack of clarity of the dynamics of online discussion and how it may be utilized to foster students’ cognitive development (Hara et al., 1998) There are few theories and little empirical research on what online collaboration or social interaction is and should be; how online discussions promote learning experience, in particular, higher-order thinking and knowledge construction. Thus, in support of research, this study was undertaken to scrutinize the patterns of student interaction taking place in online discussions and to examine the co-construction of knowledge among them. In addition, the study was aimed at guiding researchers and educators in the design and utilization of the efficiency of CMC that could increase collaboration and support learning.
Low-Speed Control for Permanent-Magnet DC Torque Motor Using Observer-Based Nonlinear Triple-Step Controller

In speed control of a permanent-magnet dc torque motor, cogging torque is an undesirable disturbance and results in speed ripple. It is especially prominent at lower speeds, with the symptom of jerkiness. This paper provides a novel observer-based nonlinear triple-step controller to improve the low-speed tracking performance. Considering that cogging torque is a fast time-varying disturbance and changes harmonically, a nonlinear parameter-varying high-order system is established to model the fast-varying properties of cogging torque. Then, a reduced-order nonlinear observer is designed to estimate the cogging torque, and the robustness analysis with regard to the uncertainties is given for the proposed nonlinear observer. Thereafter, a triple-step nonlinear method is applied to derive a speed tracking controller, and then the robustness analysis against considered observation errors and lumped uncertainties is completed. Finally, the proposed control scheme is verified through experimental tests, and the results show that tracking errors are substantially reduced at low speeds.
Evaluating the Performance of eMTC and NB-IoT for Smart City Applications

Low power wide area network (LPWAN) is a wireless telecommunication network that is designed for interconnecting devices with low bitrate focusing on long range and power efficiency. In this paper, we study two recent technologies built from existing Long-Term Evolution (LTE) functionalities: Enhanced machine type communications (eMTC) and Narrow band internet of things (NB-IoT). These technologies are designed to coexist with existing LTE infrastructure, spectrum, and devices. We compare the performance of both systems in terms of energy consumption, latency, and scalability. We introduce a model for calculating the energy consumption and study the effect of clock drift and propose a method to overcome it. We also propose a model for analytically evaluating the latency and the maximum number of devices in a network. Furthermore, we implement the main functionalities of both technologies and simulate the end-to-end latency and the maximum number of devices in a discrete-event network simulator NS-3. Numerical results show that 8 years battery life time can be achieved by both technologies in a poor coverage scenario and that depending on the coverage conditions and data length, one technology consumes less energy than the other. The results also show that eMTC can serve more devices in a network than NB-IoT, while providing a latency that is 10 times lower.
Speech Enhancement using Deep Neural Network

Speech is the main source of human interaction. In everyday life,Speech understanding in noisy environments is still one of the major challenges for users. The quality and intelligibility of speech signals are generally gets corrupted by the surrounding background noise during communication. So to improve the quality and intelligibility, Corrupted speech signals is to be enhanced. In the field of speech processing, different effort has been taken to develop speech enhancement techniques in order to enhance the speech signal by reducing the amount of noise. Speech enhancement deals with improving the quality and intelligibility of speech which gets degraded in the presence of surrounding background noise. In various everyday environments, the goal of speech enhancement methods is to improving the quality and intelligibility of speech especially at low Signal-to-Noise ratios (SNR). Regarding intelligibility, different machine learning methods that aim to estimate an ideal binary mask has given the promising results. This project covers the work of speech enhancement by use of the supervised method Deep Neural Network (DNN). In contrast to the different noise reduction techniques such as MMSE, the supervised method enhance the speech by finding a mapping function between the noisy and clean speech signals based on deep neural networks.
Center-focus global contrast saliency detection

Saliency detection has a great significance in improving image analysis and processing techniques. In this paper, we propose a center-focus global contrast saliency detection method. First, we achieve the weight of focus-center feature map from frequency domain and get the salient center by weighted coordinates; Secondly we calculate the Euclidean distance between the image of each pixel and the saliency center for generating the focus-center feature map; Then the image is segmented by SLIC, and taking segments as a unit build the color global contrast feature map; Finally three feature maps are normalized and integrated as the saliency map. The saliency detection method proposed in this paper compare with 7 saliency detection methods by the public database Achtana1000[12] and our method have higher precision and recall than others.