Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Secretion of plasminogen activator by bone marrow-derived mononuclear phagocytes and its enhancement by colony-stimulating factor

We have studied the production of plasminogen activator (PA) by mononuclear phagocytes derived from mouse bone marrow precursor cells (CFU-C) in culture. Bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDM) obtained after 6-8-d cultivation in a liquid medium containing L-cell-conditioned medium (LCM), a source of colony stimulating factor (CSF), showed a high level of fibrinolytic activity comparable to that of thioglycollate medium-induced peritoneal macrophages (TPM) and at least 20-fold higher than that of resident peritoneal macrophages (RPM). Fibrinolysis was a result of active secretion of PA into the culture medium and plaques of caseinolysis could be detected by an overlay assay over all macrophage colonies formed after cloning of bone marrow cells in culture. When the fibrinolytic activity of BMDM harvested at different times was investigated, it was found that the level of PA activity of a given BMDM population correlated well with the incidence of cells (5-15 percent) able to proliferate and form colonies in agar after 7-14 d, somewhat more slowly than CFU-C. This correlation between the level of PA secretion and the incidence of agar colony-forming cells was also found with other mononuclear phagocyte populations. Active fibrinolysis and slow growing colony-forming cells were observed at the same time as adherent macrophages appeared, 2-3 d after the start of bone marrow culture, they persisted for 10 d before declining. Some of the factors which influenced PA production by BMDM were examined. Fibrinolysis could be enhanced two- to fourfold by exposing the cells for 4 h to concanavalin A (Con A), to medium conditioned by Con A-stimulated spleen cells and to LCM, but not by phagocytosis of latex particles. The substance in LCM that stimulated PA production appeared to be identical to CSF. Mononuclear phagocyte targets differed in their response to LCM, which stimulated fibrinolysis readily in BMDM, to a lesser extent in TPM and not at all in RPM. We conclude that CSF stimulates both proliferation and fibrinolytic activity in BMDM and that the level of macrophage activation, as defined by PA production, can be further enhanced by lymphokines. Induction of PA in BMDM provides a rapid and sensitive assay for measuring the activity of CSF and defining its role in macrophage activation.
Optimized look-ahead trees: Extensions to large and continuous action spaces

This paper studies look-ahead tree based control policies from the viewpoint of online decision making with constraints on the computational budget allowed per decision (expressed as number of calls to the generative model). We consider optimized look-ahead tree (OLT) policies, a recently introduced family of hybrid techniques, which combine the advantages of look-ahead trees (high precision) with the advantages of direct policy search (low online cost) and which are specifically designed for limited online budgets. We present two extensions of the basic OLT algorithm that on the one side allow tackling deterministic optimal control problems with large and continuous action spaces and that on the other side can also help to further reduce the online complexity.
Formal and computational models of Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory

Jeffrey Gray (Gray 1970, 1981, 1987) developed a ‘bottom-up’ approach to personality which began with the identification of large-scale brain-behavioural systems in animals (based on lesion and psychopharmacological evidence). The systems which he emphasized were: a reward system (later termed the Behavioural Activation System or BAS); a punishment system; an arousal system; and a Fight-Flight System. His view of personality was that inter-individual differences in the functioning of each discrete system should give rise, in human beings, to a major dimension (or trait) of personality. The theory also talked particularly about the sensitivity (i.e., reactivity) of each system to its characteristic inputs (i.e., the inputs which activated that system rather than any of the others). Inter-individual differences in the sensitivities of the systems were taken to be the causal basis of human personality traits. As the names ‘reward system’ and ‘punishment system’ implied, the characteristic inputs of the systems were reinforcing stimuli. To capture these aspects of the theory, I suggested the name Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST) for the personality theory which he developed. Basic tenets of the original RST In the original version of the theory (which I shall call ‘old RST’ in this chapter), the personality trait corresponding to variations in functioning of the BAS was suggested to be impulsivity. The punishment system (so-called because it was thought that this system responded to conditioned stimuli signalling impending punishment) was referred to as the Behavioural Inhibition System (BIS): the personality trait corresponding to variations in functioning of the BIS was suggested to be anxiety.
Field Computation in Motor

Field computation deals with information processing in terms of elds, continuous distributions of data. Many neural phenomena are conveniently described as elds, including neuron activity from large (brain area) to small (dendritic) scales. Further, it is often useful to describe motor control and sensorimotor coordination in terms of external elds such as force elds and sensory images. We survey the basic concepts of eld computation, including both feed-forward eld operations and eld dynamics resulting from recurrent connections. Adaptive and learning mechanisms are discussed brieey. The application of eld computation to motor control is illustrated by several examples: external force elds associated with spinal neurons (Bizzi & Mussa-Ivaldi 1995), population coding of direction in motor cortex (Georgopoulos 1995), continuous transformation of direction elds (Droulez & Berthoz 1991a), and linear gain elds and coordinate transformations in posterior parietal cortex (Andersen 1995). Next we survey some eld-based representations of motion, including direct, Fourier, Gabor and wavelet or multiresolution representations. Finally we consider brieey the application of these representations to constraint satisfaction, which has many applications in motor control. 1 Motivation My purpose in this chapter is to introduce the general concepts of eld computation and to describe some possible applications of it to motor control.
Subretinal fibrosis after photodynamic therapy in subfoveal choroidal neovascularisation in highly myopic eyes

Aims: To analyse the occurrence of subretinal fibrosis (SRF) after photodynamic therapy (PDT) with verteporfin in highly myopic eyes with subfoveal choroidal neovascularisation (CNV). Methods: PDT with verteporfin was performed on 33 eyes of 32 highly myopic patients with subfoveal CNV. Patients were followed for 14–24 months and best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and angiographic and funduscopic findings were recorded. Results: Two patients (two eyes) were lost to follow up. SRF appeared in 14 of 31 eyes. SRF appeared more frequently in eyes with a spherical equivalent (SE) of less than −10 D, in patients of age equal to or less than 55 years, and when CNVs were larger than 1500 μm in diameter. SRF appeared more frequently in the group of patients with worse final BCVA. Conclusions: The appearance of SRF after treatment is correlated with size of the CNV and SE. The results of this study indicate that highly myopic eyes with CNV treated with PDT do not show a decrease in BCVA, even though they develop SRF. The appearance of SRF after PDT in highly myopic CNV does not always imply a loss of BCVA from baseline, though its presence is more frequent in eyes with lower BCVA.
Catch-at-age – Version 4.0: Technical Report

The Norwegian Computing Center and the Institute of Marine Research have over years developed a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate the catch-at-age of fish. Such a model enables us to obtain estimates of the catch-at-age with appropriate uncertainty. This is considered as essential input in most age structured stock assessment processes. Recent improvements of the model include modelling a haulsize effect in the proportionat-age model. The model is implemented in C with an R interface. This note gives a thorough description of the model and the simulation algorithm corresponding to version 4.0 of the program.
Codes of the Underworld: How Criminals Communicate

Acknowledgments vii Introduction ix Abbreviations xxiii PART I: costly signals Chapter 1: Criminal Credentials 3 Chapter 2: The Power of Limits 30 Chapter 3: Information as Hostage 54 Chapter 4: Why Prisoners Fight (and Signal) 78 Chapter 5: Self-harm as a Signal 111 PART II: conventional signals Chapter 6: Conventional and Iconic Signals 149 Chapter 7: Protecting Easy-to-Fake Signals 174 Chapter 8: Criminal Trademarks 195 Chapter 9: Nicknames 230 Chapter 10: Why (Low) Life Imitates Art 251 Notes 275 Bibliography 313 Index 327
Temperature-Responsive Poly(ɛ-caprolactone) Cell Culture Platform with Dynamically Tunable Nano-Roughness and Elasticity for Control of Myoblast Morphology

We developed a dynamic cell culture platform with dynamically tunable nano-roughness and elasticity. Temperature-responsive poly(ɛ-caprolactone) (PCL) films were successfully prepared by crosslinking linear and tetra-branched PCL macromonomers. By optimizing the mixing ratios, the crystal-amorphous transition temperature (Tm) of the crosslinked film was adjusted to the biological relevant temperature (~33 °C). While the crosslinked films are relatively stiff (50 MPa) below the Tm, they suddenly become soft (1 MPa) above the Tm. Correspondingly, roughness of the surface was decreased from 63.4–12.4 nm. It is noted that the surface wettability was independent of temperature. To investigate the role of dynamic surface roughness and elasticity on cell adhesion, cells were seeded on PCL films at 32 °C. Interestingly, spread myoblasts on the film became rounded when temperature was suddenly increased to 37 °C, while significant changes in cell morphology were not observed for fibroblasts. These results indicate that cells can sense dynamic changes in the surrounding environment but the sensitivity depends on cell types.
A Hierarchical Method for Aligning Warped Meshes Master ’ s with Distinction in Research Report

Current alignment algorithms for registering range data captured from a 3D scanner assume that the range data depicts identical geometry taken from different views. However, in the presence of scanner calibration errors, the data will be slightly warped. These warps often cause current alignment algorithms to converge slowly, find the wrong alignment, or even diverge. In this research report, we present a method for aligning warped range data represented by polygon meshes. Our strategy can be characterized as a coarse-to-fine hierarchical approach, where we assume that since the warp is global, we can compensate for it by treating each mesh as a collection of smaller piecewise rigid sections, which can translate and rotate with respect to each other. We split the meshes subject to several constraints, in order to ensure that the resulting sections converge reliably.
Quality assessment for different haplotyping methods and GWAS sensitivity to phasing errors

In this report we present a multimarker association tool (Flash) based on a novel algorithm to generate haplotypes from raw genotype data. It belongs to the entropy minimization class of methods [4, 7] and is composed of a two stage deterministic - heuristic part and of a optional stochastic optimization. This algorithm is able to scale up well to handle huge datasets with faster performance than the competing technologies such as BEAGLE[5] and MACH[10] while maintaining a comparable accuracy. A quality assessment of the results is carried out by comparing the switch error. Finally, the haplotypes are used to perform a haplotype-based Genome-wide Association Study (GWAS). The association results are compared with a multimarker and a single SNP association test performed with Plink [12]. Our experiments confirm that the multimarker association test can be more powerful than the single SNP one as stated in the literature. Moreover, Flash and Plink show similar results for the multimarker association test but Flash speeds up the computation time of about an order of magnitude using 5 SNP size haplotypes.
From Parasite to Mutualist: Rapid Evolution of Wolbachia in Natural Populations of Drosophila

Wolbachia are maternally inherited bacteria that commonly spread through host populations by causing cytoplasmic incompatibility, often expressed as reduced egg hatch when uninfected females mate with infected males. Infected females are frequently less fecund as a consequence of Wolbachia infection. However, theory predicts that because of maternal transmission, these “parasites” will tend to evolve towards a more mutualistic association with their hosts. Drosophila simulans in California provided the classic case of a Wolbachia infection spreading in nature. Cytoplasmic incompatibility allowed the infection to spread through individual populations within a few years and from southern to northern California (more than 700 km) within a decade, despite reducing the fecundity of infected females by 15%–20% under laboratory conditions. Here we show that the Wolbachia in California D. simulans have changed over the last 20 y so that infected females now exhibit an average 10% fecundity advantage over uninfected females in the laboratory. Our data suggest smaller but qualitatively similar changes in relative fecundity in nature and demonstrate that fecundity-increasing Wolbachia variants are currently polymorphic in natural populations.
A new genus of Coelotinae (Araneae, Agelenidae) from southern China

Abstract One new genus of the spider subfamily Coelotinae, Flexicoelotes gen. n. , with five new species is described from southern China: Flexicoelotes huyunensis sp. n. (female), Flexicoelotes jiaohanyanensis sp. n. (male and female), Flexicoelotes jinlongyanensis sp. n. (male and female), Flexicoelotes pingzhaiensis sp. n. (female), Flexicoelotes xingwangensis sp. n. (male and female).
Tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase (TIMP)‐1: The TIMPed balance of matrix metalloproteinases in the central nervous system

Astrocytes are intimately involved in the mechanisms of neural injury and repair. They participate in a variety of homeostatic functions and elicit repair responses as balance mechanisms. Currently, there is a growing appreciation of a more active role of astrocytes in neuronal signaling and function. One key homeostatic mechanism of astrocytes in tissue repair is maintained through their production of tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (TIMPs). The family of TIMPs (1–4) plays a central regulatory role as inhibitors of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), enzymes involved in extracellular matrix maintenance and remodeling. Recently, TIMP‐1, the inducible form, has been identified as a multifunctional molecule with divergent functions. It participates in wound healing and regeneration, cell morphology and survival, tumor metastasis, angiogenesis, and inflammatory responses. An imbalance of MMP/TIMP regulation has been implicated in several inflammatory diseases of the central nervous system (CNS). Here we review the conundrums of TIMP‐1 regulation in CNS pathophysiology. We propose that astrocyte‐TIMP‐1 may play an important role in CNS homeostasis and disease. Astrocyte TIMP‐1 expression is differentially regulated in inflammatory neurodegenerative diseases and may have significant therapeutic relevance. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television

A total departure from previous writing about television, this book is the first ever to advocate that the medium is not reformable. Its problems are inherent in the technology itself and are so dangerous -- to personal health and sanity, to the environment, and to democratic processes -- that TV ought to be eliminated forever.Weaving personal experiences through meticulous research, the author ranges widely over aspects of television that have rarely been examined and never before joined together, allowing an entirely new, frightening image to emerge. The idea that all technologies are "neutral," benign instruments that can be used well or badly, is thrown open to profound doubt. Speaking of TV reform is, in the words of the author, "as absurd as speaking of the reform of a technology such as guns. "
Influence of polarization on the above ground surface electric field for vehicular applications

The impact of polarization on the distribution of the above ground surface (AGS) electric field is presented for vehicular applications. It is demonstrated that the homogenization of the E-field components, directly over the ground, can be optimized by a judicious choice of polarization. Simulations and measurements demonstrate these results.
Cryptanalysis and improvement of an efficient certificateless signature scheme

In traditional digital signature schemes, certificates signed by a trusted party are required to ensure the authenticity of the public key. In Asiacrypt 2003, the concept of certificateless signature scheme was introduced. The advantage of certificate-less public key cryptography successfully eliminates the necessity of certificates in the traditional public key cryptography and simultaneously solves the inherent key escrow problem suffered in identity-based cryptography. Recently, Yap et al. proposed an efficient certificateless signature scheme and claimed that their scheme is existentially unforgeable in the random oracle model. In this paper, we show that the certificateless signature scheme proposed by Yap et al. is insecure against public key replacement attacks. Furthermore, we propose an improved certificateless signature scheme, which is existentially unforgeable against adaptive chosen message attacks under the computational Diffie-Hellman assumption in the random oracle model and provide the security proof of the proposed scheme.
Automated Paradigm Selection for FSA based Konkani Verb Morphological Analyzer

A Morphological Analyzer is a crucial tool for any language. In popular tools used to build morphological analyzers like XFST, HFST and Apertium’s lttoolbox, the finite state approach is used to sequence input characters. We have used the finite state approach to sequence morphemes instead of characters. In this paper we present the architecture and implementation details of a Corpus assisted FSA approach for build ing a Verb Morphological Analyzer. Our main contribution in this paper is the paradigm def inition methodology used for the verbs in a morphologically rich Indian Language Konkani. The mapping of citation form of the verbs to paradigms was carried out using an untagged corpus for Konkani. Besides a reduction in human effort required an F-Score of 0.95 was obtained whe n the mapping was tested on a tagged corpus.
Transplacental Nutrient Transport Mechanisms of Intrauterine Growth Restriction in Rodent Models and Humans

Although the causes of intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) have been intensively investigated, important information is still lacking about the role of the placenta as a link from adverse maternal environment to adverse pregnancy outcomes of IUGR and preterm birth. IUGR is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular, metabolic, and neurological diseases later in life. Determination of the most important pathways that regulate transplacental transport systems is necessary for identifying marker genes as diagnostic tools and for developing drugs that target the molecular pathways. Besides oxygen, the main nutrients required for appropriate fetal development and growth are glucose, amino acids, and fatty acids. Dysfunction in transplacental transport is caused by impairments in both placental morphology and blood flow, as well as by factors such as alterations in the expression of insulin-like growth factors and changes in the mTOR signaling pathway leading to a change in nutrient transport. Animal models are important tools for systematically studying such complex events. Debate centers on whether the rodent placenta is an appropriate tool for investigating the alterations in the human placenta that result in IUGR. This review provides an overview of the alterations in expression and activity of nutrient transporters and alterations in signaling associated with IUGR and compares these findings in rodents and humans. In general, the data obtained by studies of the various types of rodent and human nutrient transporters are similar. However, direct comparison is complicated by the fact that the results of such studies are controversial even within the same species, making the interpretation of the results challenging. This difficulty could be due to the absence of guidelines of the experimental design and, especially in humans, the use of trophoblast cell culture studies instead of clinical trials. Nonetheless, developing new therapy concepts for IUGR will require the use of animal models for gathering robust data about mechanisms leading to IUGR and for testing the effectiveness and safety of the intervention among pregnant women.
REVISÃO DA ADAPTAÇÃO, VALIDAÇÃO E NORMATIZAÇÃO DA ESCALA DE AUTOESTIMA DE ROSENBERG

The aim of the present study was to develop norms of self-esteem for children, adolescents, and adults, and to update the psychometric properties of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale adapted by Hutz (2000). Participants were 1,151 elementary school, high school, and university students in southern Brazil. Participants answered the questionnaires in groups. A main component analysis (varimax rotation) extracted one factor. This result corroborated the findings by Hutz (2000), as well as the original findings of Rosenberg. Cronbach’s alpha was satisfactory (.90). The results also showed a negative correlation between self-esteem and age (r=-.47), which is probably explained by the transition period through which the university students must go through
Piano AR: A Markerless Augmented Reality Based Piano Teaching System

This paper presents a novel markerless augmented reality based piano teaching system, which tracks the real keyboard of piano naturally. Following the virtual hands augmented on the keyboard, beginners of piano can practice playing piano. Instead of the marker in traditional AR system, the geometrical parameters of the piano keyboard are detected to calculate the transformation matrix from keyboard coordinate to camera coordinate. We first extract all the contours of the image, from which possible contours of keyboard are found. Then the area of keyboard is identified by the structure of white and black keys predefined. We evaluated the system with speed and accuracy. As a result, the system operates at 15fps, and the average error worked out by our method is about 1.97 pixels. The usefulness of our approach is reflected in an example that a user learns to play piano.
Improving Human Detection by Long-Term Observation

In this paper we propose a novel human detection method which is based on the existing learning-based method but designed so as to obtain the scene-specific knowledge and utilize it for improving the detection performance. The scene-specific knowledge contains two kinds of information. One of them is additional positive and negative samples that could not be detected by the initial detection method but extracted afterwards by tracking the initial detection results. The other is camera calibration using the size and direction of the detected people in the scene. By this calibration, we can drastically reducing the possibility to incidentally find a pattern which is not a human but looks similar to a human. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method.