Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diets Rich in Saturated and Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids Induce Morphological Alterations in the Rat Ventral Prostate

Aim To evaluate the influence of dietary lipid quality on the body mass, carbohydrate metabolism and morphology of the rat ventral prostate. Materials and Methods Wistar rats were divided into four groups: SC (standard chow), HF-S (high-fat diet rich in saturated fatty acids), HF-P (high-fat diet rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids) and HF-SP (high-fat diet rich in saturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids). We analyzed body mass, fat mass deposits, plasma blood, insulin resistance and the ventral prostate structure. Results Groups that received high-fat diets were heavier and presented larger fat deposits than SC group. The HF-S and HF-SP groups had higher glucose, insulin and total cholesterol serum levels and insulin resistance compared with the SC. The acinar area, epithelium height and area density of the lumen were higher in the HF-SP than in the other groups. The epithelium area density and epithelial cell proliferation were greater in the HF-P and HF-SP than in the SC group. All of the groups that received high-fat diets had greater area density of the stroma, area density of smooth muscle cells and stromal cell proliferation compared with the SC group. Conclusion Diets rich in saturated and/or polyunsaturated fatty acids induced overweight. Independently of insulin resistance, polyunsaturated fatty acids increased prostate stromal and epithelial cell proliferation. Saturated fatty acids influenced only stromal cellular proliferation. These structural and morphometric alterations may be considered risk factors for the development of adverse remodeling process in the rat ventral prostate.
FPGA implementation of scale invariant feature transform

Scale Invariant Feature Transform is a competent algorithm for extracting unique features from images. The fact that features extracted are invariant to image scaling, translation, rotation and partially invariant to illumination changes makes it attractive in many computer vision applications involving mobile robots such as obstacle recognition, dynamic obstacle motion estimation, generating topological maps to enable autonomous navigation to name a few. The real challenge in such applications is to design an architecture that can provide for real time embedded computation of the features while optimizing area and power overhead. This paper presents the design of a System-on-Chip architecture for real time embedded computation of the features. The architecture exploits parallel and pipelined computational flow to achieve real time throughput while reducing the area and power overhead as compared to existing approaches. The entire hardware is implemented on a Xilinx Virtex-6 evaluation board.
An unsupervised learning algorithm for image segmentation based on finite mixture models

There are two open problems for unsupervised learning of finite mixture models: model selection and initialization. To circumvent these problems in image segmentation applications, we integrate a filter technique into the EM algorithm. The proposed algorithm starts with the largest possible number of image regions. With the convergence of the algorithm, irrelevant components can be eliminated. It does not require careful initialization and also has the advantage of preserving the good features of EM while making use of the spatial information in a reasonable amount of time.
Picosecond time-resolved bleaching dynamics of self-assembled quantum dots

Picosecond bleaching dynamics of vertically stacked self-assembled quantum dots (QDs) is investigated by means of time-resolved pump-probe differential reflection spectroscopy (TRDR) at room temperature (RT). We observe that the absorption spectrum, which represents the QD density of states at RT, is strongly shifted with respect to the photoluminescence spectrum. This shift can not be interpreted by carrier emission and re-trapping alone. TRDR allows us to study the dynamics of the pump generated carriers within the QDs. From the time-resolved measurements, we detect that the bleaching decay time has a strong energy dependence and is dominated by radiative and nonradiative recombination at low energy and by carrier emission at high energy.
Performance Analysis of Asynchronous Multicarrier Wireless Networks

This paper develops a novel analytical framework for asynchronous wireless networks deploying multicarrier transmission over flat-fading channels. Nodes in the network have different notions of timing; therefore, from the viewpoint of a typical receiver, the received signals from different transmitters are asynchronous, leading to a loss of orthogonality between subcarriers. We first develop a detailed link-level analysis based on OFDM, based on which we propose a tractable system-level signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) model for asynchronous OFDM networks. The proposed model is used to analytically characterize several important statistics in asynchronous networks with spatially distributed transmitters, including: (i) the number of decodable transmitters; (ii) the decoding probability of the nearest transmitter; and (iii) the system throughput. The system-level loss from lack of synchronization is quantified, and to mitigate the loss, we compare and discuss four possible solutions including extended cyclic prefix, advanced receiver timing, dynamic receiver timing positioning, and semi-static receiver timing positioning with multiple timing hypotheses. The model and results are general, and apply to ad hoc networks, cellular systems, and neighbor discovery in device-to-device (D2D) networks.
Effects of lexical semantics on acoustic prominence

abstract This paper explores the representations underlying lexical semantics. In particular, we test whether a word’s meaning can affect a word’s articulation. In Experiment 1, participants produced high-effort (e.g., yelling) and low-effort (e.g., chatting) words that are semantically related to articulation, as well as words that are semantically unrelated to articulation (e.g., kicking). We found that vocal words were produced with greater intensity than non-vocal words. In Experiment 2, we explored the specificity of this effect by investigating how words semantically related to the mouth, but unrelated to vocalization (e.g., chewing) were articulated. Analyses revealed that mouth words did not differ from controls, and we replicated the vocal effects from Experiment 1, suggesting fine-grain motor activation from lexical semantics. Experiment 3 revealed that the semantics of a verb influences the prosodic intensity of a sentence prior to the onset of the verb. Together, these data suggest aspects of lexical meaning influence prosody, and that motor representations may underlie lexical semantics.
Comparative Opsonic and Protective Activities of Staphylococcus aureus Conjugate Vaccines Containing Native or Deacetylated Staphylococcal Poly-N-Acetyl-β-(1-6)-Glucosamine

ABSTRACT Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis both synthesize the surface polysaccharide poly-N-acetyl-β-(1-6)-glucosamine (PNAG), which is produced in vitro with a high level (>90%) of the amino groups substituted by acetate. Here, we examined the role of the acetate substituents of PNAG in generating opsonic and protective antibodies. PNAG and a deacetylated form of the antigen (dPNAG; 15% acetylation) were conjugated to the carrier protein diphtheria toxoid (DT) and used to immunize animals. Mice responded in a dose-dependent fashion to both conjugate vaccines, with maximum antibody titers observed at the highest dose and 4 weeks after the last of three weekly immunizations. PNAG-DT and dPNAG-DT vaccines were also very immunogenic in rabbits. Antibodies raised to the conjugate vaccines in rabbits mediated the opsonic killing of various staphylococcal strains, but the specificity of the opsonic killing was primarily to dPNAG, as this antigen inhibited the killing of S. aureus strains by both PNAG- and dPNAG-specific antibodies. Passive immunization of mice with anti-dPNAG-DT rabbit sera showed significant levels of clearance of S. aureus from the blood (54 to 91%) compared to control mice immunized with normal rabbit sera, whereas PNAG-specific antibodies were ineffective at clearing S. aureus. Passive immunization of mice with a goat antiserum raised to the dPNAG-DT vaccine protected against a lethal dose of three different S. aureus strains. Overall, these data show that immunization of animals with a conjugate vaccine of dPNAG elicit antibodies that mediated opsonic killing and protected against S. aureus infection, including capsular polysaccharide types 5 and 8 and an untypable strain.
METEOR for multiple target languages using DBnary

This paper proposes an extension of METEOR, a well-known MT evaluation metric, for multiple target languages using an in-house lexical resource called DBnary (an extraction from Wiktionary provided to the community as a Multilingual Lexical Linked Open Data). Today, the use of the synonymy module of METEOR is only exploited when English is the target language (use of WordNet). A synonymy module using DBnary would allow its use for the 21 languages (covered up to now) as target languages. The code of this new instance of METEOR, adapted to several target languages, is provided to the community via a github repository. We also show that our DBnary augmented METEOR increases the correlation with human judgements on the WMT 2013 and 2014 metrics dataset for English-to-(French, Russian, German, Spanish) language pairs.
MICROSURGERY OR RADIOSURGERY FOR CEREBRAL ARTERIOVENOUS MALFORMATIONS? A STUDY OF TWO PAIRED SERIES

OBJECTIVE To detect parameters that may augment the therapeutic strategy in patients with a cerebral arteriovenous malformation (AVM) that is considered equally suitable for treatment by neurosurgery or radiosurgery, we compared the efficacy and risks of these two methods in a paired series with similar patient and AVM characteristics. PATIENTS AND METHODS Two series of patients with AVM were studied, including a series of 39 patients treated using microsurgery (MS) and another series of 39 patients treated via radiosurgery (RS). These series were paired for age and sex, initial symptoms, size, location and Spetzler-Martin grade, and presence of embolization preceding treatment. We compared the posttreatment outcome in the two groups with respect to obliteration rate, neurological status, mortality rate, and recurrent bleeding. Statistical analysis was performed using paired Student's t test. RESULTS The Glasgow Outcome Scale values and Modified Rankin Scores measured at discharge and 12 to 24 months were significantly better in the RS series than in the MS series. The obliteration rate tended to be higher in the MS series (91% versus 81%; P = 0.10, not significant), whereas the rate of neurological deficit was higher in the MS series than in the RS series(P < 0.001). The mortality rate was not significantly different in the two series, but the rate of recurrent bleeding was higher in the RS group (10% versus 0%; P = 0.04). CONCLUSIONS Although the rate of cure was similar for patients treated with MS and RS, neurological morbidity was higher after MS and recurrent bleeding was more frequent after RS.
An Adaptive Intrusion Detection and Defense System based on Mobile Agents

This paper presents a distributed intrusion detection system (IDS) based on mobile agents that detect intrusion from outside the network segment as well as from inside. A main machine, being a typical intrusion detection system residing at a secure location, creates agents and dispatches them into the network. On each hop, the agents sniff the network traffic and look for abnormal activities by matching against a limited rule set supplied by the main machine. The agents are programmed with enough intelligence to decide whether to send the logged data (captured packets) to the main machine for further analysis. The proposed model comprises three major components: the Network Intrusion Detection Component, the Mobile Agent Platform, and distributed intelligent mobile agents called mobile IDS agents. Finally, we present partial results obtained from an early prototype and a discussion of design and implementation issues, and directions for future work. Keywords: Mobile agents, intrusion detection, distributed systems.
PKA phosphorylation activates the calcium release channel (ryanodine receptor) in skeletal muscle

The type 1 ryanodine receptor (RyR1) on the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) is the major calcium (Ca2+) release channel required for skeletal muscle excitation–contraction (EC) coupling. RyR1 function is modulated by proteins that bind to its large cytoplasmic scaffold domain, including the FK506 binding protein (FKBP12) and PKA. PKA is activated during sympathetic nervous system (SNS) stimulation. We show that PKA phosphorylation of RyR1 at Ser2843 activates the channel by releasing FKBP12. When FKB12 is bound to RyR1, it inhibits the channel by stabilizing its closed state. RyR1 in skeletal muscle from animals with heart failure (HF), a chronic hyperadrenergic state, were PKA hyperphosphorylated, depleted of FKBP12, and exhibited increased activity, suggesting that the channels are “leaky. ” RyR1 PKA hyperphosphorylation correlated with impaired SR Ca2+ release and early fatigue in HF skeletal muscle. These findings identify a novel mechanism that regulates RyR1 function via PKA phosphorylation in response to SNS stimulation. PKA hyperphosphorylation of RyR1 may contribute to impaired skeletal muscle function in HF, suggesting that a generalized EC coupling myopathy may play a role in HF.
The disquieting tension of ‘the other’: international students’ experience of sojourn in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT Recent research has shown that increasing the number of international students and staff in universities does not necessarily make the campus more ‘international’. Ladegaard and Cheng (2014) found that local and non-local students live completely separate lives on campus and do not work together, let alone socialise, unless forced to do so by their teachers. This article argues that one of the major obstacles for successful integration between local and non-local students is negative outgroup stereotypes and prejudice. It reports on an ongoing study of international students’ experience of sojourn in Hong Kong. The article analyses examples from informal group discussions among non-local students, and the examples show that for some students, meeting ‘the other’ has been associated with disquieting tension more than anything. Despite their commitment to the intercultural endeavour, they feel their integration has been inhibited by their own or other students’ prejudice. The article suggests that intercultural dialogue, which addresses taboos and painful issues and seeks compromises, and the courage to criticise our own and other people's ethnocentric discourses, should be the way forward if local and non-local students are to integrate and work together in meaningful ways.
An optimal lognormal approximation to lognormal sum distributions

Sums of lognormal random variables occur in many problems in wireless communications because signal shadowing is well modeled by the lognormal distribution. The lognormal sum distribution is not known in the closed form and is difficult to compute numerically. Several approximations to the distribution have been proposed and employed in applications. Some widely used approximations are based on the assumption that a lognormal sum is well approximated by a lognormal random variable. Here, a new paradigm for approximating lognormal sum distributions is presented. A linearizing transform is used with a linear minimax approximation to determine an optimal lognormal approximation to a lognormal sum distribution. The accuracies of the new method are quantitatively compared to the accuracies of some well-known approximations. In some practical cases, the optimal lognormal approximation is several orders of magnitude more accurate than previous approximations. Efficient numerical computation of the lognormal characteristic function is also considered.
The Bisexual Experience

Abstract This study examined how bisexually-identified individuals experience cultural attitudes toward bisexuality, how they establish a sense of community for themselves, and how their experience has affected their self-concept. Twenty self-identified bisexual women and men were interviewed for a descriptive study. The results indicate that cultural attitudes toward bisexuality affect sexual identity development, self-definition, visibility, and relationships. Three steps to establishing a sense of community included: perception of outsider status, location of bisexual individuals and community, and formation of new community. The effects on self-concept of forming and maintaining bisexual identity included: enhanced self-reliance, openness, and enrichment. Both gender and cultural minority status had an impact on the experience of bisexuality. On the basis of the findings, the author proposes a theory of bisexual identity development which includes the following stages: questioning reality, inventing the identity, maintaining the identity, and transforming adversity.
Biogenesis of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae Mating Pheromone a-Factor

The Saccharomyces cerevisiae mating pheromone a-factor is a prenylated and carboxyl methylated extracellular peptide signaling molecule. Biogenesis of the a-factor precursor proceeds via a distinctive multistep pathway that involves COOH-terminal modification, NH2-terminal proteolysis, and a nonclassical export mechanism. In this study, we examine the formation and fate of a-factor biosynthetic intermediates to more precisely define the events that occur during a-factor biogenesis. We have identified four distinct a-factor biosynthetic intermediates (P0, P1, P2, and M) by metabolic labeling, immunoprecipitation, and SDSPAGE. We determined the biochemical composition of each by defining their NH2-terminal amino acid and COOH-terminal modification status. Unexpectedly, we discovered that not one, but two NH2-terminal cleavage steps occur during the biogenesis of a-factor. In addition, we have shown that COOH-terminal prenylation is required for the NH2-terminal processing of a-factor and that all the prenylated a-factor intermediates (P1, P2, and M) are membrane bound, suggesting that many steps of a-factor biogenesis occur in association with membranes. We also observed that although the biogenesis of a-factor is a rapid process, it is inherently inefficient, perhaps reflecting the potential for regulation. Previous studies have identified gene products that participate in the COOH-terminal modification (Ram1p, Ram2p, Ste14p), NH2-terminal processing (Ste24p, Axl1p), and export (Ste6p) of a-factor. The intermediates defined in the present study are discussed in the context of these biogenesis components to formulate an overall model for the pathway of a-factor biogenesis.
Understanding 802.11 performance in heterogeneous environments

The availability of unlicensed spectrum coupled with the increasing popularity of wireless communication has given rise to a diverse range of wireless technologies that compete for spectrum. In particular, 802.11 devices face a host of problems such as interference with other 802.11 devices (hidden terminals) as well as with technologies like Bluetooth and ZigBee. Understanding how the medium is utilized and inferring the cause of interference, based on observations from a single wireless node, is hard. Past work has used monitoring infrastructures to detect interference between 802.11 nodes in enterprise networks. In this paper, we try to answer the question: "how can we enable users to reason about wireless performance variations without requiring elaborate instrumentation and infrastructure support? ". We propose WiMed, a tool that uses only local measurements from commodity 802.11 NICs (at the node being diagnosed) to construct a time map of how the medium is utilized. We have implemented a WiMed prototype using the MadWifi driver for Atheros NICs. Early results show that WiMed is useful and can characterize non-802.11 interference better than existing systems.
Negation Handling for Sentiment Classification

Sentiment Classification refers to the computational techniques for categorizing whether the sentiments of a text are positive or negative. Sentiment Classification approaches would suffer due to Negation Modifiers. Negation Modifiers, like word “not” modify the meaning of the associated word. Handling Negation Modifier is important as they may modify the Sentiment conveyed by the associated word. In this paper a model for handling Negation Modifiers for Sentiment Classification was proposed and evaluated. Generally a term in a document is recorded in term-document vector, but if the term was negation modifier, it was treated exceptionally. The negation modifier was ignored but the term next to negation modifier was recorded in term-document vector of opposite orientation. The proposed Negation Modifier handling model was evaluated using movie document dataset. Accuracy slightly increased after handling negation modifiers.
Application considerations for high resistance ground retrofits in pulp and paper mills

Safety and reliability of low voltage-high resistance grounding (HRG) schemes have made them an excellent choice for application in the pulp and paper and other process industries. As facilities shift toward this technology for low voltage substations for improved reliability, retrofitting existing grounded systems requires several critical application considerations. This paper briefly reviews different grounding methods and their theory of operation. Then, examples of actual installations are presented that will identify potential misapplications of high resistance ground retrofits, discuss what typical ground voltages and currents to expect, and present important considerations for reliable and safe installation of HRG equipment.
Implementation of Longitudinal Control Algorithm for Vehicle Merging

This paper presents a real-time implementation of a rather general adaptive merging algorithm for automated highway systems. A merging control problem is proposed first. A real-time adaptive closed-loop algorithm is then presented, which is used to calculate a smooth reference speed trajectory for the merging vehicle based on the speed of the main lane vehicle. This algorithm can also be applied even when the main lane vehicles change speed. To make the algorithm adapt to different road layouts and to increase safety, a concept of virtual platooning is proposed. It effectively shifts the time of platoon formation forward prior to the start of real merging. Aspects closely related to real-time implementation are discussed. Test results are presented and briefly analyzed.