Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On the delay effects of different channels in Internet-based networked control systems

The sensor-to-controller and the controller-to-actuator delays in networked control systems (NCSs) are investigated for the first time with respect to their different effects on the system performance. This study starts with identifying the delay-independent and delay-dependent control laws in NCSs, and confirms that only two delay-dependent control laws can cause different delay effects in different channels. The conditions under which the different delays in different channels can cause different effects are then given for both delay-dependent control laws. The results are verified by numerical examples. Potentially, these results can be regarded as important design principles in the practical implementation of NCSs.
Cyclic AMP-independent activation of transcription factor NF-kappa B in HL60 cells by tumor necrosis factors alpha and beta

No correlation exists in HL60 cells between NF-kappa B activation by tumor necrosis factor (TNF alpha) and TNF beta and intracellular levels of cyclic AMP. Cyclic AMP levels did not increase upon treatment of cells with each of these cytokines, although NF-kappa B was activated. Forskolin or 1-isobutyl-3-methylxanthine drastically increased intracellular levels of cyclic AMP, but neither activated NF-kappa B nor influenced TNF-induced NF-kappa B activation.
Long-period rhythmic synchronous firing in a scale-free network

Significance Understanding the mechanisms of how neural systems process temporal information is at the core to elucidate brain functions, such as for speech recognition and music appreciation. The present study investigates a simple yet effective mechanism for a neural system to extract the rhythmic information of external inputs in the order of seconds. We propose that a large-size neural network with scale-free topology is like a repertoire, which consists of a large number of loops and chains with various sizes, and these loops and chains serve as substrates to learn the rhythms of external inputs. Stimulus information is encoded in the spatial-temporal structures of external inputs to the neural system. The ability to extract the temporal information of inputs is fundamental to brain function. It has been found that the neural system can memorize temporal intervals of visual inputs in the order of seconds. Here we investigate whether the intrinsic dynamics of a large-size neural circuit alone can achieve this goal. The network models we consider have scale-free topology and the property that hub neurons are difficult to be activated. The latter is implemented by either including abundant electrical synapses between neurons or considering chemical synapses whose efficacy decreases with the connectivity of the postsynaptic neuron. We find that hub neurons trigger synchronous firing across the network, loops formed by low-degree neurons determine the rhythm of synchronous firing, and the hardness of exciting hub neurons avoids epileptic firing of the network. Our model successfully reproduces the experimentally observed rhythmic synchronous firing with long periods and supports the notion that the neural system can process temporal information through the dynamics of local circuits in a distributed way.
Building a Usable Hegelian Inquiring System

paper describes the design of a working prototype of the Hegelian Inquiring System, as described by Churchman (3), using the triangulation methods specified by Denzin (5). This system will aid its users in finding documents, articles, blogs and other sources about a certain subject s/he queried and searches for other sources, searches for the author, gets information about the document's website, and so on. The goal of this system is to give the user the means to check the reliability of found articles. We also test the system's usability and whether users are satisfied with its user interface.
Circle Fitting to Overcome Vignetting Effect of Afocal Tracking System

A focal tracking system is a tracing system that tracks a special marker called a focal marker. The cameras of a focal tracking system obtain images including bokeh which is shown from the a focal marker. Finding accurate center of bokeh is important for high precision position tracking of a focal marker. However, a focal tracking system suffers from vignetting effect which makes it difficult to find the accurate center of the bokeh. In this paper, a method to find the accurate center of the bokeh is introduced which can improve the accuracy of a focal tracking system.
False Positive Results of Mitochondrial DNA Depletion/Deletion due to Single Nucleotide Substitutions Causing Appearance of Additional PvuII Restriction Sites

Human mitochondrial diseases are usually caused by dysfunction of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), particularly by point mutations, deletions, or depletions. In commonly used procedures for molecular diagnostics of mitochondrial dysfunction, one of the first steps is linearization of circular mitochondrial genomes with either BamHI or PvuII restriction endonulease, which cuts human mtDNA at a unique site. Here, we describe a case of false positive results, which suggested mtDNA depletion or a large deletion in a patient's tissue sample. More detailed analysis (mtDNA sequencing) revealed that these false positive results were caused by the presence of the 12753A>G substitution in the gene coding for NADH dehydrogenase subunit 5 (ND5). This substitution results in no change in amino acid sequence of the gene product but creates an additional PvuII site. Investigating a population of 200 patients not affected by mitochondrial diseases, we found an additional case of 12753A>G, and also another substitution, 12804T>C, which also results in no change in amino acid sequence of ND5 but creates an additional PvuII site. A few cases of 12753A>G and 12804T>C substitutions were found previously in Asian, American, African, and European populations (though they were not reported to date in the MITOMAP), but those samples were used in population studies and not tested for mtDNA deletion or depletion. Therefore, we present a cautionary report indicating that these mtDNA polymorphisms exist in various human populations (and thus, they are panethnic) and may cause false positive results of standard molecular analyses, including molecular diagnostics, of human mtDNA.
Investigating the Effectiveness of Spatial Frequencies to the Left and Right of Central Vision during Reading: Evidence from Reading Times and Eye Movements

Printed words are complex visual stimuli containing a range of different spatial frequencies, and several studies have suggested that various spatial frequencies are effective for skilled adult reading. But while it is well known that the area of text from which information is acquired during reading extends to the left and right of each fixation, the effectiveness of spatial frequencies falling each side of fixation has yet to be determined. To investigate this issue, we used a spatial frequency adaptation of the gaze-contingent moving-window paradigm in which sentences were shown to skilled adult readers either entirely as normal or filtered to contain only low, medium, or high spatial frequencies except for a window of normal text around each point of fixation. Windows replaced filtered text either symmetrically 1 character to the left and right of each fixated character, or asymmetrically, 1 character to the left and 7 or 13 to the right, or 1 character to the right and 7 or 13 to the left. Reading times and eye-movement measures showed that reading performance for sentences presented entirely as normal generally changed very little with filtered displays when windows extended to the right but was often disrupted when windows extended to the left. However, asymmetrical windows affected performance on both sides of fixation. Indeed, increasing the leftward extent of windows from 7 to 13 characters produced decreases in both reading times and fixation durations, suggesting that reading was influenced by the spatial frequency content of leftward areas of text some considerable distance from fixation. Overall, the findings show that while a range of different spatial frequencies can be used by skilled adult readers, the effectiveness of spatial frequencies differs for text on each side of central vision, and may reflect different roles played by these two areas of text during reading.
Trauma primes cells.

Trauma induces many dramatic and complex changes in host cellular response. This complexity arises from the constellation of signals induced by stress, infection, and injury. Cellular priming, defined as altered response to an agonist induced by an antecedent stimulus, appears to be operative after trauma. If the interaction between two signalling pathways is such that one augments (or depresses) the other, subsequent stimulation of the second "primed" pathway can result in an exaggerated (or attenuated) response. Thus, trauma can prime cells in either a constructive or destructive fashion. Receptor stimulation by priming agents results in the activation of receptor-specific cell signalling pathways. These intracellular signalling pathways can "crosstalk" modifying each other in either a positive of negative fashion. The positive or negative character of interpathway crosstalk eventually manifests itself physiologically as constructive or destructive priming. Could the characteristics of the initial priming predict the sense of the final cellular message? Although the magnitude of both the priming stimulus and subsequent stimuli are important, the temporal relationship between the two stimuli as well as the positive or negative character of their interacting signal pathways need to be considered. It is unclear whether any one characteristic alone determines the sense of the priming effect. In general, it is the interaction of two stimuli with a cell at all three levels (magnitude, character, and temporal relationship) that dictates the final cellular response.
Statistical verification of the repeatability regimes at model of the bell furnace

Part of the research of steel coils annealing process was physical model of the bell furnace design. The contribution deals with the verification of the suitability of created object, furnace, in terms of the annealing regimes repeatability. Statistical methods are used for verification. A common method for time series comparison is comparing of the time series values in corresponding sections. The task is complicated by the nature of the physical model, in which heating is by electrical spirals. It is needed time series transformation before the time series values comparison. The transformation procedure consists of smoothening of the time series and adjusting of the working start point. In this publication we will discuss optimization of the moving average sequence, which is used to smooth the time series.
Enhancing Nash Q-learning and Team Q-learning mechanisms by using bottlenecks

Nash Q-learning and team Q-learning are extended versions of reinforcement learning method for using in Multi-agent systems as cooperation mechanisms. The complexity of multi-agent reinforcement learning systems is extremely high thus it is necessary to use complexity reduction methods like hierarchical structures, abstraction and task decomposition. A typical approach for the latter to define subtasks is based on extracting bottlenecks. In this paper, bottlenecks are automatically extracted to create temporally extended actions which are in turn added to available agent's actions in cooperation mechanisms of multi- agent systems. The updating equations of team Q-learning and Nash Q-learning are extended in such a way to involve temporally extended actions. In this way the performance of learning in team Q-learning and Nash Q-learning is considerably increased. The experimental results show an interesting improvement in the process of learning of cooperation mechanisms being augmented by extracted temporally actions in multi-agent problems.
Quick torque ripple suppression controlled fast position servo based on hybrid system of disturbance observer and torque ripple table

In the field of high-precision position control, the position response requires that there is no vibration. However, a permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) has a wide variety of torque-ripple components, including cogging torque and flux harmonics, which degrade the control performance. Typically, these components are defined as a disturbance torque, and compensation is accomplished by using a disturbance observer. However, a disturbance observer uses a low-pass filter for noise reduction, and it causes phase and amplitude shifts in an estimated value. As a result, it is not possible to perform the appropriate compensation. This paper considers a new structure of disturbance observer based on a zero-order disturbance observer and torque ripple table. It is possible to accurately estimate the instantaneous disturbance torque by using the proposed disturbance observer. The effectiveness of the proposed disturbance observer is confirmed by numerical and experimental results.
Author retrospective for optimum modulo schedules for minimum register requirements

1. Origins Modulo Scheduling is an approach to scheduling loops where successive iterations of a given loop are initiated at a constant rate using the same instruction schedule for each iteration. This scheduling approach was inspired by work on designing hardware pipelines that maximizes the throughput of a single function pipeline. In this earlier work, the resource pattern of the single pipeline was optimized; namely, when given enough buffers, stages could be delayed, so as to achieve an optimal throughput[1]. This work formalized the resource optimization problem using reservation tables, which had one row per resource and one column per time unit modulo the period of the initiation sequence [1].
A Gm-C complex IF filter using fully differential transconductor for dual-mode GNSS receiver

A fourth-order Butterworth active Gm-C complex IF filter for dual-mode GNSS receiver is presented. This filter operates at center frequency of 7.161MHz and in bandwidth of 4MHz with pass-band gain of over 10dB and image rejection of over 35dB, which meets requirements of BD2 and Galileo Systems. The proposed CMOS fully differential transconductor has wide tuning range, high linearity and low power dissipation. The theoretical and simulation results are in good agreement.
Population-wide generalizability of genome-wide discovered associations.

JNCI | Editorials 1297 Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have started revealing hundreds of associations between genetic variants and phenotypes ( 1 , 2 ). Most associations have robust statistical support in the populations where they have been examined. However, almost all GWAS published to date were performed in populations of European ancestry, and the replication efforts in the original publications also focused primarily on similar populations. Are these discovered associations relevant for populations of different ancestry? In this issue, a study by Yamada et al. ( 3 ) evaluated in Japanese participants 23 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that had been identifi ed in the GWAS era. Of those, 16 had emerged originally from studies of European descent populations, two from African descent populations, and fi ve from studies addressing diverse populations. Seven of these 23 SNPs (fi ve independent loci) showed nominally statistically signifi cant associations ( P < .05) with prostate cancer risk in the Japanese population. The other 16 SNPs were not associated with prostate cancer risk, and in fi ve of those, the point estimates of the odds ratios (ORs) were in opposite direction than previously described. Do these results herald extensive nonreplication vs the original discoveries? Not necessarily. One can estimate the power of Yamada et al. (311 case patients and 1035 control subjects) to detect ORs similar to those previously found, given the allele frequencies observed in the Japanese population. I used the per-allele ORs found in European descent populations ( 1 , 4 , 5 ) in 21 previously evaluated SNPs for a comparison against the Japanese data ( Figure 1 ). Estimated power ( 6 ) at alpha value of . 05 ranges from almost 0% for rs4962416, which has a 1% risk allele frequency in the Japanese population, to practically 100% for rs16901979, for which the previously proposed OR was large (1.79) and the risk allele frequency in the Japanese population is 19%. If we sum the power estimates for all SNPs to detect the respective ORs previously seen in European descent participants, we can estimate that if ORs were identical in the Japanese population,
Detecting Swiching Points and Mode of Transport from GPS Tracks

In recent years, various researches are under progress to enhance the quality of the travel survey. These researches were mainly performed with the aid of GPS technology. Initially the researches were mainly focused on the vehicle travel mode due to the availability of GPS technology in vehicle. But, nowadays due to the accessible of GPS devices for personal uses, researchers have diverted their focus on personal mobility in all travel modes.This master’s thesis aimed at developing a mechanism to extract one type of travel survey information particularly travel mode from collected GPS dataset. The available GPS dataset is collected for travel modes of walk, bike, car, and public transport travel modes such as bus, train and subway.The developed procedure consists of two stages where the first is the dividing the track trips into trips and further the trips into segments by means of a segmentation process. The segmentation process is based on an assumption that a traveler switches from one transportation mode to the other. Thus, the trips are divided into walking and non walking segments.The second phase comprises a procedure to develop a classification model to infer the separated segments with travel modes of walk, bike, bus, car, train and subway. In order to develop the classification model, a supervised classification method has been used where decision tree algorithm is adopted.The highest obtained prediction accuracy of the classification system is walk travel mode with 75.86%. In addition, the travel modes of bike and bus have shown the lowest prediction accuracy. Moreover, the developed system has showed remarkable results that could be used as baseline for further similar researches.
Escherichia coli CreBC Is a Global Regulator of Gene Expression That Responds to Growth in Minimal Media*

We have identified nine genes, the expression of which are regulated by the CreBC two-component system: the first members of the cre regulon. They are divided into eight transcriptional units, each having a promoter-proximal TTCACnnnnnnTTCAC “cre-tag” motif. The cre regulon genes are: theackA/pta operon, the products of which collectively catalyze the conversion of acetyl-CoA into acetate and ATP; talA, which encodes an enzyme involved in the mobilization of glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate into the pentose phosphate pathway; radC, which encodes a RecG-like DNA recombination/repair function; malE, which is the first gene in the malEFG maltose transporter operon;trgB, which encodes an ADP-ribose pyrophosphorylase; and three other genes, creD, yidS andyieI, the products of which have not been assigned a function. Expression of each of these cre regulon genes is induced via CreBC during growth in minimal media, with the exception ofmalE, which is more tightly repressed. The diverse functions encoded by the cre regulon suggest that CreBC is a global regulator that sits right at the heart of metabolic control inEscherichia coli.
New understanding of the complex structure of knee menisci: Implications for injury risk and repair potential for athletes

Menisci help maintain the structural integrity of the knee. However, the poor healing potential of the meniscus following a knee injury can not only end a career in sports but lead to osteoarthritis later in life. Complete understanding of meniscal structure is essential for evaluating its risk for injury and subsequent successful repair. This study used novel approaches to elucidate meniscal architecture. The radial and circumferential collagen fibrils in the meniscus were investigated using novel tissue‐preparative techniques for light and electron microscopic studies. The results demonstrate a unique architecture based on differences in the packaging of the fundamental collagen fibrils. For radial arrays, the collagen fibrils are arranged in parallel into ∼10 μm bundles, which associate laterally to form flat sheets of varying dimensions that bifurcate and come together to form a honeycomb network within the body of the meniscus. In contrast, the circumferential arrays display a complex network of collagen fibrils arranged into ∼5 μm bundles. Interestingly, both types of architectural organization of collagen fibrils in meniscus are conserved across mammalian species and are age and sex independent. These findings imply that disruptions in meniscal architecture following an injury contribute to poor prognosis for functional repair.
The rise and decline of nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug-associated gastropathy in rheumatoid arthritis.

OBJECTIVE Nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug (NSAID)-associated gastropathy is a major cause of hospitalization and death. This study was undertaken to examine whether recent preventive approaches have been associated with a declining incidence of NSAID gastropathy, and, if so, what measures may have caused the decline. METHODS We studied 5,598 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) over 31,262 patient-years at 8 sites. We obtained standardized longitudinal information on the patients that had been previously used to establish the incidence of NSAID gastropathy, and also information on patient risk factors and differences in toxicity between NSAIDs. Consecutive patients were followed up with biannual Health Assessment Questionnaires and medical record audits between 1981 and 2000. The major outcome measure was the annual rate of hospitalization involving bleeding, obstruction, or perforation of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract and related conditions. RESULTS Rates of GI-related hospitalizations rose from 0.6% in 1981 to 1.5% in 1992 (P < 0.001), and then declined to 0.5% in 2000 (P < 0.001). The fitted spline curve fit the data well (R2 = 0.70). The period of rise was mainly associated with increasing patient age and the GI risk propensity score. The period of decline was associated with lower doses of ibuprofen and aspirin, a decline in the use of "more toxic" NSAIDs from 52% to 42% of patients, a rise in the use of "safer" NSAIDs from 19% to 48% of patients, and increasing use of proton-pump inhibitors, but not with change in age, NSAID exposure, or GI risk propensity score. CONCLUSION The risk of serious NSAID gastropathy has declined by 67% in these cohorts since 1992. We estimate that 24% of this decline was the result of lower doses of NSAIDs, while 18% was associated with the use of proton-pump inhibitors and 14% with the use of less toxic NSAIDs. These declines in the incidence of NSAID gastropathy are likely to continue.