Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Real-Time Recognition of the Terrain Configuration to Improve Driving Stability for Unmanned Robots I World

Methods for measuring or estimating ground shape by a laser range finder and a vision sensor (Exteroceptive sensors) have critical weaknesses in terms that these methods need a prior database built to distinguish acquired data as unique surface conditions for driving. Also, ground information by Exteroceptive sensors does not reflect the deflection of ground surface caused by the movement of UGVs. Therefore, this paper proposes a method of recognizing exact and precise ground shape using an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) as a proprioceptive sensor. In this paper, firstly this method recognizes the attitude of a robot in real-time using IMU and compensates attitude data of a robot with angle errors through analysis of vehicle dynamics. This method is verified by outdoor driving experiments of a real mobile robot. Keywords—Inertial Measurement Unit, Laser Range Finder, Real-time recognition of the ground shape.
Alpha-Asarone, a Major Component of Acorus gramineus, Attenuates Corticosterone-Induced Anxiety-Like Behaviours via Modulating TrkB Signaling Process

We investigated the anxiolytic-like activity of α-asarone (AAS) from Acorus gramineus in an experimental rat model of anxiety induced by repeated administration of the exogenous stress hormone corticosterone (CORT). The putative anxiolytic effect of AAS was studied in behavioral tests of anxiety, such as the elevated plus maze (EPM) test and the hole-board test (HBT) in rats. For 21 consecutive days, male rats received 50, 100, or 200 mg/kg AAS (i.p.) 30 min prior to a daily injection of CORT. Dysregulation of the HPA axis in response to the repeated CORT injections was confirmed by measuring serum levels of CORT and the expression of corticotrophin-releasing factor (CRF) in the hypothalamus. Daily AAS (200 mg/kg) administration increased open-arm exploration significantly in the EPM test, and it increased the duration of head dipping activity in the HBT. It also blocked the increase in tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) expression in the locus coeruleus (LC) and decreased mRNA expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and its receptor, TrkB, in the hippocampus. These results indicated that the administration of AAS prior to high-dose exogenous CORT significantly improved anxiety-like behaviors, which are associated with modification of the central noradrenergic system and with BDNF function in rats. The current finding may improve understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms responsible for changes in emotions induced by repeated administration of high doses of CORT or by elevated levels of hormones associated with chronic stress. Thus, AAS did exhibit an anxiolytic-like effects in animal models of anxiety.
Nanoscale pattern formation from laser induced thin ﬁlm instabilities: Role of internal and external effects

Pulsed laser assisted pattern formation in single and bilayer metal films was investigated in this dissertation. The overall goals were: (1) to overcome limitations in conventional pulsed laser dewetting techniques, (2) to better understand the role of effects such as thermal gradients, dispersion forces, pressure gradients, and electric fields on pattern formation, and (3) to investigate nanostructure morphology and its progression in the dewetting of bilayer metal films. This study was divided into two parts. In the first part, pulsed laser-induced instabilities of single layer metal films was discussed. The spinodal dewetting of Au films, a novel Rayleigh-Taylor instability induced by pressure gradients, and the role of DC electric field on pattern formation is presented. In pulsed laser dewetting of Au, the trend in particle spacing and diameter was consistent with the predictions of classical spinodal dewetting theory. The early stage dewetting morphology changed from bicontinuous structures to hole like, and thermal gradient forces were found to be significantly weaker than dispersive forces in Au. Next, we showed through experiment and theory that nanoscale Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities can be seen in thin metal films. This instability was a result of pressure gradients developed when Au films were melted inside a bulk fluid like glycerol. One of the primary findings in this pattern formation was that the spacing of the nanoparticles was independent of the film thickness and could be tuned by the magnitude of the pressure gradients. Finally, we concluded this part by presenting the discovery of phase array self assembly of metallic nanoparticles under the application of a DC electric (E) field. In the second part, the morphology evolution under pulsed laser dewetting of a bilayer of the immiscible metals Ag and Co was investigated. We found multiple transitions in morphology for bilayers and correlated these transitions with an experimentally constructed dewetting morphology phase diagram. Finally, the role of thermal gradients was assessed in the formation of a variety of bimetal nanostructure. Work by our collaborator using computational non-linear dynamics showed that different nanoscale morphologies such as core-shell, embedded, or stacked cases could be formed in the Co-Ag system.
Image-Based Rendering for Computer Synthesized Human Figures

Human figures synthesis has been one of the most complicated problems in computer graphics. In particular, facial animation is the most significant issue. Two decades have passed since Parke's pioneering work in animating faces (Parke, 1972). In the span of time, significant effort has been devoted to the development of computational models of human face for applications in diverse areas such as entertainment, low bandwidth teleconferencing, surgical facial planning and virtual reality. However, the task of accurately modeling the expressive human face by computer remains a major challenge. The main aspect of this research is to construct a new modeling and rendering technique. There will be brief analysis of IBMR (image based modeling and rendering) techniques for human face synthesis in computer graphics, research results obtained to date and future aims with discussions. The outcome of this research is to provide a faster, low cost and accurate 3D model that enables realistic facial expressions for animation purposes.
Ventral Tegmental Area Inactivation Suppresses the Expression of CA1 Long Term Potentiation in Anesthetized Rat

The hippocampus receives dopaminergic projections from the ventral tegmental area (VTA). Modulatory effect of dopamine on hippocampal long term potentiation (LTP) has been studied before, but there are conflicting results and some limitations in previous reports. Most of these studies show a significant effect of dopamine on the late phase of LTP in CA1 area of the hippocampus, while few reports show an effect on the early phase. Moreover, they generally manipulated dopamine receptors in the hippocampus and there are few studies investigating influence of the VTA neural activity on hippocampal LTP in the intact brain. Besides, VTA neurons contain other neurotransmitters such as glutamate and GABA that may modify the net effect of dopamine. In this study we examined the effect of VTA reversible inactivation on the induction and maintenance of early LTP in the CA1 area of anesthetized rats, and also on different phases of learning of a passive avoidance (PA) task. We found that inactivation of the VTA by lidocaine had no effect on CA1 LTP induction and paired-pulse facilitation, but its inactivation immediately after tetanic stimulation transiently suppressed the expression of LTP. Blockade of the VTA 20 min after tetanic stimulation had no effect on the magnitude of LTP. Moreover, VTA inactivation immediately after training impaired memory in the passive avoidance task, while its blockade before or 20 min after training produced no memory deficit. It can be concluded that VTA activity has no effect on CA1 LTP induction and acquisition of PA task, but involves in the expression of LTP and PA memory consolidation.
Compute camera pose # 1 # 2 # n ... Descriptor matching # 1 # 2 # n ... Adaptive Threshold Keypoint tracking Descriptor creation image Feature Extraction Time division Image based tracking

This paper presents a real-time multiple objects tracking based on inter-camera approach for mobile devices. The key idea of our approach is to accommodate the pose of each cameras by sharing the results of tracking on heterogeneous inter-camera. Our approach accomplishes the time-consuming multiple objects tracking on a server while the mobile device tracks only a single object and then shares the result of the tracking with the mobile device. The proposed approach enables mobile devices to track multiple and complex objects with limited network bandwidth. As experimental results, the proposed inter-camera approach has shown that it is possible to track occluded objects. The proposed approach can be effectively used for mobile augmented reality applications that need to consider multiple and complex objects like desktop AR applications; then it is easy to extend the desktop approach to mobile AR applications.
Histone Deacetylases 6 and 9 and Sirtuin-1 Control Foxp3+ Regulatory T Cell Function Through Shared and Isoform-Specific Mechanisms

Combined inhibition of distinct histone deacetylases enhances the suppressive effects of regulatory T cells. Enhancing Regulatory T Cell Function Some therapies designed to help patients suffering from autoimmune diseases or recovering from organ transplant involve the removal of the patient’s regulatory T cells (Tregs), which suppress the undesirable proinflammatory actions of effector T cells, so that they can be expanded in number ex vivo before being put back into the patient. One problem associated with this approach is that the phenotype of the administered Tregs is unstable, and so their suppressive function is lost over time. Previous studies have shown that inhibition of certain members of the family of histone deacetylases (HDACs) enhances the function of Tregs. Through experiments with mice deficient in distinct HDACs and treated with HDAC-specific inhibitors, Beier et al. have demonstrated the mechanisms by which the simultaneous inhibition of combinations of distinct HDACs improved the suppressive function of Tregs and enhanced their stability, which suggests that such an approach may be of benefit to patients reliant on such therapies. Therapeutic inhibition of the histone deacetylases HDAC6, HDAC9, or sirtuin-1 (Sirt1) augments the suppressive functions of regulatory T cells (Tregs) that contain the transcription factor Foxp3 (Forkhead box P3) and is useful in organ transplant patients or patients with autoimmune diseases. However, it is unclear whether distinct mechanisms are involved for each HDAC or whether combined inhibition of HDACs would be more effective. We compared the suppressive functions of Tregs from wild-type C57BL/6 mice with those from mice with either complete or cell-specific deletion of various HDACs, as well as with those of Tregs treated with isoform-selective HDAC inhibitors. The improvement of Treg suppressive function mediated by inhibition of HDAC6, but not Sirt1, required an intact heat shock response. Although HDAC6, HDAC9, and Sirt1 all deacetylated Foxp3, each protein had different effects on transcription factors that control expression of the gene encoding Foxp3. For example, loss of HDAC9, but not other HDACs, was associated with stabilization of the acetylated form of signal transducer and activator of transcription 5 (STAT5) and promoted its transcriptional activity. Thus, targeting different HDACs increased Treg function through multiple and additive mechanisms, which suggests the therapeutic potential for using combinations of HDAC inhibitors in the management of autoimmunity and organ transplantation.
Extracting targets and attributes of medical findings from radiology reports in a mixture of languages

This paper introduces machine learning methods for extracting targets and attributes and identifying associations among them from radiology reports written in Korean and English. In the target extraction task, conditional random fields are utilized with language and domain specific features. In the task of finding an association between a target and an attribute, a simple method of generating negative examples from positive examples is introduced and experimented with three different statistical classifiers.
For Vision-Based Human Computer Interaction

In the evolution of user interfaces, keyboards were the primary devices in text-based user interfaces, and then the invention of the mouse brought us the graphical user interface. What is the counterpart of the mouse when we are trying to explore three-dimensional (3-D) virtual environments (VEs)? In many current VE applications, keyboards, mice, wands, and joysticks are the common controlling and navigating devices. However, to some extent, such mechanical devices are inconvenient and unsuitable for natural and direct interaction, because it is difficult for these devices to supply 3-D and high degree of freedom inputs. Although magnetic trackers are being used as sensors for 3-D inputs in some of these devices, they are prone to magnetic interference, and they only supply global motion information. A more convenient and natural device is desirable to achieve more immersive interaction. The use of hand gestures has become an important part of human computer interaction (HCI) in recent years [1], [24]. To use human hands as a natural interface device, some glove-based devices have been employed to capture human hand motion by attaching sensors to measure the joint angles and spatial positions of hands directly. Unfortunately, such devices are expensive and cumbersome. Since rich visual information provides a strong cue to infer the inner states of an object, vision-based techniques provide promising alternatives to capture human hand motion. At the same time, vision systems could be very cost efficient and noninvasive. These facts serve as the motivating forces for research in the modeling, analysis, animation, and recognition of hand gestures. According to different application scenarios, hand gestures can be classified into several categories: conversational gestures, controlling gestures, manipulative gestures and communicative gestures. Sign language is an important case of communicative gestures. Because sign languages are highly structured [33], [37], they are very suitable as a test-bed for vision algorithms [33], [37]. Controlling gestures are the focus of current research in vision-based interfaces [6], [17], [23], [26], [35], [45]. Virtual objects can be located by analyzing pointing gestures [24]. Some display-control applications demon-
Detecting gesture force peaks for intuitive interaction

With the release of the Nintendo Wii in 2006, the use of haptic force gestures has become a very popular form of input for interactive entertainment. However, current gesture recognition techniques utilised in Nintendo Wii games fall prey to a lack of control when it comes to recognising simple gestures. This paper presents a simple gesture recognition technique called Peak Testing which gives greater control over gesture interaction. This recognition technique locates force peaks in continuous force data (provided by a gesture device such as the Wiimote) and then cancels any peaks which are not meant for input. Peak Testing is therefore technically able to identify movements in any direction. This paper applies this recognition technique to control virtual instruments and investigates how users respond to this interaction. The technique is then explored as the basis for a robust way to navigate menus with a simple flick of the wrist. We propose that this flick-form of interaction could be a very intuitive way to navigate Nintendo Wii menus instead of the current pointer techniques implemented.
Large-scale cost function learning for path planning using deep inverse reinforcement learning

We present an approach for learning spatial traversability maps for driving in complex, urban environments based on an extensive dataset demonstrating the driving behaviour of human experts. The direct end-to-end mapping from raw input data to cost bypasses the effort of manually designing parts of the pipeline, exploits a large number of data samples, and can be framed additionally to refine handcrafted cost maps produced based on manual hand-engineered features. To achieve this, we introduce a maximum-entropy-based, non-linear inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) framework which exploits the capacity of fully convolutional neural networks (FCNs) to represent the cost model underlying driving behaviours. The application of a high-capacity, deep, parametric approach successfully scales to more complex environments and driving behaviours, while at deployment being run-time independent of training dataset size. After benchmarking against state-of-the-art IRL approaches, we focus on demonstrating scalability and performance on an ambitious dataset collected over the course of 1 year including more than 25,000 demonstration trajectories extracted from over 120 km of urban driving. We evaluate the resulting cost representations by showing the advantages over a carefully, manually designed cost map and furthermore demonstrate its robustness towards systematic errors by learning accurate representations even in the presence of calibration perturbations. Importantly, we demonstrate that a manually designed cost map can be refined to more accurately handle corner cases that are scarcely seen in the environment, such as stairs, slopes and underpasses, by further incorporating human priors into the training framework.
Reactive oxygen species alter brain endothelial tight junction dynamics via RhoA, PI3 kinase, and PKB signaling

The blood‐brain barrier (BBB) prevents the entrance of circulating molecules and immune cells into the central nervous system. The barrier is formed by specialized brain endothelial cells that are interconnected by tight junctions (TJ). A defective function of the BBB has been described for a variety of neuroinflammatory diseases, indicating that proper regulation is essential for maintaining brain homeostasis. Under pathological conditions, reactive oxygen species (ROS) significantly contribute to BBB dysfunction and inflammation in the brain by enhancing cellular migration. However, a detailed study about the molecular mechanism by which ROS alter BBB integrity has been lacking. Here we demonstrate that ROS alter BBB integrity, which is paralleled by cytoskel‐eton rearrangements and redistribution and disappearance of TJ proteins claudin‐5 and occludin. Specific signaling pathways, including RhoA and PI3 kinase, mediated observed processes and specific inhibitors of these pathways prevented ROS‐induced monocyte migration across an in vitro model of the BBB. Interestingly, these processes were also mediated by protein kinase B (PKB/ Akt), a previously unknown player in cytoskeleton and TJ dynamics that acted downstream of RhoA and PI3 kinase. Our study reveals new insights into molecular mechanisms underlying BBB regulation and provides novel opportunities for the treatment of neuroinflammatory diseases. —Schreibelt, G. , Kooij, G. , Reijerkerk, A. , van Doorn, R. , Gringhuis, S. I. , van der Pol, S. , Weksler, B. B. , Romero, I. A. , Couraud, P.‐O. , Piontek, J., Blasig, I. E. , Dijkstra, C. D. , Ronken, E. , de Vries, H. E. Reactive oxygen species alter brain endothelial tight junction dynamics via RhoA, PI3 kinase and PKB signaling. FASEB J. 21, 3666–3676 (2007)
FM-Delta: Fault Management packet compression

Fault Management (FM) is a cardinal feature in communication networks. One of the most common FM approaches is to use periodic keepalive messages. Hence, switches and routers are required to transmit a large number of FM messages periodically, requiring a hardware-based packet generator that periodically transmits a set of messages that are stored in an expensive on-chip memory. With the rapid growth of carrier networks, and as 5G technologies emerge, the number of users and the traffic rates are expected to significantly increase over the next few years. Consequently, we expect the on-chip memories used for FM to become a costly component in switch and router chips. We introduce a novel approach in which FM messages are stored in compressed form in the on-chip memory, allowing to significantly reduce the memory size. We present FM-Delta, a simple hardware-friendly delta encoding algorithm that allows FM messages to be compressed by a factor of 2.6. We show that this compression ratio is very close to the results of the zlib compression library, which requires much higher implementation complexity.
An Image-Based miRNA Screen Identifies miRNA-135s As Regulators of CNS Axon Growth and Regeneration by Targeting Krüppel-like Factor 4

During embryonic development, axons extend over long distances to establish functional connections. In contrast, axon regeneration in the adult mammalian CNS is limited in part by a reduced intrinsic capacity for axon growth. Therefore, insight into the intrinsic control of axon growth may provide new avenues for enhancing CNS regeneration. Here, we performed one of the first miRNome-wide functional miRNA screens to identify miRNAs with robust effects on axon growth. High-content screening identified miR-135a and miR-135b as potent stimulators of axon growth and cortical neuron migration in vitro and in vivo in male and female mice. Intriguingly, both of these developmental effects of miR-135s relied in part on silencing of Krüppel-like factor 4 (KLF4), a well known intrinsic inhibitor of axon growth and regeneration. These results prompted us to test the effect of miR-135s on axon regeneration after injury. Our results show that intravitreal application of miR-135s facilitates retinal ganglion cell (RGC) axon regeneration after optic nerve injury in adult mice in part by repressing KLF4. In contrast, depletion of miR-135s further reduced RGC axon regeneration. Together, these data identify a novel neuronal role for miR-135s and the miR-135–KLF4 pathway and highlight the potential of miRNAs as tools for enhancing CNS axon regeneration. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Axon regeneration in the adult mammalian CNS is limited in part by a reduced intrinsic capacity for axon growth. Therefore, insight into the intrinsic control of axon growth may provide new avenues for enhancing regeneration. By performing an miRNome-wide functional screen, our studies identify miR-135s as stimulators of axon growth and neuron migration and show that intravitreal application of these miRNAs facilitates CNS axon regeneration after nerve injury in adult mice. Intriguingly, these developmental and regeneration-promoting effects rely in part on silencing of Krüppel-like factor 4 (KLF4), a well known intrinsic inhibitor of axon regeneration. Our data identify a novel neuronal role for the miR-135–KLF4 pathway and support the idea that miRNAs can be used for enhancing CNS axon regeneration.