Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Survey on diversity of marine/saline anaerobic Heterolobosea (Excavata: Discoba) with description of seven new species.

Diversity of the anaerobic Heterolobosea (Excavata: Discoba) is only poorly understood, especially in marine environments. We have isolated and cultured 16 strains of anaerobic heteroloboseid amoebae and flagellates from brackish, marine and saline anoxic habitats worldwide. Phylogenetic analyses of SSU rDNA sequences and light-microscopic observations showed that all the strains belong to the family Psalteriomonadidae, the main anaerobic lineage of Heterolobosea, and that they represent eight species from the genera Monopylocystis, Harpagon and Pseudoharpagon. Seven species are newly isolated and described here as Monopylocystis minor n. sp. , Monopylocystis robusta n. sp. , Monopylocystis elegans n. sp. , Monopylocystis disparata n. sp. , Harpagon salinus n. sp. , Pseudoharpagon longus n. sp. and Pseudoharpagon tertius n. sp. Amoebae, cysts and the ultrastructure of the genus Pseudoharpagon are presented for the first time.
Datenschutzbedenken in Sozialen Netzen - ein Strukturgleichungsmodell

Nicht erst mit den Enthullungen des ehemaligen USGeheimdienstmitarbeiters Edward Snowden werden in Deutschland zunehmend Bedenken zum Datenschutz von onlinebasierten Sozialen Netzwerken geausert. Aufbauend auf der Studie von Malhotra et al. (2004) zu Datenschutzbedenken im E-Commerce untersucht die vorliegende Arbeit die Auswirkungen der Datenschutzbedenken auf das faktische Nutzungsverhalten von Online Sozialen Netzwerken (OSN) mit Hilfe eines Strukturgleichungsmodells. Die durchgefuhrte empirische Studie mit 258 Teilnehmern belegt den direkten und indirekten Einfluss der von Malhotra et al. abgeleiteten Konstrukte (Erhebung, Kontrolle und Bewusstsein) auf das faktische Verhalten in OSN und bietet Unternehmen einen Leitfaden zur Diskussion von Gestaltungsmerkmalen und der
Inverting VAEs for Improved Generative Accuracy

Recent advances in semi-supervised learning with deep generative models have shown promise in generalizing from small labeled datasets (xl,yl) to large unlabeled ones (xu). When the codomain (y) has known structure, a large unfeatured dataset (yu) is potentially available. We develop a parameter-efficient, deep semisupervised generative model for the purpose of exploiting this untapped data source. Empirical results show improved performance in disentangling variable semantics as well as improved discriminative prediction on a new MNIST task.
The afferent input to the magnocellular division of the mediodorsal thalamic nucleus in the monkey, Macaca fascicularis

The origin and termination of fibers to the mediodorsal thalamic nucleus, especially those to the medial, magnocellular part of the nucleus (MDm), have been studied using anterograde and retrograde axonal tracing methods, as well as electrophysiological recording. The results indicate that in addition to its well‐known connections to and from the prefrontal cortex, MDm receives fibers from many parts of the basal forebrain, including the ventral pallidum and other parts of the substantia innominata, the amygdaloid complex, the primary olfactory cortex, entorhinal and perirhinal cortex, and the cortex at the pole of the temporal lobe. Lighter projections arise in the subiculum, the ventral insula, and the superior and inferior temporal gyri.
A Systematic Literature Review of Sentiment Analysis Techniques

— Development of Web 2.0 has resulted in enormous increase in the vast source of opinionated user generated data. Sentiment Analysis includes extracting, grasping, arranging and presenting the feelings or suppositions communicated in the information gathered from the clients. This paper exhibits an efficient writing survey of different strategies of sentiment analysis. A model for sentiment analysis of twitter data using existing techniques is constructed for comparative analysis of various approaches. Dataset is pre-processed for noise removal and unigrams as well as bigrams are used for feature extraction with term frequency as weighting criteria. Maximum accuracy is achieved b y using a combination of SVM and Naïve Bayes at 78.60% employing unigrams and 81.40% employing bigrams as features.
NEUTRON AND GAMMA-RAY DOSIMETRY IN AN ANIMAL EXPOSURE VOLUME AT A PULSED TRIGA REACTOR.

The distribution of steady-state and pulsed neutron and gamma-ray dose was measured in an animal exposure volume at the TRIGA reactor. The usable volume was restricted to the lower 20 in. of an aluminum irradiation tube having an ID of 9.5 in. The tube was inserted into the pool adjacent to the reactor void tank, 134 cm from the core. Dosimetry films were used to determine gamma- ray dose while Sievert ionization chambers were used to determine neutron dose. Gold foils were used to measure the thermal neutron flux. Neutron doses were referenced to sulphur foil monitors. The neutron spectrum was examined with a system of threshold detectors and comparied with spectra from Godiva II and the biological port of the Argonne CP-5 reactor. The vertical variation of dose along a lucite board, designed for retaining mice, was measured at the midplane of a lucite canister lowered into the tube. The dose in the lower 16 in. was found to vary less than 5 percent. The ratio of neutron to gamma dose was approximately 6 to 1. A tissue equivalent dog phantom, 20 in. long and 7.5 in. in diameter, was designed to determine the absorbed dose in depth. Themore » fast neutron dose was about equal to the gamma-ray dose at the midline of th~ phantom having dropped from 2.3 times the gamma-ray dose in front of the phantom. The neutron plus gamma-ray dose at the midline was 44 percent of the dose at the front surface of the phantom. Bilateral exposure doses were computed from the unilateral exposures. (auth)« less
A Goal-Oriented Agenda for Pain Research Goal 1 :

*The American Pain Society, Glenview, Illinois. yWashington University Pain Center and Department of Anesthesiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri. zDepartment of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science, Pain Research Program, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa. xCenter for Pain Research and Innovation, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. jjDepartment of Anesthesiology and Center on Addiction Recovery and Education, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, New Hampshire. {School of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas, Texas. **Department of Neurology, The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland. yyDepartment of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. zzPain Research and Intervention Center of Excellence, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida.
Policy Optimization for Spoken Dialog Management Using Genetic Algorithm

SUMMARY The optimization of spoken dialog management policies is a non-trivial task due to the erroneous inputs from speech recognition and language understanding modules. The dialog manager needs to ground uncertain semantic information at times to fully understand the need of human users and successfully complete the required dialog tasks. Approaches based on reinforcement learning are currently mainstream in academia and have been proved to be e ﬀ ective, especially when operating in noisy environments. However, in reinforcement learning the dialog strategy is often represented by complex numeric model and thus is incomprehensible to humans. The trained policies are very di ﬃ cult for dialog system designers to verify or modify, which largely limits the deployment for commercial applications. In this paper we propose a novel framework for optimizing dialog policies speciﬁed in human-readable domain language using genetic algorithm. We present learning algorithms using user simulator and real human-machine dialog corpora. Empirical experimental results show that the proposed approach can achieve competitive performance on par with some state-of-the-art reinforcement learning algorithms, while maintaining a comprehensible policy structure.
Emergence of High-Level Vancomycin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus in the Critical care patients Cairo University Hospitals

Vancomycin is a large hydrophilic glycopeptide, forming hydrogen bonds with the terminal D-alanyl-D alanine residues of the stem pentapeptide in the bacterial gram positive cell wall. From the screening profile of 200 patients enrolled in this study, the percent of methicillin resistance Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin resistance S. aureus (VRSA) were represented by 19% and 14% of patients, respectively. Selection of the highly resistant strains was conducted according to MIC method. Using light cycler PCR in Detection of Van A (27%) and Van B (36%) genes responsible vancomycin resistance in
Femoral and tibial torsion measurements with 3D models based on low-dose biplanar radiographs in comparison with standard CT measurements.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to evaluate the interchangeability of femoral and tibial torsion measurements obtained with 3D models based on low-dose biplanar radiographs and standard CT measurements by testing the following two hypotheses: that there is excellent agreement between the two methods and that there is excellent interreader agreement. MATERIALS AND METHODS Two independent readers used 3D models based on low-dose simultaneous biplanar radiographs and axial CT images to measure femoral and tibial torsion in 35 patients (mean age, 65 years; range, 46-89 years) with osteoarthritis of the knee who were to undergo prosthesis insertion. The two measurements were compared by means of Bland-Altman plots and descriptive statistics. Interreader agreement was quantified with intraclass correlation coefficients. RESULTS The average differences between readers on the CT measurements were 1.3° (range, 0°-11°) for the femur and 1.5° (range, 0°-12°) for the tibia. The average differences for the measurements obtained with the 3D model were 0.1° (range, 0°-9°) for the femur and 0.8° (range, 0°-10°) for the tibia. The average differences between the two methods were 0° (range, -5° to 7°) for the femoral measurements and 3° (range, -12° to 5°) for the tibial measurements. Bland-Altman plots showed no relevant differences between the results of the two measurement modalities. Except for one measurement of femoral torsion and one measurement of tibial torsion, all results based on the 3D models were within the 95% limit of agreement (mean ± 1.96 SD). Interreader agreement was statistically significant (p < 0.001) for all measurements with high intraclass correlation coefficients (> 0.9). CONCLUSION Femoral and tibial torsion measurements obtained with 3D models based on biplanar radiographs are interchangeable with standard CT measurements in patients with osteoarthritis of the knee.
Nonlinear discrete prescribed performance control for micro-positioning of smart actuators

Most smart material based actuators (smart actuators) are known for their prominent characteristics of a high resolution of positioning, high bandwidth, and the ease of integration in miniaturized systems. However, their applications are restricted by the inherent hysteresis nonlinearity. This paper presents a new nonlinear discrete control design to improve hysteresis compensation in the smart actuators particularly in the piezoelectric based actuators. The control development takes the prescribed performance control framework as the basis and fuses it into a new modified Bouc-Wen (MBW) model. Through the theoretical analysis, it is shown that the designed control law guarantees the stability of the closed-loop system. Finally, the efficacy of the control framework is verified via a real case application where a linear piezoelectric actuated positioning system (PEA stage) is used as the testbed. The experimental results confirm that the formulated control scheme has the capacity for improving the output-tracking performance in the PEA stage.
State of the Art – How I manage coagulopathy in cardiac surgery patients

Over 35 000 cardiac operations using cardiopulmonary bypass are performed annually in the UK. Post‐operative bleeding is a common cause of morbidity. Although there have been improvements in surgical techniques, recent publications still show post‐operative blood loss to be significant, with allogeneic blood product usage as high as 50%. Despite greater understanding of the mechanisms of the coagulopathy encountered during cardiac surgery the development of treatment options has been slow. There has been a realization of the inadequacy of fresh frozen plasma to correct the coagulopathy in this setting, leading to greater off‐label use of specific factor concentrates to stop bleeding, e.g., prothrombin complex concentrates and fibrinogen concentrates. Recent trials using factor XIII and IX concentrates have not been successful. This article will review preventative measures to reduce post‐operative bleeding and the current management of bleeding with such factor concentrates and, in most cases, the limited evidence supporting their widespread use.
Intentional Agents for Epistemic Games

When humans observe other agents, one key aspect of that agent's behavior that they expect is intentionality, i.e. that the agent is working towards some goal and committed to achieving it. It is therefore desirable to develop agents that exhibit such behavior when they are supposed to interact with humans, especially if communication between the agent and the human is involved. However, as Cohen and Levesque have noted, intention can not be viewed in a vacuum, because it is tightly linked with an agent's beliefs about the world, and that effect is magnified when communication is involved. For my thesis, I am planning an agent framework that exhibits intentional behavior by modeling the agent's beliefs about the world and other agents' beliefs, in a theory of mind. My work not only focuses on having agents act with intentions, but also how they can communicate these intentions to other agents, and even deceive other agents by communicating intentions that they don't actually hold. Therefore, I will be focusing on what I call epistemic games, which are (turn-based) games in which the acquisition and exchange of knowledge is an intrinsic part of game play.
Fast Contour-Tracing Algorithm Based on a Pixel-Following Method for Image Sensors

Contour pixels distinguish objects from the background. Tracing and extracting contour pixels are widely used for smart/wearable image sensor devices, because these are simple and useful for detecting objects. In this paper, we present a novel contour-tracing algorithm for fast and accurate contour following. The proposed algorithm classifies the type of contour pixel, based on its local pattern. Then, it traces the next contour using the previous pixel’s type. Therefore, it can classify the type of contour pixels as a straight line, inner corner, outer corner and inner-outer corner, and it can extract pixels of a specific contour type. Moreover, it can trace contour pixels rapidly because it can determine the local minimal path using the contour case. In addition, the proposed algorithm is capable of the compressing data of contour pixels using the representative points and inner-outer corner points, and it can accurately restore the contour image from the data. To compare the performance of the proposed algorithm to that of conventional techniques, we measure their processing time and accuracy. In the experimental results, the proposed algorithm shows better performance compared to the others. Furthermore, it can provide the compressed data of contour pixels and restore them accurately, including the inner-outer corner, which cannot be restored using conventional algorithms.
The Power to Detect and Predict Individual Differences in Intra-Individual Variability Using the Mixed-Effects Location-Scale Model

ABSTRACT Our goal is to provide empirical scientists with practical tools and advice with which to test hypotheses related to individual differences in intra-individual variability using the mixed-effects location-scale model. To that end, we evaluate Type I error rates and power to detect and predict individual differences in intra-individual variability using this model and provide empirically-based guidelines for building scale models that include random and/or systematically-varying fixed effects. We also provide two power simulation programs that allow researchers to conduct a priori empirical power analyses. Our results aligned with statistical power theory, in that, greater power was observed for designs with more individuals, more repeated occasions, greater proportions of variance available to be explained, and larger effect sizes. In addition, our results indicated that Type I error rates were acceptable in situations when individual differences in intra-individual variability were not initially detectable as well as when the scale-model individual-level predictor explained all initially detectable individual differences in intra-individual variability. We conclude our paper by providing study design and model building advice for those interested in using the mixed-effects location-scale model in practice.
Evolution of Population and a Resource with Maximin as Objective

This paper investigates the properties of the dynamics of population and resource in a maximin model. Which of a continuum of steady states is approached depends on the initial conditions. For relatively large values of the resource stock, each steady state is conditionally stable in the saddlepoint sense; for small values of the resource stock, the approach path to a steady state is non-monotonic in the state space. JEL Classifications: Q20, D63, C62
Rigorous bounds for optimal dynamical decoupling

We present rigorous performance bounds for the optimal dynamical decoupling pulse sequence protecting a quantum bit (qubit) against pure dephasing. Our bounds apply under the assumption of instantaneous pulses and of bounded perturbing environment and qubit-environment Hamiltonians such as those realized by baths of nuclear spins in quantum dots. We show that if the total sequence time is fixed the optimal sequence can be used to make the distance between the protected and unperturbed qubit states arbitrarily small in the number of applied pulses. If, on the other hand, the minimum pulse interval is fixed and the total sequence time is allowed to scale with the number of pulses, then longer sequences need not always be advantageous. The rigorous bound may serve as a testbed for approximate treatments of optimal decoupling in bounded models of decoherence.
Results and trade-off of self-interference cancellation in a full-duplex radio front-end

This paper reports experimental results of self-interference cancellation of a full-duplex radio front-end using two techniques, which are antenna cancellation and RF circuit cancellation. Transmitting signals are fed to two identical antennas through a rat race coupler for 180° phase difference, resulting in the antenna cancellation at a receiving antenna equally apart from transmitting antennas. The coupled transmitting signals are adjusted by RF cancellation circuits (attenuator, phase shifter and true time delay) and coupled back to the receiving antenna to achieve the RF circuit cancellation. After optimizing RF cancellation circuits, experimental result shows 60-dB cancellation over 20-MHz bandwidth in a noisy indoor environment. Also, practical difficulties of SIC in RF domain due to transmit and receive path losses and power budget are discussed.
Mouse hippocampo-prefrontal paired-pulse facilitation and long-term potentiation in vivo

To confirm neural plasticity of the mouse hippocampo-prefrontal cortex (PFC) pathway, paired-pulse facilitation (PPF) and long-term potentiation (LTP) induction were determined in the pathway. In addition, we tested whether the plasticity differs in projections of the pathway from the dorsal (upper) and ventral (lower) parts of the temporal hippocampus. The results showed PPF and LTP of this pathway, and these differed between the projections. The projection from the upper part showed stronger PPF and weaker LTP compared with that from the lower part. These results suggest that the mouse hippocampo-PFC pathway is involved in learning and memory, and contains projections related to different functions.
Thermal annealing effects on the thermoluminescence of LiF.

Abstract Isothermal annealing before or after irradiation is found to have a definite effect upon the thermoluminescent glow curve of LiF (TLD-100). Post-irradiation annealing, by thermally releasing electrons from their traps, reduces the size of each peak in the glow curve. The two main dosimetry peaks each have a simple exponential decay consistent with the model of Randall and Wilkins, indicating trap depths of 1.19 and 1.25 eV respectively with frequency factors between 1011 and 1012 sec−1. Pre-irradiation annealing at 80°C for 24 hr reduces the area of the low temperature peaks by a factor of 10, while annealing at 125°C, 145°C or 175°C for 3 hr reduces the area of the main dosimetry peaks by a factor of 2–5 and increases the height of one of the low temperature peaks by a factor of 12-3. The rate of cooling from temperatures greater than about 150°C affects the glow curve also. Rapid cooling in times of the order of seconds increases the heights of the low temperature peaks up to a factor of 4 compared to cooling in several minutes or more.
Multicast vs Multiple Unicast Scheduling in High-Speed Cellular Networks

Packet scheduling is one of the key features in data-oriented radio interfaces of cellular networks like HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access). It has been primarily designed for unicast applications. Nevertheless, unicast may not optimise the resource usage when the same content has to be transmitted to several users in the same cell. In this paper, we compare the performance of multicast and unicast scheduling considering both a theoretical generic system and an HSDPA system. We prove the benefit of deploying multicast which is found to have merits when the average channel quality is good enough. Results show that the better the average channel quality is, the more users are allowed to receive the service simultaneously.
Gene expression profile during functional maturation of a central mammalian synapse

Calyx of Held giant presynaptic terminals in the auditory brainstem form glutamatergic axosomatic synapses that have advanced to one of the best‐studied synaptic connections of the mammalian brain. As the auditory system matures and adjusts to high‐fidelity synaptic transmission, the calyx undergoes extensive structural and functional changes – in mice, it is formed at about postnatal day 3 (P3), achieves immature function until hearing onset at about P10 and can be considered mature from P21 onwards. This setting provides a unique opportunity to examine the repertoire of genes driving synaptic structure and function during postnatal maturation. Here, we determined the gene expression profile of globular bushy cells (GBCs), neurons giving rise to the calyx of Held, at different maturational stages (P3, P8, P21). GBCs were retrogradely labelled by stereotaxic injection of fluorescent cholera toxin‐B, and their mRNA content was collected by laser microdissection. Microarray profiling, successfully validated with real time quantitative polymerase chain reaction and nCounter approaches, revealed genes regulated during maturation. We found that mostly genes implicated in the general cell biology of the neuron were regulated, while most genes related to synaptic function were regulated around the onset of hearing. Among these, voltage‐gated ion channels and calcium‐binding proteins were strongly regulated, whereas most genes involved in the synaptic vesicle cycle were only moderately regulated. These results suggest that changes in the expression patterns of ion channels and calcium‐binding proteins are a dominant factor in defining key synaptic properties during maturation of the calyx of Held.