Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Neural Prostheses : Linking Brain Signals to Prosthetic Devices

This paper discusses Neuroprosthetic applications for potential use by paralyzed patients or amputees. These systems require advanced processing of neural signals to drive the prosthetic devices using decoding algorithms. The possibility of predicting motor commands from neural signals are the core of neural prosthetic devices and along this line we show how it is possible to predict movement intentions as well as what subjects are seeing from the firing of population of neurons.
Effects of grazing undrenched weaner deer on chicory or perennial ryegrass/white clover pasture on the viability of gastrointestinal nematodes and lungworms

This study determined the in vitro effects on the viability of internal parasites of grazing undrenched weaner deer on either chicory (Cichorium intybus) or perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne)/white clover (Trifolium repens) pasture. One experiment investigated the hatching and development of gastrointestinal nematode eggs and larvae, and the development and motility of Li lungworm (Dictyocaulus eckerti) larvae, and a second experiment used larval migration inhibition assays to test the viability of LI lungworm larvae extracted from the faeces of weaner deer grazed on either chicory or pasture when they were incubated with rumen and abomasal fluids from fistulated deer also grazing on chicory or pasture. The incubations were undertaken with and without added condensed tannins purified from chicory and with or without polyethylene glycol (PEG) to bind the tannins. Chicory had no effect on the hatching and development of gastrointestinal nematode eggs and larvae. Grazing chicory reduced the number of lungworm larvae developing to the L3 stage, and Li lungworm larvae from the faeces of chicory-grazed deer were less viable in rumen and abomasal fluid than larvae from pasture-grazed animals. Abomasal fluid was significantly (P<0.001) less inhibitory to the migration of Li lungworms than rumen fluid. When the larvae were incubated in rumen and abomasal fluids from chicory-grazed deer, their passage through sieves was significantly (P<0.001) reduced in comparison with when they were incubated in the fluids from pasture-razed deer. Adding condensed tannins to rumen fluid increased the inhibition of the migration of Li lungworm larvae but PEG removed this inhibition; this effect was not observed with abomasal fluid.
Mechanism of Action, Antimicrobial Activity, Pharmacology, Adverse Effects, and Clinical Efficacy of Cefotaxime

Cefotaxime sodium, a parenteral cephalosporin antibiotic, exerts its bactericidal action through inhibition of bacterial cell wall synthesis. Chemical structure modifications have enabled this compound to be resistant to the action of Richmond I, III, IV, and V β‐lactamase enzymes. Excellent activity against many gram‐negative bacilli, especially Enterobacteriaceae, has been demonstrated. Antipseudomonal activity is generally poor, however. Activity against gram‐positive cocci, with the notable exception of Streptococcus fecalis, is adequate. Anaerobic activity is variable, particularly against Clostridia and Bacteroides species.
Roles of Vertebrate Smc5 in Sister Chromatid Cohesion and Homologous Recombinational Repair

ABSTRACT The structural maintenance of chromosomes (Smc) family members Smc5 and Smc6 are both essential in budding and fission yeasts. Yeast smc5/6 mutants are hypersensitive to DNA damage, and Smc5/6 is recruited to HO-induced double-strand breaks (DSBs), facilitating intersister chromatid recombinational repair. To determine the role of the vertebrate Smc5/6 complex during the normal cell cycle, we generated an Smc5-deficient chicken DT40 cell line using gene targeting. Surprisingly, Smc5− cells were viable, although they proliferated more slowly than controls and showed mitotic abnormalities. Smc5-deficient cells were sensitive to methyl methanesulfonate and ionizing radiation (IR) and showed increased chromosome aberration levels upon irradiation. Formation and resolution of Rad51 and gamma-H2AX foci after irradiation were altered in Smc5 mutants, suggesting defects in homologous recombinational (HR) repair of DNA damage. Ku70−/− Smc5− cells were more sensitive to IR than either single mutant, with Rad54−/− Smc5− cells being no more sensitive than Rad54−/− cells, consistent with an HR function for the vertebrate Smc5/6 complex. Although gene targeting occurred at wild-type levels, recombinational repair of induced double-strand breaks was reduced in Smc5− cells. Smc5 loss increased sister chromatid exchanges and sister chromatid separation distances in mitotic chromosomes. We conclude that Smc5/6 regulates recombinational repair by ensuring appropriate sister chromatid cohesion.
Bank risk, charter value and depositor discipline: a simultaneous equations approach

Using data on listed Indian banks for 1996–2006, the article finds that charter value, depositor discipline and bank risk-taking are intertwined, with each tending to reinforce the other. Whereas charter value is found to be a nonlinear determinant of market discipline, the latter is found to positively impact charter value. Additionally, higher risk-taking is found to exert a weakening effect on market discipline.
A Spatial Analysis of Job Openings and Access in a U.S. Metropolitan Area

Abstract This article presents a study of spatial distribution of job openings and spatial variation in job accessibility in the Boston Metropolitan Area. The most striking finding is that despite decades of employment decentralization, job openings suitable for less-educated job seekers are still relatively concentrated in the central city. This is due to the fact that the great majority of job openings are vacancies resulting from turnover, the spatial concentration of which reflects the spatial concentration of current employment. A related finding is that for a given transportation mode, less-educated job seekers who reside in the central city still have, on average, somewhat better access to job openings than those who reside at the periphery of the metropolitan area. However, accessibility differentials among locations are small as compared to accessibility differentials between transportation modes. For job seekers who can travel by car, the majority of residential locations will allow them to have an access level higher than the average. For job seekers who depend on public transit, on the other hand, very few residential locations will allow them to have an above-average access level. These findings have important policy implications.
Integrated MMPSO and RBFNN for optimal control of cracking depth in ethylene cracking furnace

The prediction models of cracking productions online are realized by using radical basis functions neural network (RBFNN). Then the building model is optimized by using the proposed multi-modes particle swarms algorithm (MMPSO) to catch the optimal operational conditions. At the same time, the intelligent optimal control method for cracking depth is studied integrated by MMPSO-RBFNN. The optimal function is maximized the sum of ethylene & propylene yields, and cracking depth, which is satisfying to the optimal function, is put into the depth's controller, which is linked into the advanced process control system of coil outlet temperature (COT), so the depth's control is realized optimally. The applications are showed that the yields of ethylene and propylene are increased, and the depth's control is more stable than before. The proposed optimal control method has good adaptability, stability and reliability.
Critical Issues for Psychiatric Medication Shared Decision Making with Youth and Families

The primary aims of this article are to describe the current context for youth shared decision making (SDM) within the U.S. children's mental health system and to identify important considerations for the development of this approach as a research and service domain. The notion is substantiated in the literature that participation in treatment decisions can prepare youth for making their own decisions as adults, can be therapeutic, and can have positive effects on their self-confidence and self-esteem. Still, the complex youth–family–provider dynamic raises important issues that need to be addressed before SDM can be successfully implemented.
Fostering ICT development for growth: measuring the payoffs for Australia and the Asean-5 countries

Over the past few decades the brisk development of information and communication technologies (ICT) has had a phenomenal impact on the economic stability and development of many countries. Empirical studies show that most developed economies have gained significant payoffs (in terms of economic growth) from their ICT investments. This study investigates the hypothesis that ICT-based investment has paid off for Australia and the ASEAN-5 countries (Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines) between 1992 and 2006. Applying a new cointegration technique[12], which takes into account the presence of a potential structural break, shows that ICT investment has had a positive and significant long-run relationship with economic growth in Australia, Malaysia and Singapore. However, in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand ICT investment did not contribute significantly to economic growth during the same period. These three countries have yet to reap the benefits of ICT. Our empirical results suggest that the three lagging ASEAN countries should increase their ICT investment in order to achieve sustainable economic growth in the new knowledgebased economy.
ADOPTION AND LEVELS OF DEMAND OF FERTILIZER IN COCOA FARMING IN CÔTE D'IVOIRE: DOES RISK AVERSION MATTERS?

Heckman’s sample selection analysis is used to investigate the factors which influence the adoption and intensity of use of fertilizer on smallholder farms growing cocoa in Western Cote d’Ivoire. Using data on risk aversion from field experiments and primary data on personal, household and farm characteristics collected from a random sample of 362 farmers, we ask how risk attitudes affects fertilizer adoption and rate of application. The results indicate that the majority of our farmers exhibit extreme to moderate risk aversion. Moreover, farmers’ risk perceptions and risk aversion are strong determinants of farmers’ fertilizer adoption and intensity use decisions. Other variables such as education, membership of association, farmers’ liquidity, farm size, hired labor, soil fertility and access to credit has been found to be important in explaining farmers’ decisions. The paper concludes by outlining a number of policy implications on the preconditions for the success of farming technology based on the results of the study.
Acoustic obstructive sleep apnea detection

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common respiratory disorder during sleep, in which the airways are collapsed and impair the respiration. Apnea is s cessation of airflow to the lungs which lasts at least for 10s. The current gold standard method for OSA assessment is full night polysomnography (PSG); however, its high cost, inconvenience for patients and immobility have persuaded researchers to seek simple and portable devices to detect OSA. In this paper, we report on developing a new system for OSA detection and monitoring, which only requires two data channels: tracheal breathing sounds and the blood oxygen saturation level (SaO2). A fully automated method was developed that uses the energy of breathing sounds signals to segment the signals into sound and silent segments. Then, the sound segments are classified into breath, snore (if exists) and noise segments. The SaO2 signal is analyzed to find the rises and drops in the SaO2 signal. Finally, a fuzzy algorithm was developed to use this information and detect apnea and hypopnea events. The method was evaluated on the data of 40 patients simultaneously with full night PSG study, and the results were compared with those of the PSG. The results show high correlation (96%) between our system and PSG. Also, the method has been found to have sensitivity and specificity values of more than 90% in differentiating simple snorers from OSA patients.
Visual Inspection for Caries Detection

We aimed to perform a systematic review including a meta-analysis to evaluate the overall accuracy of visual methods for detecting carious lesions and to identify possible sources of heterogeneity among the studies included. Two reviewers searched PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and other sources through July 2014 to identify published and nonpublished studies in English. Studies of visual inspection were included that 1) assessed accuracy of the method in detecting caries lesions; 2) were performed on occlusal, proximal, or free smooth surfaces in primary or permanent teeth; 3) had a reference standard; and 4) reported sufficient data about sample size and accuracy of methods. The data were used to calculate the pooled sensitivity, specificity, diagnostic odds ratio, and summary receiver operating characteristics curve. Heterogeneity of the studies was also assessed. A total of 102 manuscripts (from 5,808 articles initially identified) and 1 abstract (from 168) met the inclusion criteria. In general, the analysis demonstrated that the visual method had good accuracy for detecting caries lesions. Although laboratory and clinical studies have presented similar accuracy, clinically obtained specificity was higher. We also observed moderate to high heterogeneity and evidence of publication bias in most papers. Moreover, studies employing widely recognized visual scoring systems presented significantly better accuracy as compared to studies that used their own criteria. In conclusion, visual caries detection method has good overall performance. Furthermore, although the identified studies had high heterogeneity and risk of bias, the use of detailed and validated indices seems to improve the accuracy of the method.
Understanding the role of astrocytic GABA in simulated neural networks

Astrocytes actively influence the behavior of the surrounding neuronal network including changes of the synaptic plasticity and neuronal excitability. These dynamics are altered in diseases like Alzheimer's, where the release of the gliotransmitter GABA is increased by affected, so called reactive astrocytes. In this paper, we aim to simulate a neural network with altered astrocytic GABA release. Therefore, we use our developed neuron-astrocyte model, called INEXA, which includes astrocyte controlled tripartite synapses and the astrocyte-astrocyte interaction. Our results show that GABA released by astrocytes may be responsible for synchronous inhibition of postsynaptic neurons. With increased GABA inhibition, the spike and burst rate decreased while the burst duration and spikes per burst remain similar. To our knowledge, it is the first time that the effect of this gliotransmitter to the neural network was simulated.
Effects of oral hypoglycemic agents and diet on protein metabolism in type 2 diabetes.

OBJECTIVE We tested whether oral hypoglycemic agents (OHA), gliclazide with or without metformin, during an isoenergetic (ISO) and then a low-energy diet (LED) improve the altered kinetics of whole-body protein metabolism in type 2 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS A total of 13 type 2 diabetic patients (aged 51+/-2 years, weight 110+/-5 kg, BMI 41+/-1 kg/m2, fasting glucose [FSG] 11.5+/-0.9 mmol/l) (means+/-SEM) and 10 obese control subjects (48+/-3 years, 98+/-6 kg, 37+/-2 kg/m2, FSG 5.5+/-0.3 mmol/l) consumed an ISO, 1.5 g x kg(-1) x day(-1) protein for a body weight corresponding to a BMI of 25 (BMI25), a formula diet (7 days for obese control subjects, 15 days for diabetic patients), and then a 28-day LED with 50% of the energy of ISO but the same protein intake (101+/-2 g/day). OHAs were given during ISO (days 8-15) and LED. On days 6-8 (and 12-14 for diabetic subjects) of ISO and 26-28 of LED, the 60-h oral 15N-glycine method was used to obtain nitrogen flux (Q), synthesis (S), and breakdown (B). Muscle protein catabolism was estimated from N(tau)-methylhistidine (3MH) excretion. RESULTS During ISO with hyperglycemia, Q, and B adjusted for fat-free mass, sex, and age were higher and nitrogen balance and net endogenous protein synthesis (S-B) lower than in control subjects (P<0.05). OHA decreased FSG (9+/-1 mmol/l) and 3MH and increased plasma insulin-to-glucose ratio, nitrogen retention, and S-B to levels in control subjects. The change in S-B correlated with that in FSG (r = -0.845, P = 0.001) and in fasting plasma C-peptide (r = 0.852, P = 0.0005). With LED and OHA, weight decreased 6.3 kg, glycemia reached near-normal levels, and nitrogen equilibrium was maintained; Q decreased by 7%, S and B by 11% (P<0.05) to values found in control subjects. CONCLUSIONS OHA during ISO corrected protein turnover in relation to glycemia and plasma C-peptide. The LED maintained protein homeostasis in obese control subjects and, in diabetes patients with OHA, normalized protein metabolism. These findings have implications for diet and OHA prescription.
POETIC: A system for gathering and disseminating traffic information

Abstract The Portable Extendable Traffic Information Collator (POETIC) is an information extraction system that extracts traffic information from free text occurring in police incident logs and initiates (simulated) broadcasts of traffic bulletins to motorists when appropriate. POETIC is a second stage prototype system; the initial prototype (TIC, see Evans and Hartley 1990) was limited to the practices and requirements of a single police force. In POETIC, the architecture and data representations have been generalised to make the system tailorable to many different police force ‘domains’. In this paper we describe these developments, and report on tests of the system on authentic input data from three police domains.
The Market Microstructure of Central Bank Intervention

One of the great unknowns in international finance is the process by which new information influences exchange rate behavior. Until recently, data constraints have limited our ability to examine this issue. The Olsen and Associates high-frequency spot market data greatly expand the range of testable hypotheses regarding the influence of information. This paper focuses on one important source of information to the foreign exchange markets, the intervention operations of the G-3 central banks. Previous studies using daily and weekly foreign exchange rate data suggest that central bank intervention operations can influence both the level and variance of exchange rates, but little is known about how exactly traders learn about these operations and whether intra-daily market conditions influence their effectiveness. Using high-frequency data, this paper will examine the relationship between the efficacy of intervention operations and the "state of the market" at the moment that the operation is made public to traders.
Therapeutic vaccines for leishmaniasis

Introduction: Numerous therapeutic strategies are used to treat leishmaniasis. The treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is solely depends on antimonate derivatives with safety issues and questionable efficacy and there is no fully effective modality to treat CL caused by Leishmania tropica and Leishmania braziliensis. Areas covered: There is no prophylactic vaccine available against any form of leishmaniasis. Immunotherapy for CL has a long history; immunotherapy trials of first and second generation vaccines showed promising results. The current article briefly covers the prophylactic vaccines and explains different immunotherapy strategies that have been used to treat leishmaniasis. This paper does not include experimental vaccines and only lays emphasis on human trials and those vaccines which reached human trials. Expert opinion: Immunotherapy is currently used to successfully treat several disorders; Low cost, limited side effects and no possibility to develop resistance make immunotherapy a valuable choice especially for infectious disease with chemotherapy problems. Efforts are needed to explore the immunological surrogate marker(s) of cure and protection in leishmaniasis and overcome the difficulties in standardization of crude Leishmania vaccines. One of the reasons for anti-leishmaniasis vaccine failure is lack of an appropriate adjuvant. So far, not enough attention has been paid to develop vaccines for immunotherapy of leishmaniasis.
Agglomeration processes in aging societies

This article investigates agglomeration processes in aging societies by introducing an overlapping generation structure into a New Economic Geography model. Whether higher economic integration leads to spatial concentration of economic activity crucially hinges on the economies' demographic properties. While population aging as represented by declining birth rates strengthens agglomeration processes, declining mortality rates weaken them. This is due to the fact that we allow for nonconstant population size. In particular, we show that population growth acts as an important dispersion force that augments the distributional effects on agglomeration processes resulting from the turnover of generations. (author's abstract)
Towards pan shot face unlock: Using biometric face information from different perspectives to unlock mobile devices

– Personal mobile devices currently have access to a significant portion of their user's private sensitive data and are increasingly used for processing mobile payments. Consequently, securing access to these mobile devices is a requirement for securing access to the sensitive data and potentially costly services. The authors propose and evaluate a first version of a pan shot face unlock method: a mobile device unlock mechanism using all information available from a 180° pan shot of the device around the user's head – utilizing biometric face information as well as sensor data of built‐in sensors of the device. The paper aims to discuss these issues. , – This approach uses grayscale 2D images, on which the authors perform frontal and profile face detection. For face recognition, the authors evaluate different support vector machines and neural networks. To reproducibly evaluate this pan shot face unlock toolchain, the authors assembled the 2013 Hagenberg stereo vision pan shot face database, which the authors describe in detail in this article. , – Current results indicate that the approach to face recognition is sufficient for further usage in this research. However, face detection is still error prone for the mobile use case, which consequently decreases the face recognition performance as well. , – The contributions of this paper include: introducing pan shot face unlock as an approach to increase security and usability during mobile device authentication; introducing the 2013 Hagenberg stereo vision pan shot face database; evaluating this current pan shot face unlock toolchain using the newly created face database.
Process-constrained batch Bayesian optimisation

Abstract Prevailing batch Bayesian optimisation methods allow all control variables to be freely altered at each iteration. Real-world experiments, however, often have physical limitations making it time-consuming to alter all settings for each recommendation in a batch. This gives rise to a unique problem in BO: in a recommended batch, a set of variables that are expensive to experimentally change need to be fixed, while the remaining control variables can be varied. We formulate this as a process-constrained batch Bayesian optimisation problem. We propose two algorithms, pc-BO(basic) and pc-BO(nested). pc-BO(basic) is simpler but lacks convergence guarantee. In contrast pc-BO(nested) is slightly more complex, but admits convergence analysis. We show that the regret of pc-BO(nested) is sublinear. We demonstrate the performance of both pc-BO(basic) and pc-BO(nested) by optimising benchmark test functions, tuning hyper-parameters of the SVM classifier, optimising the heat-treatment process for an Al-Sc alloy to achieve target hardness, and optimising the short polymer fibre production process.