Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SDF-9, a protein tyrosine phosphatase-like molecule, regulates the L3/dauer developmental decision through hormonal signaling in C. elegans

The dauer larva of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is a good model system for investigating the regulation of developmental fates by environmental cues. Here we show that SDF-9, a protein tyrosine phosphatase-like molecule, is involved in the regulation of dauer larva formation. The dauer larva of sdf-9 mutants is different from a normal dauer larva but resembles the dauer-like larva of daf-9 and daf-12 dauer-constitutive mutants. Like these mutants, the dauer-constitutive phenotypes of sdf-9 mutants were greatly enhanced by cholesterol deprivation. Epistasis analyses, together with the relationship between sdf-9 mutations and daf-9 expression, suggested that SDF-9 increases the activity of DAF-9 or helps the execution of the DAF-9 function. SDF-9 was expressed in two head cells in which DAF-9 is expressed. By their position and by genetic mosaic experiments, we identified these cells as XXXL/R cells, which are known as embryonic hypodermal cells and whose function at later stages is unknown. Killing of the sdf-9-expressing cells in the wild-type first-stage larva induced formation of the dauer-like larva. Since this study on SDF-9 and former studies on DAF-9 showed that the functions of these proteins are related to those of steroids, XXXL/R cells seem to play a key role in the metabolism or function of a steroid hormone(s) that acts in dauer regulation.
On using a SPICE-like TSTAC™ eFlash model for design and test

The Flash technology is the most popular non-volatile memory technology. In this paper, we present the ability of a SPICE-like model of the ATMEL TSTAC™ eFlash technology to guide the design and test phases. This model is composed of two layers: a functional layer representing the Floating Gate (FG) and a programming layer able to determine the channel voltage level controlling the Fowler-Nordheim tunneling effect. It is able to guide the test phase since it allows analyzing and modeling defects that may affect the eFlash array. This analysis highlights the interest of the proposed model to identify a realistic set of fault models that has to be tested, thus enhancing existing solutions for TSTAC™ eFlash testing. The proposed model is also helpful to guide the design phase. Data presented in the paper demonstrate its accuracy compared to silicon measurements, usefulness to predict the technology shrinking and usefulness to guide the pulse programming method.
Sorry, i don't speak SPARQL: translating SPARQL queries into natural language

Over the past years, Semantic Web and Linked Data technologies have reached the backend of a considerable number of applications. Consequently, large amounts of RDF data are constantly being made available across the planet. While experts can easily gather information from this wealth of data by using the W3C standard query language SPARQL, most lay users lack the expertise necessary to proficiently interact with these applications. Consequently, non-expert users usually have to rely on forms, query builders, question answering or keyword search tools to access RDF data. However, these tools have so far been unable to explicate the queries they generate to lay users, making it difficult for these users to i) assess the correctness of the query generated out of their input, and ii) to adapt their queries or iii) to choose in an informed manner between possible interpretations of their input. This paper addresses this drawback by presenting SPARQL2NL, a generic approach that allows verbalizing SPARQL queries, i.e., converting them into natural language. Our framework can be integrated into applications where lay users are required to understand SPARQL or to generate SPARQL queries in a direct (forms, query builders) or an indirect (keyword search, question answering) manner. We evaluate our approach on the DBpedia question set provided by QALD-2 within a survey setting with both SPARQL experts and lay users. The results of the 115 filled surveys show that SPARQL2NL can generate complete and easily understandable natural language descriptions. In addition, our results suggest that even SPARQL experts can process the natural language representation of SPARQL queries computed by our approach more efficiently than the corresponding SPARQL queries. Moreover, non-experts are enabled to reliably understand the content of SPARQL queries.
Low cost video-based traffic congestion monitoring using phones as sensors

Traffic congestion is a serious problem in developing-world cities, compounded by the fact that it is unpredictable. Better real-time information about congestion levels can help with more effective use of infrastructure, for example allowing journey planning based on predicted congestion levels, or on selecting optimal routes based on current congestion levels at different places. In this paper we describe hardware and image processing methods for constructing a vision-based traffic congestion monitoring system tailored to the constraints of monitoring chaotic developing world traffic. By designing roadside monitoring units around camera phones, our prototype radically reduces costs compared to convential CCTV systems and hence makes it practical for deployment in this context. We show results from this system operating in Kampala.
Information Sharing Across Private Databases : Secure Union and Intersection Revisited

There is a growing demand for sharing information across multiple autonomous and private databases. The problem is usually formulated as a secure multiparty computation problem where a set of parties wish to jointly compute a function of their private inputs such that the parties learn only the result of the function but nothing else. In this paper we analyze existing and potential solutions for secure multiparty computation protocols for union and intersection. We also present an alternative random shares based approach and show that the protocols, although quite simple, are more efficient than existing protocols while providing reasonable level of security that can be adjusted by users. We formally analyze the security properties and the cost of our protocols. We also experimentally compare the performance of our approach with the existing solutions.
A Comparative study of morphological classifications of APM galaxies

We investigate the consistency of visual morphological classifications of galaxies by comparing classifications for 831 galaxies from six independent observers. The galaxies were classified on laser print copy images or on computer screen produced from scans with the Automated Plate Measuring (APM) machine. Classifications are compared using the Revised Hubble numerical type index T. We find that individual observers agree with one another with rms combined dispersions of between 1.3 and 2.3 type units, typically about 1.8 units. The dispersions tend to decrease slightly with increasing angular diameter and, in some cases, with increasing axial ratio $(b/a)$. The agreement between independent observers is reasonably good but the scatter is non-negligible. In spite of the scatter the Revised Hubble T system can be used to train an automated galaxy classifier, e.g. an Artificial Neural Network, to handle the large number of galaxy images that are being compiled in the APM and other surveys.
Prospective Ten‐Month Exercise Intervention in Premenarcheal Girls: Positive Effects on Bone and Lean Mass

Enhancement of bone mineral acquisition during growth may be a useful preventive strategy against osteoporosis. The aim of this study was to explore the lean mass, strength, and bone mineral response to a 10‐month, high‐impact, strength‐building exercise program in 71 premenarcheal girls, aged 9–10 years. Lean body mass, total body (TB), lumbar spine (LS), proximal femur (PF), and femoral neck (FN) bone mineral were measured using the Hologic QDR 2000+ bone densitometer. Strength was assessed using a grip dynamometer and the Cybex isokinetic dynamometer (Cybex II). At baseline, no significant difference in body composition, pubertal development, calcium intake, physical activity, strength, or bone mineral existed between groups. At completion, there were again no differences in height, total body mass, pubertal development, calcium intake, or external physical activity. In contrast, the exercise group gained significantly more lean mass, less body fat content, greater shoulder, knee and grip strength, and greater TB, LS, PF, and FN BMD (exercise: TB 3.5%, LS 4.8%, PF 4.5%, and FN 12.0%) compared with the controls (controls: TB 1.2%, LS 1.2%, PF 1.3%, and FN 1.7%). TB bone mineral content (BMC), LS BMC, PF BMC, FN BMC, LS bone mineral apparent density (BMAD), and FN bone area also increased at a significantly greater rate in the exercise group compared with the controls. In multiple regression analysis, change in lean mass was the primary determinant of TB, FN, PF, and LS BMD accrual. Although a large proportion of bone mineral accrual in the premenarcheal skeleton was related to growth, an osteogenic effect was associated with exercise. These results suggest that high‐impact, strength building exercise is beneficial for premenarcheal strength, lean mass gains, and bone mineral acquisition.
Proportionate Adaptive Filtering for Block-Sparse System Identification

In this paper, a new family of proportionate normalized least mean square (PNLMS) adaptive algorithms that improve the performance of identifying block-sparse systems is proposed. The main proposed algorithm, called block-sparse PNLMS (BS-PNLMS), is based on the optimization of a mixed l2,1 norm of the adaptive filter's coefficients. It is demonstrated that both the NLMS and the traditional PNLMS are special cases of BS-PNLMS. Meanwhile, a block-sparse improved PNLMS (BS-IPNLMS) is also derived for both sparse and dispersive impulse responses. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed BS-PNLMS and BS-IPNLMS algorithms outperformed the NLMS, PNLMS and IPNLMS algorithms with only a modest increase in computational complexity.
The Spatiotemporal Expression and Localization Implicates a Potential Role for SerpinB11 in the Process of Mouse Spermatogenesis and Apoptosis

In this study, the spatiotemporal expression of SerpinB11 in the mouse testis from postnatal 1–60 d was checked, the SerpinB11 protein strongly localized in the intermediate spermatogonia, B-type spermatogonium, preleptotene spermatocyte, leptonema spermatocyte, zygotene spermatocyte, but weakly localized in the pachytene spermatocyte, diplotene spermatocyte, sphere sperm, and the apoptotic sperm was positive stained of SerpinB11 protein, the localization of cell cycle marker CDK4 and meiosis marker SCP3 were investigated, and the SCP3 and SerpinB11 colocalized in the intermediate spermatogonia, B-type spermatogonium, preleptotene spermatocyte. Taken together, these results suggested that SerpinB11 might involved in spermatogenesis and apoptosis.
A High Performance Tactile Feedback Display and Its Integration in Teleoperation

This paper presents the development of a compact tactile display and its integration in teleoperation. The system's operation is based on the display of surface shape to an area of the fingertip through a 4 × 4 array of tactors moving perpendicularly to the skin surface. The tactors are spring loaded and are actuated remotely by dc motors through a flexible tendon transmission. This novel implementation of conventional actuation principles achieves a compact design with superior performance compared to devices of a similar footprint, demonstrating an excellent combination of tactor spatiotemporal resolution, force, and amplitude. The display's ergonomic design and high performance make it suitable for integration on haptic devices for tactile feedback in VR and in Teleoperation. This paper presents the design, control, and performance of the tactile display and of the transmission system. It also demonstrates its integration on an Omega7 force feedback device for the teleoperation of an LWR KUKA manipulator. An experiment is presented where users teleoperated the stylus of the robot in a 3D contour following task with and without tactile feedback. In this experiment, force feedback from the slave is fused with model-based local tactile feedback. Subjects' performances indicate an improvement in teleoperation when both tactile and force feedback are present.
Different classes of T lymphocytes have different mRNAs for the leukocyte-common antigen, T200

The leukocyte common antigen, T200, is expressed on all white blood cells but not on other differentiated cells. Within the hematopoietic lineage, specific cell types display characteristic structural forms of the molecule on their surface. We show that murine cytotoxic T lymphocyte clones and helper T cell clones contain different size mRNA for this molecule, and that the early precursors of T200 glycoprotein made in the helper and cytotoxic T cells differ in Mr. Thus, in addition to differences in posttranslational modifications, it is highly likely that a difference in protein structure contributes to the distinct forms of T200 glycoprotein found on these functional T cell subsets.
A two-level sliding-window VBR controller for real-time hierarchical video coding

In this paper, a novel rate control algorithm for real-time VBR hierarchical video coding is proposed. The algorithm works at two levels that are called long- and short-term levels. The long-term level aims at ensuring that the bit count does not exceed the maximum allowed amount for a few-second long window. To this end, it considers a sliding window spanning several GOPs, which is shifted on a GOP basis. In doing so, it avoids the potentially sharp adjustments at the end of the GOP that usually happen in non-sliding approaches. The short-term level aims to provide a proper QP adaptation to fit the target bit budget, which is dictated by the long-term level. It also uses a sliding window, which in this case extends over one GOP. The proposed algorithm has been assessed in realistic conditions for a variety of video sequences. It has been compared to both a constant quality and CBR hierarchical approaches, showing an excellent performance in terms of both rate-distortion and PSNR variation.
Refractive Structure-from-Motion Through a Flat Refractive Interface

Recovering 3D scene geometry from underwater images involves the Refractive Structure-from-Motion (RSfM) problem, where the image distortions caused by light refraction at the interface between different propagation media invalidates the single view point assumption. Direct use of the pinhole camera model in RSfM leads to inaccurate camera pose estimation and consequently drift. RSfM methods have been thoroughly studied for the case of a thick glass interface that assumes two refractive interfaces between the camera and the viewed scene. On the other hand, when the camera lens is in direct contact with the water, there is only one refractive interface. By explicitly considering a refractive interface, we develop a succinct derivation of the refractive fundamental matrix in the form of the generalised epipolar constraint for an axial camera. We use the refractive fundamental matrix to refine initial pose estimates obtained by assuming the pinhole model. This strategy allows us to robustly estimate underwater camera poses, where other methods suffer from poor noise-sensitivity. We also formulate a new four view constraint enforcing camera pose consistency along a video which leads us to a novel RSfM framework. For validation we use synthetic data to show the numerical properties of our method and we provide results on real data to demonstrate performance within laboratory settings and for applications in endoscopy.
Cardiovascular Responses to Bicuculline in the Paraventricular Nucleus of the Rat

The present study was undertaken to determine whether y-aminobutyric acid in the paraventricular nucleus contributes to the regulation of cardiovascular function. Blood pressure and heart rate were recorded and plasma catecholamines were measured in conscious rats receiving microinfusions of either artificial cerebrospinal fluid or a y-aminobutyric acid antagonist, bicuculline methiodide, bilaterally into the paraventricular nucleus. Artificial cerebrospinal fluid had no effect on any of the recorded variables. In contrast, infusion of bicuculline into the region of the paraventricular nucleus produced increases in blood pressure (20 ±2 mm Hg), heart rate (110±ll beats/min), and plasma concentrations of norepinephrine (640±107 pg/ml) and epinephrine (lt266±267 pg/ml). Pretreatment with a ganglionic blocking agent abolished both the blood pressure (-1±2 mm Hg) and heart rate (5±18 beats/min) effects. Bilateral adrenal medullectomy reduced the changes in plasma norepinephrine concentrations (81 ±14 pg/ml) significantly and abolished the changes in plasma epinephrine concentrations (5±4 pg/ml). Conversely, adrenal medullectomy reduced the pressor effects (18±2 mm Hg) only slightly while the heart rate responses were attenuated (42 ±9 beats/min) by approximately 50%. These results suggest that an endogenous y-aminobutyric acid system exerts a tonic inhibitory effect on the sympathetic nervous system at the level of the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus.
Catering for yourself: Food experiences of self-catering tourists

The self-catering aspects of tourism-related food consumption have not been given much research attention so far, and hence, the purpose of this article is to expand our understanding of self-catering tourists’ food experiences. Tourists’ food relations are argued to be influenced by several forces: the multi-faceted nature of the individual tourist’s demands, the group dynamics within the travelling unit and the place-specific context of the tourism activity. Qualitative interviews with a diverse group of self-catering tourists enable an explorative discussion of food experiences of self-catering tourists. The analysis demonstrates that food has an experiential potential for a broad cross-section of self-catering tourists, but also that food is considered a non-experiences by some. Tourists’ relations to food is often a combination of two or more experiences, and may equally be concerned with the consumer object (pleasure and health) and the consumer context (social bonding and sense of place).
Synchrony based side by side walking: an application in human-robot interactions

Previously, we proposed a model that allows a robot to select an interacting partner and locate its focus of attention on the basis of synchrony between its own internal dynamics and the perceived visual stimuli. Here, we extend our approach for human-robot interactions in a "synchronous walking" scenario. Our inspirations come from the notion of unintentional synchrony indicated by psychology and motor coordination studies as a fundamental parameter in social interactions. When two persons walk together, unconsciously, their steps are synchronized by constantly adjusting the length and the frequency of their steps. Here, we are interested in replicating this human-human behavior in a human-robot interaction. we propose a neural network architecture that allows a robot to follow and walk synchronously with a human by adapting the robot's dynamics according to the human gait using low level motor and visual primitives.
Arrhythmogenic Effect of Sympathetic Histamine in Mouse Hearts Subjected to Acute Ischemia

The role of histamine as a newly recognized sympathetic neurotransmitter has been presented previously, and its postsynaptic effects greatly depended on the activities of sympathetic nerves. Cardiac sympathetic nerves become overactivated under acute myocardial ischemic conditions and release neurotransmitters in large amounts, inducing ventricular arrhythmia. Therefore, it is proposed that cardiac sympathetic histamine, in addition to norepinephrine, may have a significant arrhythmogenic effect. To test this hypothesis, we observed the release of cardiac sympathetic histamine and associated ventricular arrhythmogenesis that was induced by acute ischemia in isolated mouse hearts. Mast cell-deficient mice (MCDM) and histidine decarboxylase knockout (HDC−/−) mice were used to exclude the potential involvement of mast cells. Electrical field stimulation and acute ischemia-reperfusion evoked chemical sympathectomy-sensitive histamine release from the hearts of both MCDM and wild-type (WT) mice but not from HDC−/− mice. The release of histamine from the hearts of MCDM and WT mice was associated with the development of acute ischemia-induced ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation. The incidence and duration of induced ventricular arrhythmias were found to decrease in the presence of the selective histamine H2 receptor antagonist famotidine. Additionally, the released histamine facilitated the arrhythmogenic effect of simultaneously released norepinephrine. We conclude that, under acute ischemic conditions, cardiac sympathetic histamine released by overactive sympathetic nerve terminals plays a certain arrhythmogenic role via H2 receptors. These findings provided novel insight into the pathophysiological roles of sympathetic histamine, which may be a new therapeutic target for acute ischemia-induced arrhythmias.
Recognition of handwritten digits by combining independent learning vector quantizations

Classifiers derived by learning vector quantization (LVQ) have well-defined decision regions that can be combined to construct a more accurate classifier. A given point may be included in a number of decision regions associated with different LVQ classifiers. The relative densities of classes in each region can be combined to obtain a final classification. The method allows useful inferences from small training sets, which is needed for problems involving large variations within each class. In an application of this method to the recognition of handwritten digits, it is shown that the classifier can be improved almost monotonically without suffering from over-adaptation to the training data. <<ETX>>
Super-Resolution Power and Robustness of Compressive Sensing for Spectral Estimation With Application to Spaceborne Tomographic SAR

We address the problem of resolving two closely spaced complex-valued points from N irregular Fourier do- main samples. Although this is a generic super-resolution (SR) problem, our target application is SAR tomography (TomoSAR), where typically the number of acquisitions is N = 10 - 100 and SNR = 0-10 dB. As the TomoSAR algorithm, we introduce "Scale-down by LI norm Minimization, Model selection, and Estimation Reconstruction" (SL1MMER), which is a spectral estimation algorithm based on compressive sensing, model order selection, and final maximum likelihood parameter estimation. We investigate the limits of SLIMMER concerning the following questions. How accurately can the positions of two closely spaced scatterers be estimated? What is the closest distance of two scat- terers such that they can be separated with a detection rate of 50% by assuming a uniformly distributed phase difference? How many acquisitions N are required for a robust estimation (i.e., for separating two scatterers spaced by one Rayleigh resolution unit with a probability of 90%)? For all of these questions, we provide numerical results, simulations, and analytical approxima- tions. Although we take TomoSAR as the preferred application, the SLIMMER algorithm and our results on SR are generally applicable to sparse spectral estimation, including SR SAR focus- ing of point-like objects. Our results are approximately applicable to nonlinear least-squares estimation, and hence, although it is derived experimentally, they can be considered as a fundamental bound for SR of spectral estimators. We show that SR factors are in the range of 1.5-25 for the aforementioned parameter ranges of N and SNR.