Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Possible roles for Wnt genes in growth and axial patterning during regeneration of the tail in urodele amphibians

Urodele amphibians are nearly the only adult vertebrates able to regenerate their missing or amputated tail. An interesting aspect of this biological model lies in the ability of regenerates to differentiate the spinal cord (SC), the vertebral cartilage, and muscles. The main questions addressed in this study concern the possible roles of Wnt genes in these regenerative processes. We have previously reported the expression pattern of a Pleurodeles Waltl wnt‐10a gene (Pwnt‐10a) in tail blastema (Caubit et al. [1997] Dev. Dyn. 208:139–148). We report here the cloning and tissue distribution of three additional Wnt genes (Pwnt‐5a, Pwnt‐5b, and Pwnt‐7a) in adult and regenerating tail tissues and in the central nervous system (CNS) of adult newt. In adult and regenerating tails, Pwnt‐5a and Pwnt‐5b transcripts exhibit a graded distribution along the antero‐posterior (A‐P) axis, the maximal accumulation of these transcripts being detected in the mesenchyme within the subectodermal apical region of the normal tail and blastema. In contrast to Pwnt‐5a and Pwnt‐5b, Pwnt‐7a is expressed in adult normal tail skin and in the epidermis of the regenerating tail. In the adult CNS, Pwnt‐5a, Pwnt‐5b, Pwnt‐7a, and Pwnt‐10a genes are expressed in sharp overlapping but not identical domains along the A‐P axis. The sustained expression of Wnt genes in the adult newt and the spatial distribution of transcripts in adult and regenerating tail tissues suggest roles of these genes in continuous growth capacities in the urodeles and may explain the ability for CNS and tail regeneration. Dev. Dyn. 1997;210:1–10. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Murine anti-GD2 monoclonal antibody 3F8 combined with granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor and 13-cis-retinoic acid in high-risk patients with stage 4 neuroblastoma in first remission.

PURPOSE Anti-GD2 monoclonal antibody (MoAb) combined with granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) has shown efficacy against neuroblastoma (NB). Prognostic variables that could influence clinical outcome were explored. PATIENTS AND METHODS One hundred sixty-nine children diagnosed with stage 4 NB (1988 to 2008) were enrolled onto consecutive anti-GD2 murine MoAb 3F8 ± GM-CSF ± 13-cis-retinoic acid (CRA) protocols after achieving first remission (complete remission/very good partial remission). Patients enrolled in regimen A (n = 43 high-risk [HR] patients) received 3F8 alone; regimen B (n = 41 HR patients), 3F8 + intravenous GM-CSF + CRA, after stem-cell transplantation (SCT); and regimen C (n = 85), 3F8 + subcutaneous GM-CSF + CRA, 46 of 85 after SCT, whereas 28 of 85 required additional induction therapy and were deemed ultra high risk (UHR). Marrow minimal residual disease (MRD) was measured by quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. Survival probability was calculated by the Kaplan-Meier method, and prognostic variables were analyzed by multivariate Cox regression model. RESULTS At 5 years from the start of immunotherapy, progression-free survival (PFS) improved from 44% for HR patients receiving regimen A to 56% and 62% for those receiving regimens B and C, respectively. Overall survival (OS) was 49%, 61%, and 81%, respectively. PFS and OS of UHR patients were 36% and 75%, respectively. Relapse was mostly at isolated sites. Independent adverse prognostic factors included UHR (PFS) and post-cycle two MRD (PFS and OS), whereas the prognostic factors for improved outcome were missing killer immunoglobulin-like receptor ligand (PFS and OS), human antimouse antibody response (OS), and regimen C (OS). CONCLUSION Retrospective analysis of consecutive trials from a single center demonstrated that MoAb 3F8 + GM-CSF + CRA is effective against chemotherapy-resistant marrow MRD. Its positive impact on long-term survival can only be confirmed definitively by randomized studies.
Two-Step Downscaling of Trmm 3b43 V7 Precipitation in Contrasting Climatic Regions With Sparse Monitoring: The Case of Ecuador in Tropical South America

Spatial prediction of precipitation with high resolution is a challenging task in regions with strong climate variability and scarce monitoring. For this purpose, the quasi-continuous supply of information from satellite imagery is commonly used to complement in situ data. However, satellite images of precipitation are available at coarse resolutions, and require adequate methods for spatial downscaling and calibration. The objective of this paper is to introduce and evaluate a 2-step spatial downscaling approach for monthly precipitation applied to TRMM 3B43 (from 0 . 25 ∘ ≈ 27 km to 5 km resolution), resulting in 5 downscaled products for the period 01-2001/12-2011. The methodology was evaluated in 3 contrasting climatic regions of Ecuador. In step 1, bilinear resampling was applied over TRMM, and used as a reference product. The second step introduces further variability, and consists of four alternative gauge-satellite merging methods: (1) regression with in situ stations, (2) regression kriging with in situ stations, (3) regression with in situ stations and auxiliary variables, and (4) regression kriging with in situ stations and auxiliary variables. The first 2 methods only use the resampled TRMM data set as an independent variable. The last 2 methods enrich these models with auxiliary environmental factors, incorporating atmospheric and land variables. The results showed that no product outperforms the others in every region. In general, the methods with residual kriging correction outperformed the regression models. Regression kriging with situ data provided the best representation in the Coast, while regression kriging with in situ and auxiliary data generated the best results in the Andes. In the Amazon, no product outperformed the resampled TRMM images, probably due to the low density of in situ stations. These results are relevant to enhance satellite precipitation, depending on the availability of in situ data, auxiliary satellite variables and the particularities of the climatic regions.
Consensus based distributed joint power and routing optimization in wireless sensor networks

This paper proposes a fast distributed optimization algorithm for total transmit power minimization in single-sink data gathering wireless sensor networks. Many of the existing decentralized optimization algorithms addressing cross-layer design over the physical and network layer are based on dual decomposition. Our design includes joint power and routing optimization with given source rates by using consensus mechanism in conjunction with alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). Thus, the problem is decoupled across the nodes via introducing local copies of the variables, which are then iteratively driven into consensus with the ADMM. By the numerical experiments, the proposed distributed algorithm is shown to converge significantly faster to near optimal solutions with a small amount of local variable exchange as compared to the existing methods based on the dual decomposition.
The Factorization Algorithm of Berlekamp and Zassenhaus

We formalize the Berlekamp-Zassenhaus algorithm for factoring square-free integer polynomials in Isabelle/HOL. We further adapt an existing formalization of Yun’s square-free factorization algorithm to integer polynomials, and thus provide an efficient and certified factorization algorithm for arbitrary univariate polynomials. The algorithm first performs a factorization in the prime field GF(p) and then performs computations in the integer ring modulo p, where both p and k are determined at runtime. Since a natural modeling of these structures via dependent types is not possible in Isabelle/HOL, we formalize the whole algorithm using Isabelle’s recent addition of local type definitions. Through experiments we verify that our algorithm factors polynomials of degree 100 within seconds.
Disruption of a long-range cis-acting regulator for Shh causes preaxial polydactyly

Preaxial polydactyly (PPD) is a common limb malformation in human. A number of polydactylous mouse mutants indicate that misexpression of Shh is a common requirement for generating extra digits. Here we identify a translocation breakpoint in a PPD patient and a transgenic insertion site in the polydactylous mouse mutant sasquatch (Ssq). The genetic lesions in both lie within the same respective intron of the LMBR1/Lmbr1 gene, which resides ≈1 Mb away from Shh. Genetic analysis of Ssq reveals that the Lmbr1 gene is incidental to the phenotype and that the mutation directly interrupts a cis-acting regulator of Shh. This regulator is most likely the target for generating PPD mutations in human.
A kerfless 30 MHz linear ultrasonic array

In this study a 30 MHz kerfless linear array design was developed and was compared to a 30 MHz piezo-composite array of identical dimensions. A 2-D finite element model (PZFlex) was used to optimize and compare the performance of both arrays. The modeled results suggested that the kerfless array with two matching layers would have a two-way single element sensitivity 7 dB greater than that of the composite array with one acoustic matching layer. However analysis of one-way directivity patterns for single array elements showed a significant reduction in acceptance angle for the kerfless design due to the expected increase in electromechanical crosstalk. The modeled -6 dB acceptance angles were 28o and 50o for the kerfless array element and composite array element, respectively. Based upon these encouraging results kerfless and composite 30 MHz arrays were fabricated and tested. On average the sensitivity of the kerfless array echo response was only 0.8 dB higher than that of the composite array. The average echo center frequency and bandwidth was slightly higher than that of the composite array, whereas the maximum measured crosstalk for the kerfless array was 14 dB larger than that of the composite array. As expected, this crosstalk increase resulted in a reduction of element acceptance angle. The measured -6dB acceptance angle was 22o for the kerfless array and 35o for the composite array. Based upon these results it is expected that kerfless array technology will provide a viable alternate for high frequency linear array designs but should be considered only when an adequate composite is not available.
The therapeutic potential of small-conductance KCa2 channels in neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases

Introduction: KCa2 or small-conductance Ca2+-activated K+ channels (SK) are expressed in many areas of the central nervous system where they participate in the regulation of neuronal afterhyperpolarization and excitability, and also serve as negative feedback regulators on the glutamate-NMDA pathway. Areas covered: This review focuses on the role of KCa2 channels in learning and memory and their potential as therapeutic targets for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, ataxia, schizophrenia and alcohol dependence. Expert opinion: There currently exists relatively solid evidence supporting the use of KCa2 activators for ataxia. Genetic KCa2 channel suppression in deep cerebellar neurons induces ataxia, while KCa2 activators like 1-EBIO, SKA-31 and NS13001 improve motor deficits in mouse models of episodic ataxia (EA) and spinal cerebellar ataxia (SCA). Use of KCa2 activators for ataxia is further supported by a report that riluzole improves ataxia in a small clinical trial. Based on accumulating literature evidence, KCa2 activators further appear attractive for the treatment of alcohol dependence and withdrawal. Regarding Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and schizophrenia, further research, including long-term studies in disease relevant animal models, will be needed to determine whether KCa2 channels constitute valid targets and whether activators or inhibitors would be needed to positively affect disease outcomes.
Compact speech decoder based on pure functional programming

Current speech recognition systems are implemented using very large and complex programs. This makes it difficult to learn such systems and test a new idea in speech recognition that requires program modification. Therefore, a compact system suitable for educational and prototyping purposes is required. We developed a very compact speech decoder based on pure functional programming, which has been studied in software engineering as a means to describe complex systems in a highly abstracted manner. The decoder is based on weighted finite state transducer and is described using less than 400 lines of codes. The performance of the decoder is demonstrated with large vocabulary continuous speech recognition experiments using a trigram language model and a cross-word triphone hidden Markov model.
Case study: electroconvulsive therapy in adolescents.

OBJECTIVE Recognizing the limited experience with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in adolescent psychiatric patients, the authors evaluated the efficacy, indications, and benefit of the treatment in this population. METHOD The records of patients in the ECT rosters at University Hospital at Stony Brook between 1983 and 1993 were reviewed. Thirteen adolescents between the ages of 16 and 18 years who received ECT were identified. ECT followed the institution's standard adult protocol. RESULTS Ten patients were evaluated as responders, and three as nonresponders. Patients with diagnoses of an affective illness, unspecified psychosis, and catatonia benefited the most. Some improvements were seen in the patients with schizophrenia. Eight patients (62%) were contacted by telephone for follow-up. Five remain asymptomatic 3 years after the treatment, and three relapsed within 12 months despite maintenance pharmacotherapy. CONCLUSION Within the limitation of record review and partial follow-up, ECT was found to be an effective and useful procedure in the treatment of adolescents with severe psychiatric disorders.
Statistical analysis of bilingual speaker's speech for cross-language voice conversion.

The goal of cross-language voice conversion is to preserve the speech characteristics of one speaker when that speaker's speech is translated and used to synthesize speech in another language. In this paper, two preliminary studies, i.e., a statistical analysis of spectrum differences in different languages and the first attempt at a cross-language voice conversion, are reported. Speech uttered by a bilingual speaker is analyzed to examine spectrum difference between English and Japanese. Experimental results are (1) the codebook size for mixed speech from English and Japanese should be almost twice the codebook size of either English or Japanese; (2) although many code vectors occurred in both English and Japanese, some have a tendency to predominate in one language or the other; (3) code vectors that predominantly occurred in English are contained in the phonemes /r/, /ae/, /f/, /s/, and code vectors that predominantly occurred in Japanese are contained in /i/, /u/, /N/; and (4) judged from listening tests, listeners cannot reliably indicate the distinction between English speech decoded by a Japanese codebook and English speech decoded by an English codebook. A voice conversion algorithm based on codebook mapping was applied to cross-language voice conversion, and its performance was somewhat less effective than for voice conversion in the same language.
Output Interference in the Recall of Categorized and Paired-Associate Lists

Three experiments are reported in which, following presentation of a categorized list, subjects attempted recall of words within categories when given the category names as cues. Recall of words declined with the test position of the category. This output interference was not increased (a) when some items from each category were given as cues in addition to the category name (Experiment 1), (b) when the first categories recalled contained nine rather than three words (Experiment 2), and (c) when the categories in the list were semantically related rather than unrelated (Experiment 3). Interference in recall of categories tested later was not affected by the number of words recalled from prior categories. Output interference in paired-associ ate recall was obtained in a fourth experiment. These experiments indicate that the act of recall can itself serve as a source of forgetting. Implications of the results for several theories of recall are discussed. Several different lines of evidence have been used to show that one source of forgetting is the act of recall itself. (See Roediger, 1974, for a review.) The first systematic study of output interference was that of Tulving and Arbuckle (1963). They presented subjects with lists of 10 paired associates in which the digits 1-10 were the stimuli and common words were the responses. Subjects' recall was cued by the stimuli, with output order counterbalanced so that each stimulus occurred equally often at each output position. The primary finding was that recall of responses that had been presented in the initial serial positions of the input list did not vary with output position, but recall of responses presented late in the input sequence became increasingly poor across the output positions. Output interference was most dramatic for the last two or three items, but there was some evidence
Fusion of Panchromatic and Multispectral Images via Coupled Sparse Non-Negative Matrix Factorization

In this paper, we construct a new coupled sparse non-negative matrix factorization (CSNMF) model for the fusion of panchromatic (PAN) and multispectral (MS) images. Two CSNMFs are developed for a joint sparse representation of MS and PAN images. Moreover, a sequential iterative algorithm is proposed to simultaneously find the solution to CSNMF. Because learned dictionaries can reveal the latent structure of images in spatial and spectral domains, the fused high-resolution MS images can be calculated by multiplying the dictionary of PAN image and the sparse coefficients of MS images. Some experiments are taken on simulated and real QuickBird data, and the results show that CSNMF outperforms its counterparts in both visual quality and numerical guidelines.
Modeling the Quality and Quantity of Runoffin a Highly Urbanized Catchment UsingStorm Water Management Model

As urbanization increases, urban runoff becomes an increasingly more important component of urban non-point pollution. In this study, the Storm Water Management Model was used to simulate the quantity and quality of runoff in a highly urbanized catchment. Data from three rainfall events were collected and used for model calibration and validation. Model performance was assessed using the Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient, relative error, and coefficient of determination. The modified Morris screening method was used for local sensitivity analysis. Sensitivity analysis results showed that the destore imperv and condit roughness parameters had the most influence on the hydrology and hydraulic module. Road exponent was the most sensitive parameter in determining TSS quantity and peak concentration. The calibration and verification results indicated that the model structure and parameters fitted the runoff-producing pattern. The total simulation accuracies of TSS, TN, TP, and COD loads, as assessed by the R2 value, were 0.82, 0.87, 0.72, and 0.94, respectively.
MEMS-Based Selective Preconcentration of Trace Level Breath Analytes

This paper presents high-performance micropreconcentrators (muPCs) aimed at breath analysis and a method for eliminating unwanted species from breath samples by using a two-step preconcentration procedure. The muPC consists of embedded high aspect-ratio three-dimensional (3-D) micro pillars coated with an adsorbent polymer. The silicon-glass die has outer dimensions of 7 mm times 7 mm, total inner surface area of ~ 10 m2, and a total inner volume of ~ 6.5 muL. The muPC has on-chip thermal desorption capability and comprises more than 3500 micro pillars with dimensions of 30 mum times 120 mum times 240 mum. The preconcentration factor of the presented muPCs was measured to be above 10 000. Results showed the possibility of selective preconcentration by cascading multiple muPCs with temperature and flow control. The work presented here has profound implications for handheld point-of-care breath analysis instrumentation by first concentrating trace levels of VOCs found in human breath undergoing anesthesia such as n-decane (C10), n-dodecane (C12), 2,6-diisopropylphenol (Propofol), n-tetradecane (C14), and n-hexadecane (C16). Second, it succeeded in eliminating water-like solvent (1-propanol) from the sample to be analyzed. Third, it selectively preconcentrated target compound such as Propofol which is used for medical procedures. The relative concentration of Propofol to C14 was changed from 50% (with one muPC ) to 99.8% (with cascaded muPC). The water-like solvent was also eliminated by 99.9%.
Spill Detection and Perimeter Surveillance via Distributed Swarming Agents

The problem of perimeter detection and monitoring has a variety of applications. In this paper, a hybrid system of finite states is proposed for multiple autonomous robotic agents with the purpose of hazardous spill perimeter detection and tracking. In the system, each robotic agent is assumed to be in one of three states: searching, pursuing, and tracking. The agents are prioritized based on their states, and a potential field is constructed for agents in each state. For an agent in the tracking state, the agent's location and velocity as well as those of its closest leading and trailing agents are utilized to control its movement. The convergence of the tracking algorithm is analyzed for multiple spills under certain conditions. Simulation and experiment results show that with the proposed method, the agents can successfully detect and track the spills of various shapes, sizes, and movements.
Development of Driver Model for Lane Keeping Manoeuvre

This paper presents a 9-degree of freedom (9-DOF) vehicle model combined with a closed-loop driver model for the purpose of developing vehicle lateral control. The driver model was developed to control the steering angle and uses a lookup table path as a reference for the control input. The proposed driver model for the outer-loop controllers are combination of proportional-integral (PI) control with a yaw effect adaptive fuzzy logic control. The outer-loop controllers were evaluated by simulation using predefined path for lane keeping manoeuvre at 80 km/h constant speeds. The simulation results show that the proposed driver model is capable of improving Y-axis trajectory error and Y-axis trajectory manoeuvres significantly.
Treatment of uncertainty using ensemble methods: Comparison of sequential data assimilation and Bayesian model averaging

Predictive uncertainty analysis in hydrologic modeling has become an active area of research, the goal being to generate meaningful error bounds on model predictions. State‐space filtering methods, such as the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF), have shown the most flexibility to integrate all sources of uncertainty. However, predictive uncertainty analyses are typically carried out using a single conceptual mathematical model of the hydrologic system, rejecting a priori valid alternative plausible models and possibly underestimating uncertainty in the model itself. Methods based on Bayesian model averaging (BMA) have also been proposed in the statistical and meteorological literature as a means to account explicitly for conceptual model uncertainty. The present study compares the performance and applicability of the EnKF and BMA for probabilistic ensemble streamflow forecasting, an application for which a robust comparison of the predictive skills of these approaches can be conducted. The results suggest that for the watershed under consideration, BMA cannot achieve a performance matching that of the EnKF method.