Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cortical spreading depolarization increases adult neurogenesis, and alters behavior and hippocampus-dependent memory in mice

Cortical spreading depolarizations are an epiphenomenon of human brain pathologies and associated with extensive but transient changes in ion homeostasis, metabolism, and blood flow. Previously, we have shown that cortical spreading depolarization have long-lasting consequences on the brains transcriptome and structure. In particular, we found that cortical spreading depolarization stimulate hippocampal cell proliferation resulting in a sustained increase in adult neurogenesis. Since the hippocampus is responsible for explicit memory and adult-born dentate granule neurons contribute to this function, cortical spreading depolarization might influence hippocampus-dependent cognition. To address this question, we induced cortical spreading depolarization in C57Bl/6 J mice by epidural application of 1.5 mol/L KCl and evaluated neurogenesis and behavior at two, four, or six weeks thereafter. Congruent with our previous findings in rats, we found that cortical spreading depolarization increases numbers of newborn dentate granule neurons. Moreover, exploratory behavior and object location memory were consistently enhanced. Reference memory in the water maze was virtually unaffected, whereas memory formation in the Barnes maze was impaired with a delay of two weeks and facilitated after four weeks. These data show that cortical spreading depolarization produces lasting changes in psychomotor behavior and complex, delay- and task-dependent changes in spatial memory, and suggest that cortical spreading depolarization-like events affect the emotional and cognitive outcomes of associated brain pathologies.
MUTUAL COUPLING REDUCTION USING DUMBBELL DEFECTED GROUND STRUCTURE FOR MULTIBAND MICROSTRIP ANTENNA ARRAY

A novel design of multiband microstrip antenna array with dumbbell shape defected ground structure (DGS) is presented. The DGS is inserted into the ground plane between the two elements of the antenna array in order to suppress mutual coupling. Both simulation and measurement results verifled that the DGS improved the radiation properties of the antenna array. Measurement results of the DGS antenna showed mutual coupling reduction of maximum 5dB and gain enhancement to 3dB.
A CMOS active balun-LNA with imbalance correction and noise cancelling

This paper presents an active balun topology with differential imbalance correction and noise cancelling schemes. The imbalance correction scheme can effectively ameliorate both the magnitude and phase errors induced by circuit asymmetry, parasitic and layout mismatch. Noise cancelling exists in each individual stage, which leads to good noise performance. With sufficient gain and low noise figure, this balun can also work as a low noise amplifier (LNA) in RF front end. Implemented in 65nm CMOS process, the balun-LNA exhibits maximum power gain of 16dB, minimum noise figure of 3.8dB and input matching better than -20dB. The measured magnitude and phase errors are less than 0.6dB and 7o, respectively.
The Influence of High Intensity Training on Cardio-Respiratory Biomarkers, Aerobic Metabolism and Time Trial Performance in Recreationally-Trained Individuals

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of high intensity sprint training, interval training and aerobic training on cardio-respiratory biomarkers, aerobic metabolism and time trial performance in recreationally trained individuals. Twenty six men (mean ± SD age 20 ± 2 yr, height 169.3 ± 8.5 cm, weight 71.3 ± 6.2 kg) were split evenly between the three training protocols, plus a non exercising control group. All subjects in the experimental groups were randomly assigned 4 weeks of either aerobic training, high intensity sprint training or high intensity interval training. Changes in 60 km time trial performance, lactate threshold, maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max), resting metabolic rate (RMR), total and high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL), resting stroke volume (SV) and resting cardiac output (Q) were measured during the course of study pre and post intervention. Post intervention the HI training group displayed a significantly lower 60km time trial performance compared to both the aerobic group (2.9% P=0.002) and the interval training group (2.01% P=0.027), however this result was not a significant improvement within the group. No other variable changed significantly over the course of the training intervention. The implications of these results indicate that none of the tested training interventions are reliable routines to follow if the aim is to improve the aforementioned variables in a 4 week time scale, after following a pre-intervention 8 week aerobic training programme. Table of
Density approach in modelling multi-defaults

We apply the default density framework developed in El Karoui et al. \cite{ejj1} to modelling of multiple defaults, which can be adapted to both top-down and bottom-up models. We present general pricing results and establish links with the classical intensity approach. Explicit models are also proposed by using the methods of change of probability measure or dynamic copula.
Technical aspects of endoscopic ultrasound (EUS)-guided sampling in gastroenterology: European Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ESGE) Technical Guideline – March 2017

RECOMMENDATIONS For routine EUS-guided sampling of solid masses and lymph nodes (LNs) ESGE recommends 25G or 22G needles (high quality evidence, strong recommendation); fine needle aspiration (FNA) and fine needle biopsy (FNB) needles are equally recommended (high quality evidence, strong recommendation). When the primary aim of sampling is to obtain a core tissue specimen, ESGE suggests using 19G FNA or FNB needles or 22G FNB needles (low quality evidence, weak recommendation). ESGE recommends using 10-mL syringe suction for EUS-guided sampling of solid masses and LNs with 25G or 22G FNA needles (high quality evidence, strong recommendation) and other types of needles (low quality evidence, weak recommendation). ESGE suggests neutralizing residual negative pressure in the needle before withdrawing the needle from the target lesion (moderate quality evidence, weak recommendation). ESGE does not recommend for or against using the needle stylet for EUS-guided sampling of solid masses and LNs with FNA needles (high quality evidence, strong recommendation) and suggests using the needle stylet for EUS-guided sampling with FNB needles (low quality evidence, weak recommendation). ESGE suggests fanning the needle throughout the lesion when sampling solid masses and LNs (moderate quality evidence, weak recommendation). ESGE equally recommends EUS-guided sampling with or without on-site cytologic evaluation (moderate quality evidence, strong recommendation). When on-site cytologic evaluation is unavailable, ESGE suggests performance of three to four needle passes with an FNA needle or two to three passes with an FNB needle (low quality evidence, weak recommendation). For diagnostic sampling of pancreatic cystic lesions without a solid component, ESGE suggests emptying the cyst with a single pass of a 22G or 19G needle (low quality evidence, weak recommendation). For pancreatic cystic lesions with a solid component, ESGE suggests sampling of the solid component using the same technique as in the case of other solid lesions (low quality evidence, weak recommendation). ESGE does not recommend antibiotic prophylaxis for EUS-guided sampling of solid masses or LNs (low quality evidence, strong recommendation), and suggests antibiotic prophylaxis with fluoroquinolones or beta-lactam antibiotics for EUS-guided sampling of cystic lesions (low quality evidence, weak recommendation). ESGE suggests that evaluation of tissue obtained by EUS-guided sampling should include histologic preparations (e. g., cell blocks and/or formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded tissue fragments) and should not be limited to smear cytology (low quality evidence, weak recommendation).
A Distributed Power Control Algorithm for Time Varying Wireless Networks with Partially Observable Feedback

Adaptive allocation of transmit power has been shown to be an effective means of providing service to competing users with heterogeneous requirements in a wireless network. In this paper distributed stochastic power control is presented for time varying wireless networks with partially observable feedback. With the presented algorithm, a user shall perform interference estimation prior to adapting transmit power so as to address user-centric and network-centric objectives. Aside from the random link gains, detriments such as noisy feedback and the loss of feedback from the receivers to the transmitting users are considered in the derivation. The closed-loop algorithm is of reasonable complexity thus allowing for distributed online implementation.
A HYBRID GENETIC ALGORITHM FOR THE TARGET VISITATION PROBLEM

In this paper we consider the problem of determining an opti mal path for an unmanned aerial vehicle which needs to visit multiple targe ts. The objective is to minimize the travel distance while maximizing the utility of the visi tat on order. This is known as the TARGET VISITATION PROBLEMand has several applications including combat search and rescue, environmental assessment, and disaster relief. Fi rst, we provide a mathematical model based on integer linear programming and prove that the problem isNP-complete. Then we describe the implementation of a genetic algorithm f or finding approximate solutions. The heuristic is then hybridized by the implementati on of a local search procedure. Numerical results are presented demonstrating the effecti veness of the proposed procedure.
Predictive Visual Models of Physics for Playing Billiards

Imagine a hypothetical person who has never encountered the game of billiards in their life. When introduced to the game, this person may not be very adept at playing the game, but would be capable of inferring the direction in which the cue ball needs to be hit to displace the target ball to a desired location. How can this person make such an inference without any prior billiards-specific experience? One explanation is that humans are aware of the laws of physics, and a strategy for playing billiards can be inferred simply from an understanding of the dynamics of bouncing objects. However, humans do not appear to consciously solve NewtonâĂŹs equations of motion, but rather seem to have an intuitive understanding of how their actions affect the world. In the specific example of billiards, humans can visually hallucinate the trajectory that the ball would follow when force is applied to the ball, and how the trajectory of ball would change when it hits the side of the billiards table or another ball. We term models that can enable the agents to visually anticipate the future states of the world as visual models of physics. How can a visual model physics be used to plan actions? An agent can use this model to visually hallucinate the future states of the world in response to the action perfumed by the agent. The sequence of such visual hallucinations can be thought of as running an internal simulation of the external world. The agent can run multiple internal simulations of the external world by hallucinating the effects of multiple actions. The agent can then execute the action which in simulation leads to the goal state. The idea of using internal models for planning actions is not new and is well known in the control literature in the form of model predictive control [3]. Though past work has met with some success in using internal models of the agent for planning actions, few prior methods have addressed the question of constructing and using models of the external world for planning actions. Internal models of the agent are useful when an agent has to perform tasks in isolation. However, when performing actions in complex environments, models of both the agent and the external world are required. The external world can be substantially more varied, and therefore harder to model.
Social networking friendships: A cross-cultural comparison of network structure between MySpace and Wretch

Abstract A cross-cultural comparison of social networking friendship between MySpace (in USA) and Wretch (in Taiwan) was conducted utilizing the high- and low-context framework proposed by Edward T. Hall (1976). Three network indicators were used to describe the network structure of both social network sites: size, density, and heterogeneity. Data were drawn from the forum “Jobs, Work, Careers” on MySpace and “Job-Related” on Wretch over a 2-month period from mid-October to mid-December in 2007. For each of the 2 sites, 6 users (3 men and 3 women) were randomly selected as sources or “seeds” from which to crawl the friendship networks. From the 6 seed users, a snowball sample was constructed by crawling 2 degrees out along the networks. The results indicated that Wretch, although it followed the expected direction predicted by Hall’s model, did not have significantly larger and denser networks than MySpace. Finally, no differences in same-sex and cross-sex friendships were found between the 2 sites either. The overall findings are discussed with implications for future studies.
Shape space exploration of constrained meshes

We present a general computational framework to locally characterize any shape space of meshes implicitly prescribed by a collection of non-linear constraints. We computationally access such manifolds, typically of high dimension and co-dimension, through first and second order approximants, namely tangent spaces and quadratically parameterized osculant surfaces. Exploration and navigation of desirable subspaces of the shape space with regard to application specific quality measures are enabled using approximants that are intrinsic to the underlying manifold and directly computable in the parameter space of the osculant surface. We demonstrate our framework on shape spaces of planar quad (PQ) meshes, where each mesh face is constrained to be (nearly) planar, and circular meshes, where each face has a circumcircle. We evaluate our framework for navigation and design exploration on a variety of inputs, while keeping context specific properties such as fairness, proximity to a reference surface, etc.
EXPERIMENTAL EVALUATION OF A GONIOMETER FOR THE IDENTIFICATION OF ANATOMICAL JOINT MOTIONS

This paper exposes the experimental evaluation of a new technique for the estimation of the instantaneous helical axis of movement of human anatomical joints. The measurement technique, using a six degrees of freedom spatial electro-goniometer, is tested onto a simple revolute joint and onto a subject’s knee. A motion capture system with active optical markers is used at the same time in order to validate the measurement results.
Some Matrix Iterations for Computing Generalized Inverses and Balancing Chemical Equations

An application of iterative methods for computing the Moore–Penrose inverse in balancing chemical equations is considered. With the aim to illustrate proposed algorithms, an improved high order hyper-power matrix iterative method for computing generalized inverses is introduced and applied. The improvements of the hyper-power iterative scheme are based on its proper factorization, as well as on the possibility to accelerate the iterations in the initial phase of the convergence. Although the effectiveness of our approach is confirmed on the basis of the theoretical point of view, some numerical comparisons in balancing chemical equations, as well as on randomly-generated matrices are furnished.
Dynamic Differential Privacy for Distributed Machine Learning over Networks

Privacy-preserving distributed machine learning becomes increasingly important due to the recent rapid growth of data. This paper focuses on a class of regularized empirical risk minimization (ERM) machine learning problems, and develops two methods to provide differential privacy to distributed learning algorithms over a network. We first decentralize the learning algorithm using the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM), and propose the methods of dual variable perturbation and primal variable perturbation to provide dynamic and networked differential privacy. The two mechanisms lead to algorithms that can provide privacy guarantees under mild conditions of the convexity and differentiability of the loss function and the regularizer. We study the accuracy and the convergence properties of the algorithms, and show that the dual variable perturbation outperforms its primal counterpart. To design an optimal privacy mechanisms, we analyze the fundamental tradeoff between privacy and accuracy, and provide guidelines to choose privacy parameters. Numerical experiments using customer information database are performed to corroborate the results on privacy and utility tradeoffs and design.
The Elusive Search for Teacher Collaboration

ABSTRACT Collaboration is a well-used term in the field of education, identified as promising practice for student learning and teaching learning alike. However, collaboration comes in different shapes and sizes, leading to radically different ends. The authors examine teachers’ own understandings and practices of collaboration with teacher colleagues within their school contexts and within a professional development model designed to allow for collaborative conversation between teachers. Implications for teacher education are then considered.
iCompose: context-aware physical user interface for application composition

Ubiquitous computing environments advocate creating applications by plugging together various resources (mobile devices, displays, augmented everyday objects, and so on) and Web Services to support the user’s everyday activities and needs. This approach is referred to as application composition, and such applications are called composite. Due to the dynamic nature of ubiquitous environments, application composition has to be supported at runtime, so that the applications are able to adapt to the situation within the environment and other contexts. Application composition is usually performed by autonomous context-aware mechanisms that provide limited or no control for users. Still, users need to be aware of their environments and be able to control and configure applications when they are composed and executed. Towards this goal we present in this article a context-aware application composition system based on the iCompose interface for composing and controlling applications at runtime. Users compose applications by simply touching the resources in the environment with their mobile devices, while the iCompose interface provides feedback and assists users by suggesting them possible further actions. The interface relies on a rule-based reasoner and utilizes various context sources to support users dynamically, according to the situation in which they compose applications. We present a complete implementation of the system and report the results of a user evaluation study conducted with 21 participants. This study assesses the issues of control, usability, feasibility and user acceptance of the iCompose interface for context-aware application composition and the prototype as a whole.
Topology-aware remapping to survive virtual networks against substrate node failures

Network virtualization has garnered great attention as a promising way to reform the current Internet. Multiple virtual networks (VNs) can be embedded onto the same substrate network through network virtualization. Recently the survivability of the VNs in the event of substrate failures has been attracting a broad attention. A good way to provide survivability is to use a hybrid strategy, which proactively reserves a backup quota on each substrate resource and reactively triggers a fast remapping mechanism using the backup quotas when a substrate failure happens. However, a survivable hybrid strategy for substrate node failures has not been explicitly studied by the existing research. In this paper, we investigate the survivability problem in a network virtualization environment and provide a topology-aware remapping policy to deal with substrate node failures. An integer linear programming (ILP) model is presented to optimize the fast node remapping with consideration of the business profit and the topological attributes. Simulations show that the proposed policy can effectively recover VNs from substrate node failures and increase acceptance ratio and business profit in the presence of substrate node failures.
Inflammatory Process of CD8+CD28− T Cells in Induced Sputum From Asthmatic Patients

Previously unreported CD8(+) CD28(-) and CD8(+) CD28(+) T-cell subsets occur in healthy individuals and expand in patients suffering from autoimmune disease. Here we studied, for the first time, the expression of CD8(+) CD28(+) , CD8(+) CD28(-) , and CD8(+) CD56(+) subpopulations in induced sputum from asthmatics. Using sputum samples, purified CD8(+) T cells were stained for surface antigen CD28, CD56, FITC-conjugated anti-perforin, and anti-IFN-gamma. Cytotoxic activity was evaluated in a chromium releasing test. Induced sputum CD8(+) CD28(-) T cells were found to be more expanded and expressed low levels of IFN-gamma in severe asthmatics than mild asthma and age-matched healthy controls. The predominance of CD8(+) CD28(-) T cells can be in part explained by the expansion of CD8(+) CD56(+). CD8(+) CD28(-) T cells from severe asthmatics produced high intracytoplasmic perforin and exerted a potent cytotoxic activity. Considering their phenotyping and functional properties, the CD8(+) CD28(-) T-cell subset may constitute an intermediate phenotype in the process of CD8(+) T-cell differentiation of effector-type cells in severe asthmatics. Functional studies showed that CD8(+) CD28(-) T cells had cytotoxic function.
Applications of voltage and current unity gain cells in nodal admittance matrix expansion

The Nodal Admittance Matrix (NAM) expansion method based on nullor elements and pathological mirror elements is used to provide a systematic synthesis method of controlled sources. Two new NAM expansions for the Voltage Controlled Voltage Source (VCVS) are introduced. Four realizations of the noninverting VCVS using two resistors and three unity gain cells are given three of them are new. Four new realizations of the inverting VCVS using two resistors and three unity gain cells are given. A new NAM for the Current Controlled Current Source (CCCS) is introduced. Eight new realizations for the CCCS using two resistors and three unity gain cells are given. The realization of Voltage Controlled Current Source (VCCS) using one resistor and two unity gain cells is discussed. The realization of Current Controlled Voltage Source (CCVS) using one resistor and two unity gain cells is discussed. Applications of unity gain cells in Current Conveyor (CCII), Inverting Current Conveyor (ICCII) and Current Feedback Operational Amplifier are given. New realizations of the Tow Thomas (TT) filter using unity gain cells are given.