Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Deletional Tolerance Mediated by Extrathymic Aire-Expressing Cells

The prevention of autoimmunity requires the elimination of self-reactive T cells during their development and maturation. The expression of diverse self-antigens by stromal cells in the thymus is essential to this process and depends, in part, on the activity of the autoimmune regulator (Aire) gene. Here we report the identification of extrathymic Aire-expressing cells (eTACs) resident within the secondary lymphoid organs. These stromally derived eTACs express a diverse array of distinct self-antigens and are capable of interacting with and deleting naïve autoreactive T cells. Using two-photon microscopy, we observed stable antigen-specific interactions between eTACs and autoreactive T cells. We propose that such a secondary network of self-antigen–expressing stromal cells may help reinforce immune tolerance by preventing the maturation of autoreactive T cells that escape thymic negative selection.
A low-power high-speed accuracy-controllable approximate multiplier design

Multiplication is a key fundamental function for many error-tolerant applications. Approximate multiplication is considered to be an efficient technique for trading off energy against performance and accuracy. This paper proposes an accuracy-controllable multiplier whose final product is generated by a carry-maskable adder. The proposed scheme can dynamically select the length of the carry propagation to satisfy the accuracy requirements flexibly. The partial product tree of the multiplier is approximated by the proposed tree compressor. An 8×8 multiplier design is implemented by employing the carry-maskable adder and the compressor. Compared with a conventional Wallace tree multiplier, the proposed multiplier reduced power consumption by between 47.3% and 56.2% and critical path delay by between 29.9% and 60.5%, depending on the required accuracy. Its silicon area was also 44.6% smaller. In addition, results from an image processing application demonstrate that the quality of the processed images can be controlled by the proposed multiplier design.
Development and portability of ASR and Q&A modules for real-environment speech-oriented guidance systems

In this paper, we investigate development and portability of ASR and Q&A modules of speech-oriented guidance systems for two different real environments. An initial prototype system has been constructed for a local community center using two years of human-labeled data collected by the system. Collection of real user data is required because ASR task and Q&A domain of a guidance system are defined by the target environment and potential users. However, since human preparation of data is always costly, most often only a relatively small amount real data will be available for system adaptation in practice. Therefore, the portability of the initial prototype system is investigated for a different environment, a local subway station. The purpose is to identify reusable system parts. The ASR module is found to be highly portable across the two environments. However, the portability of the Q&A module was only medium. From an objective analysis it became clear that this is mainly due to the environment-dependent domain differences between the two systems. This implicates that it will always be important to take the behavior of actual users under real conditions into account to build a system with high user satisfaction.
Fault Diagnosis Strategy of Autonomous Steering System for Intelligent Vehicle Based on State Estimation

This paper proposes a fault diagnosis strategy of autonomous steering system for intelligent vehicles based on state estimation. An autonomous steering controller with rack displacement signal as state input is designed to improve the performance of autonomous steering. Due to the importance of rack displacement signal and the harsh working environment of the displacement sensor, the fault diagnosis strategy composed of Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (Bi-LSTM) based rack displacement estimator and Sequential Probability Ratio Test (SPRT) based fault diagnosis flow is proposed to detect displacement sensor faults quickly and accurately. The estimator incorporates information of the vehicle and estimates the rack displacement. In addition, the residual sequence of rack displacement signals is analyzed to monitor the fault signal to further determine state of the sensor. Through simulation, the effectiveness of the proposed strategy is verified.
Unsupervised Natural Experience Rapidly Alters Invariant Object Representation in Visual Cortex

Object recognition is challenging because each object produces myriad retinal images. Responses of neurons from the inferior temporal cortex (IT) are selective to different objects, yet tolerant (“invariant”) to changes in object position, scale, and pose. How does the brain construct this neuronal tolerance? We report a form of neuronal learning that suggests the underlying solution. Targeted alteration of the natural temporal contiguity of visual experience caused specific changes in IT position tolerance. This unsupervised temporal slowness learning (UTL) was substantial, increased with experience, and was significant in single IT neurons after just 1 hour. Together with previous theoretical work and human object perception experiments, we speculate that UTL may reflect the mechanism by which the visual stream builds and maintains tolerant object representations.
Inverse Velocity Dependence of Vibrationally Promoted Electron Emission from a Metal Surface

All previous experimental and theoretical studies of molecular interactions at metal surfaces show that electronically nonadiabatic influences increase with molecular velocity. We report the observation of a nonadiabatic electronic effect that follows the opposite trend: The probability of electron emission from a low–work function surface—Au(111) capped by half a monolayer of Cs—increases as the velocity of the incident NO molecule decreases during collisions with highly vibrationally excited NO(X2π½, V = 18; V is the vibrational quantum number of NO), reaching 0.1 at the lowest velocity studied. We show that these results are consistent with a vibrational autodetachment mechanism, whereby electron emission is possible only beyond a certain critical distance from the surface. This outcome implies that important energy-dissipation pathways involving nonadiabatic electronic excitations and, furthermore, not captured by present theoretical methods may influence reaction rates at surfaces.
Field Experiments with Transformed Plants Reveal the Sense of Floral Scents

Plants use many means to attract pollinators, including visual cues and odor. We investigated how nonpigment floral chemistry influences nectar removal, floral visitation, florivory, rates of outcrossing, and fitness through both male and female functions. We blocked expression of biosynthetic genes of the dominant floral attractant [benzyl acetone (Nachal1)] and nectar repellent [nicotine (Napmt1/2)] in all combinations in the native tobacco Nicotiana attenuata and measured their effects on plants in their native habitat. Both repellent and attractant were required to maximize capsule production and seed siring in emasculated flowers and flower visitation by native pollinators, whereas nicotine reduced florivory and nectar robbing.
A propagation approach to modelling the joint distributions of clean and corrupted speech in the Mel-Cepstral domain

This paper presents a closed form solution relating the joint distributions of corrupted and clean speech in the short-time Fourier Transform (STFT) and Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficient (MFCC) domains. This makes possible a tighter integration of STFT domain speech enhancement and feature and model-compensation techniques for robust automatic speech recognition. The approach directly utilizes the conventional speech distortion model for STFT speech enhancement, allowing for low cost, single pass, causal implementations. Compared to similar uncertainty propagation approaches, it provides the full joint distribution, rather than just the posterior distribution, which provides additional model compensation possibilities. The method is exemplified by deriving an MMSE-MFCC estimator from the propagated joint distribution. It is shown that similar performance to that of STFT uncertainty propagation (STFT-UP) can be obtained on the AURORA4, while deriving the full joint distribution.
Chondrulelike Objects in Short-Period Comet 81P/Wild 2

The Stardust spacecraft returned cometary samples that contain crystalline material, but the origin of the material is not yet well understood. We found four crystalline particles from comet 81P/Wild 2 that were apparently formed by flash-melting at a high temperature and are texturally, mineralogically, and compositionally similar to chondrules. Chondrules are submillimeter particles that dominate chondrites and are believed to have formed in the inner solar nebula. The comet particles show oxygen isotope compositions similar to chondrules in carbonaceous chondrites that compose the middle-to-outer asteroid belt. The presence of the chondrulelike objects in the comet suggests that chondrules have been transported out to the cold outer solar nebula and spread widely over the early solar system.
A high-gain wide-input-range time amplifier with an open-loop architecture and a gain equal to current bias ratio

Recently, time amplifiers are used in time-to-digital converters(TDC) because the time resolution is better than the voltage resolution in modern integrated circuits. However, the conventional time amplifiers are limited in their time gain and input time difference range, because of their positive-feedback closed-loop architecture. An open-loop time amplifier is proposed in this work to achieve a large time gain up to 120 and a wide range of input time difference(10ps∼2ns). Besides, the time gain is the same as the current bias ratio. The worst-case average gain error which shows linear characteristics of the time amplifier is smaller than 5.3% The proposed time amplifier was successfully used in the monitoring circuit for threshold voltage variations of NMOS and PMOS FETs. The monitoring circuit consists of VCDL, time amplifier and TDC. The circuit was implemented by 0. 13μm CMOS process.
The Biosocial Correlates of Neuropsychological Deficits: Results From the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health

A body of empirical research has revealed that neuropsychological functioning is one of the most consistent predictors of antisocial behavior. It is somewhat surprising however that criminological research has been slow to examine the different factors that are implicated in the development of neuropsychological deficits. This study addresses this gap in the literature by examining the effects that a number of social and biological variables have on neuropsychological functioning. Analysis of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) indicates that postnatal exposure to cigarette smoke, duration of breastfeeding, maternal involvement, and household income predicts variation in adolescent and adulthood levels of neuropsychological functioning. Implications of the findings are noted and discussed.
Youth Attitudes Toward Dating Violence in Thailand

This study assessed the occurrences and intensity of psychological, physical, and sexual attitudes toward dating violence among Thai youths, and examined possible variables related to the formation of these attitudes.The random sample consisted of 1,296 male and female adolescents from high school, vocational school, and out-of-school groups. Thai youths in general reported attitudes that were supportive of dating violence. The variables more closely related to attitudes toward dating violence were personal variables. Peer influence, partner relationships, and family characteristics were related to higher support for dating violence. Females reported higher endorsement of dating violence than males. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed, and recommendations for policy makers are drawn.
PirB is a Functional Receptor for Myelin Inhibitors of Axonal Regeneration

A major barrier to regenerating axons after injury in the mammalian central nervous system is an unfavorable milieu. Three proteins found in myelin—Nogo, MAG, and OMgp—inhibit axon regeneration in vitro and bind to the glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored Nogo receptor (NgR). However, genetic deletion of NgR has only a modest disinhibitory effect, suggesting that other binding receptors for these molecules probably exist. With the use of expression cloning, we have found that paired immunoglobulin-like receptor B (PirB), which has been implicated in nervous system plasticity, is a high-affinity receptor for Nogo, MAG, and OMgp. Interfering with PirB activity, either with antibodies or genetically, partially rescues neurite inhibition by Nogo66, MAG, OMgp, and myelin in cultured neurons. Blocking both PirB and NgR activities leads to near-complete release from myelin inhibition. Our results implicate PirB in mediating regeneration block, identify PirB as a potential target for axon regeneration therapies, and provide an explanation for the similar enhancements of visual system plasticity in PirB and NgR knockout mice.
Quantification of Pin Fretting in the PCB Connectors Subjected to Random Vibration Excitation

Severe operating vibrations make the printed circuit boards (PCBs) connectors susceptible to an intermittent high contact resistance, which eventually leads to a failure resulting in the loss of signal integrity. Pin fretting within the mating connector is often the cause of this failure. In this paper, a new methodology is developed to study the pin fretting within the mating PCB connector. The methodology developed is based on the quantification of relative motion as a measure of pin fretting, considering the dynamics of printed circuit board assemblies (PCBAs) and mounting brackets. The behavior of the system is investigated by exciting the system (i) using the generated white noise time series and (ii) the random vibration signal. A pseudo random time series signal is derived from the power spectrum density (PSD) of the signal and the derived time series signal is used to excite the system. The relative response vector is computed from the response of the system. The results of the relative motion of the mating connector are presented in terms of the maximum amplitude of relative motion and the cumulative relative movement. The significance of the cumulative relative movement is that the complex phenomenon of pin fretting in the mating connectors can be represented by a simple time series model that can be used to correlate the material degradation. A numerical example based on finite element analysis is presented in the backplane connectors to demonstrate the proposed methodology. The example shows that the method proposed here is systematic and constructive in quantifying the pin fretting behavior.
Derivation of Functional Retinal Pigmented Epithelium from Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

Human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) have great promise for cellular therapy, but it is unclear if they have the same potential as human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) to differentiate into specialized cell types. Ocular cells such as the retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE) are of particular interest because they could be used to treat degenerative eye diseases, including age‐related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa. We show here that iPSCs generated using Oct4, Sox2, Nanog, and Lin28 can spontaneously differentiate into RPE cells, which can then be isolated and cultured to form highly differentiated RPE monolayers. RPE derived from iPSCs (iPS‐RPE) were analyzed with respect to gene expression, protein expression, and rod outer segment phagocytosis, and compared with cultured fetal human RPE (fRPE) and RPE derived from hESCs (hESC‐RPE). iPS‐RPE expression of marker mRNAs was quantitatively similar to that of fRPE and hESC‐RPE, and marker proteins were appropriately expressed and localized in polarized monolayers. Levels of rod outer segment phagocytosis by iPS‐RPE, fRPE, and hESC‐RPE were likewise similar and dependent on integrin αvβ5. This work shows that iPSCs can differentiate into functional RPE that are quantitatively similar to fRPE and hESC‐RPE and further supports the finding that iPSCs are similar to hESCs in their differentiation potential. STEM CELLS 2009;27:2427–2434
Reducing Juvenile Recidivism With Cognitive Training and a Cell Phone Follow-Up

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the effects of a cognitive training and cell phone intervention on the recidivism of 70 juvenile offenders. Median days to rearrest were 106 for the control group, 191 for the class-only group, and 278 for the class plus cell phone group. Using rearrest as the survival criterion, the survival ratios of the class-only and class plus cell phone groups were 2.64 and 2.94 times longer than the control group, respectively. After controlling for gender, prior arrests, and risk score, the Poisson regression indicated that the class-only and class plus cell phone groups were 51% lower in total arrests than the control group. These results suggest that cognitive training supplemented with a cell phone coach is an effective and cost-efficient intervention for reducing recidivism.
A Comprehensive Framework to Determine Lyapunov Functions for a Set of Continuous Time Stability Problems

Analyzing the stability of nonlinear systems, with or without external inputs, is still a very challenging task. An efficient way consists in using the Lyapunov theory which can be deployed by searching for a Lyapunov function satisfying constraints depending on the considered stability problem. By showing that a majority of stability problems can be deduced from the Input-to-State Stability (ISS) one, a generic framework is proposed for tackling a catalog of stability analysis problems for continuous time systems. More precisely, it allows the user to determine Lyapunov functions, whose structure can be arbitrarily chosen, and that maximizes the size of the corresponding estimation of the Domain Of Attraction (DOA). This generic work is illustrated by ISS example showing the efficiency of the approach.
A Null Mutation in Human APOC3 Confers a Favorable Plasma Lipid Profile and Apparent Cardioprotection

Apolipoprotein C-III (apoC-III) inhibits triglyceride hydrolysis and has been implicated in coronary artery disease. Through a genome-wide association study, we have found that about 5% of the Lancaster Amish are heterozygous carriers of a null mutation (R19X) in the gene encoding apoC-III (APOC3) and, as a result, express half the amount of apoC-III present in noncarriers. Mutation carriers compared with noncarriers had lower fasting and postprandial serum triglycerides, higher levels of HDL-cholesterol and lower levels of LDL-cholesterol. Subclinical atherosclerosis, as measured by coronary artery calcification, was less common in carriers than noncarriers, which suggests that lifelong deficiency of apoC-III has a cardioprotective effect.
Interrater Reliability of Risk Matrix 2000/s

Actuarial risk assessment instruments for sexual offenders are often used in high-stakes decision making and therefore should be subject to stringent reliability and validity testing. Furthermore, those involved in the risk assessment of sexual offenders should be aware of the factors that may affect the reliability of these instruments. The present study examined the interrater reliability of the Risk Matrix 2000/s between one field rater and one independent rater with a sample of more than 100 sexual offenders. The results indicated good interrater reliability of the tool, although reliability varies from item to item. A number of factors were identified that seem to reduce the reliability of scoring. The present findings are strengthened by examining interrater reliability of the tool in the usual practitioner context and by calculating a range of reliability statistics. Strategies are suggested to increase reliability in the use of actuarial tools in routine practice.
Tracing the Origin and Fate of NOx in the Arctic Atmosphere Using Stable Isotopes in Nitrate

Atmospheric nitrogen oxides (NOx =NO+ NO2) play a pivotal role in the cycling of reactive nitrogen (ultimately deposited as nitrate) and the oxidative capacity of the atmosphere. Combined measurements of nitrogen and oxygen stable isotope ratios of nitrate collected in the Arctic atmosphere were used to infer the origin and fate of NOx and nitrate on a seasonal basis. In spring, photochemically driven emissions of reactive nitrogen from the snowpack into the atmosphere make local oxidation of NOx by bromine oxide the major contributor to the nitrate budget. The comprehensive isotopic composition of nitrate provides strong constraints on the relative importance of the key atmospheric oxidants in the present atmosphere, with the potential for extension into the past using ice cores.
Incremental code relaying in a location aware wireless relay network

In wireless networks, designing transmission schemes adapting to time varying channel conditions is key to achieve better spectral efficiency. The design of such schemes for multi-hop wireless networks requires coordination among nodes in the network, which is achieved through feedback between nodes. Spectral efficiency can be improved for such networks by designing transmission schemes with limited feedback. Incremental code relaying (ICR) with implicit feedback proposed previously is one that mitigates the use of feedback link. In this paper, location-aware ICR with power allocation is proposed that dynamically makes the routing decisions based on the link that offers the maximum capacity. Theoretical upper bounds for bit-error rate (BER) is derived and is verified by the simulation results, yielding further insight to the proposed scheme.
Sleep and Wake Disorders Following Traumatic Brain Injury: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Reprinted from Critical Reviews™ in Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine, Vol 21, Issues 3-4, C. Wiseman-Hakes, A. Colanto-nio, & J. Gargaro, Sleep and wake disorders following traumatic brain injury: A systematic review, pp. 317-374, Copyright 2009, with permission from Begell House, Inc.
Encoding of certain LDPC codes with decoding resources

This paper addresses the issue of encoding of LDPC codes for certain transmission standards that employ LDPC as coding scheme. It is shown that for these LDPC codes, the encoding can be done simply by reusing decoding resources with negligible overhead. Compared to conventional encoding designs, our approach requires much less resources specified for encoder.