Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Inferior Temporal Neurons Show Greater Sensitivity to Nonaccidental than to Metric Shape Differences

It has long been known that macaque inferior temporal (IT) neurons tend to fire more strongly to some shapes than to others, and that different IT neurons can show markedly different shape preferences. Beyond the discovery that these preferences can be elicited by features of moderate complexity, no general principle of (nonface) object recognition had emerged by which this enormous variation in selectivity could be understood. Psychophysical, as well as computational work, suggests that one such principle is the difference between viewpoint-invariant, nonaccidental (NAP) and view-dependent, metric shape properties (MPs). We measured the responses of single IT neurons to objects differing in either a NAP (namely, a change in a geon) or an MP of a single part, shown at two orientations in depth. The cells were more sensitive to changes in NAPs than in MPs, even though the image variation (as assessed by wavelet-like measures) produced by the former were smaller than the latter. The magnitude of the response modulation from the rotation itself was, on average, similar to that produced by the NAP differences, although the image changes from the rotation were much greater than that produced by NAP differences. Multidimensional scaling of the neural responses indicated a NAP/MP dimension, independent of an orientation dimension. The present results thus demonstrate that a significant portion of the neural code of IT cells represents differences in NAPs rather than MPs. This code may enable immediate recognition of novel objects at new views.
Segregation of form, color, and stereopsis in primate area 18

Primate visual cortical area 18 (visual area 2), when stained for the enzyme cytochrome oxidase, shows a pattern of alternating dark and light stripes; in squirrel monkeys, the dark stripes are clearly of 2 alternating types, thick and thin. We have recorded from these 3 subdivisions in macaques and squirrel monkeys, and find that each has distinctive physiological properties: (1) Cells in one set of dark stripes, in squirrel monkeys the thin stripes, are not orientation- selective; a high proportion show color-opponency. (2) Cells in the other set of dark stripes (thick stripes) are orientation-selective; most of them are also selective for binocular disparity, suggesting that they are concerned with stereoscopic depth. (3) Cells in the pale stripes are also orientation-selective and more than half of them are end-stopped. Each of the 3 subdivisions receives a different input from area 17: the thin stripes from the blobs, the pale stripes from the interblobs, the thick stripes from layer 4B. The pale stripes are thus part of the parvocellular system, and the thick stripes part of the magnocellular system. The physiological properties of the cells in the thin and pale stripes reflect the properties of their antecedent cells in 17, but nevertheless exhibit differences that suggest the kinds of processing that might occur at this stage.
Using Dyes for Evaluating Photocatalytic Properties: A Critical Review

This brief review aims at analyzing the use of dyestuffs for evaluating the photocatalytic properties of novel photocatalysts. It is shown that the use of dyes as predictors for photocatalytic activity has its roots in the pre visible-light activity era, when the aim was to treat effluents streams containing hazardous dyes. The main conclusion of this review is that, in general, dyes are inappropriate as model compounds for the evaluation of photocatalytic activity of novel photocatalysts claimed to operate under visible light. Their main advantage, the ability to use UV-Vis spectroscopy, is severely limited by a variety of factors, most of which are related to the presence of other species. The presence of a second mechanism, sensitization, diminishes the generality required from a model contaminant used for testing a novel photocatalyst. While it is recommended not to use dyes for general testing of novel photocatalysts, it is still understandable that a model system consisting of a dye and a semiconductor can be of large importance if the degradation of a specific dye is the main aim of the research, or, alternatively, if the abilities of a specific dye to induce the degradation of a different type of contaminant are under study.
Control of hopping speed and height over unknown rough terrain using a single actuator

We present a method for controlling the forward speed and the apex height of a one-legged hopping robot over rough terrain, using a single actuator located at the robot hip. The control algorithm is comprised of two elements, the forward speed control and the height control. The only input to the system is the torque applied by the hip actuator. The control is demonstrated to perform tracking of desired forward speed trajectories and desired apex height trajectories. Simulation and experimental results on the SAHR (Single Actuator Hopping Robot) experimental setup are presented and compared. It is shown that the robot follows both trajectories closely in simulation as well as in experiment. Also the robot is tested successfully on a rough terrain course, which includes inclined ground and an abrupt drop in height of over 25% the length of the robot leg. The robot has no knowledge of its environment. Further, the robot is made to run over the course a number of times, to demonstrate the control robustness.
The Virtual Library museums pages (VLmp) : Whence and whither?

The Virtual Library museums pages (VLmp) were started as a personal project in 1994, forming part of the Virtual Library distributed information repository initiated by the original inventors of the Web. The VLmp resource provides a leading directory of on-line museums and associated resources which has grown exponentially in size and use since its inception. In 1996 the directory was adopted by the International Council of Museums (ICOM), helping to ensure its long-term future. This presentation provides a brief history of the development and use of VLmp, and considers its possible future directions.
Tumor-Associated Macrophages and Neutrophils in Tumor Microenvironment

Distinct tumor microenvironment forms in each progression step of cancer and has diverse capacities to induce both adverse and beneficial consequences for tumorigenesis. It is now known that immune cells can be activated to favor tumor growth and progression, most probably influenced by the tumor microenvironment. Tumor-associated macrophages and tumor-associated neutrophils can exert protumoral functions, enhancing tumor cell invasion and metastasis, angiogenesis, and extracellular matrix remodeling, while inhibiting the antitumoral immune surveillance. Considering that neutrophils in inflammatory environments recruit macrophages and that recruited macrophages affect neutrophil functions, there may be various degrees of interaction between tumor-associated macrophages and tumor-associated neutrophils. Platelets also play an important role in the recruitment and regulation of monocytic and granulocytic cells in the tumor tissues, suggesting that platelet function may be essential for generation of tumor-associated macrophages and tumor-associated neutrophils. In this review, we will explore the biology of tumor-associated macrophages and tumor-associated neutrophils and their possible interactions in the tumor microenvironment. Special attention will be given to the recruitment and activation of these tumor-associated cells and to the roles they play in maintenance of the tumor microenvironment and progression of tumors.
Localized travelling waves in the asymptotic suction boundary layer

We present two spanwise-localized travelling-wave solutions in the asymptotic suction boundary layer, obtained by continuation of solutions of plane Couette flow. One of the solutions has the vortical structures located close to the wall, similar to spanwise-localized edge states previously found for this system. The vortical structures of the second solution are located in the free stream far above the laminar boundary layer and are supported by a secondary shear gradient that is created by a large-scale low-speed streak. The dynamically relevant eigenmodes of this solution are concentrated in the free stream, and the departure into turbulence from this solution evolves in the free stream towards the walls. For invariant solutions in free-stream turbulence, this solution thus shows that the source of energy of the vortical structures can be a dynamical structure of the solution itself, instead of the laminar boundary layer.
Probabilistic Power Allocation for Cognitive Radio Networks With Outage Constraints and One-Bit Side Information

In this paper, we study a spectrum sharing based cognitive radio network (CRN) where secondary users (SUs) share the same spectrum with a primary user (PU) over block fading channels. We assume complete perfect channel state information (CSI) at the SUs while only local instantaneous CSI is assumed at the PU. The PU is assumed to adopt an ON/OFF power allocation based on truncated channel inversion and convey this one-bit side information to all SUs. Based on these assumptions, we investigate the optimal probabilistic power allocation that seeks to maximize the system utilities for SUs subject to the primary interference power constraint, and the secondary rate outage constraints and the peak power constraints. The probabilistic power allocation problem was first reformulated as a non-convex deterministic power allocation problem. To handle the non-convex constraints, we proposed a successive convex approximation (SCA) algorithm that provides high-quality approximate solutions. Convergence analysis on the algorithm was also provided. To further reduce complexity, a decentralized version of the SCA algorithm was proposed. Extensive simulations validated our analyses and demonstrated that superior performance is indeed achieved by our proposed algorithms where the achieved utilities are close to the optimal values.
A hierarchical method for detecting codeclone

To improve the efficiency of the software system, the classifiers goes through the process of fine tunning on code clone detection. As code clone affects the software as a major factor in maintenance. This can be accomplished by finding simple clones. Once these simple codes have been fine tuned it can be detected. Because when the size of the simple clones increases in software, the execution time naturally increases. Detecting such clones can help in understanding design of the system for better maintenance and in reengineering for reuse.
A Modified Two Part Chromosome Crossover for Solving MTSP Using Genetic Algorithms

Multi-Traveling Salesman Problem (MTSP) an addition of salesman problem (TSP), wherever over one salesperson is allowed to be utilized in the solution for several production and planning applications. MTSP is a popular NP-hard problem, and it is used to solve many universal problems, such as routing, laying pipeline and railway transportation. The TSP has been well studied, including methods of solving the problem with genetic algorithms. This paper presented a brand new changed crossover operator named as modified Two-part chromosome Crossover (MTCX) for determination the MTSP employing a Genetic algorithm (GA) for nearby optimal solutions, where the optimal child for following level is selected by comparing the new child with the child chromosome generated from existing operators. The most objective of the proposed technique is to minimize the whole distance and to cut back the redundancies. The performance of MTCX is compared with the existing Crossover operator as TCX operators for total distance and a better result is obtained. The MATLAB is used for our proposed method implementation. To measure the performance of the proposed method, we use it not only to solve the MTSP but also to provide an extensive analysis on the impact it may have on the quality of the end result.
The Yuntech System in NTCIR-9 RITE Task

NTCIR-9 RITE task evaluates systems which automatically detect entailment, paraphrase, and contradiction in texts. The Yuntech team developed a preliminary system for the NTCIR-9 RITE task and was described in this paper. The major aim of this system was to determine the type of the relation of two sentences. A straightforward assumption was proposed for achieving this aim: the relation between two sentences was determined by the different parts between them instead of the identical parts. Therefore, we considered features including sentence lengths, the content of matched keywords, quantities of matched keywords, and their parts of speech to capture the difference between two sentences. Rule-based methods were implemented to develop the system according to the proposed assumption, and good performances were achieved for some types.
Fast fully automatic multiframe segmentation of left ventricle in cardiac MRI images using local adaptive k-means clustering and connected component labeling

This paper presents a sub-second fast fully automatic method for segmentation of the left ventricle (LV) from cardiac MRI images, which plays a vital role in the diagnosis of left ventricular function for the assessment of cardiac disease in a patient. In this paper the segmentation of the left ventricle using local adaptive k-means clustering and connected components is achieved fully automatically. The segmentation is carried out on multi frame MRI. Adaptive k-means is used to cluster the pixels into groups based on their intensities in order to separate the foreground (ventricle) pixels from the background pixels. Connected component labeling is used to group the pixels into regions based on their connectivity in order to segment the LV pixel region from the other regions of the MRI image. This novel combined method eliminates the problem of initialization and iteration and it segments the LV accurately on multi frame MRI with sub-second fast computational times in the range of 0.01-0.1 seconds per frame. Thus this method achieves left ventricle segmentation for one frame in sub-second duration, much less than the time required for a single iteration in deformable model methods such as level sets and active contours. The automatic segmentation's accuracy was also validated on two frames as the correlation coefficient between the automatic and manually traced LV boundaries (0.992 for frame 1 and 0.993 for frame 2) was found to be higher than the correlation coefficient between two manually traced LV boundaries (0.984 for frame 1 and 0.900 for frame 2) for the same frame.
THE VALUE OF MYOCARDIAL PERFUSION IMAGING WITH TC-99M MIBI FOR THE PREDICTION OF PERFUSION IMPROVEMENT AFTER PERCUTANEOUS TRANSLUMINAL CORONARY ANGIOPLASTY

Introduction: Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) is an effective method for revascularizing of stenotic coronary vessels. Lack of response to this treatment, either in symptomatic or asymptomatic patients, is usually due to incomplete revascularization, restenosis, and/or irreversibility of myocardial perfusion. Introduction of a noninvasive method with high predictive value for diagnosis of reversibility in ischemic myocardium is of high importance to determine the patients who will benefit from PTCA. Methods: Sixty patients with one or two vessel disease, who were candidates for PTCA and had a successful PTCA (proved by post- revascularization angiography), enrolled the study. For all patients myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) was performed before PTCA in stress and rest phases. MPI was repeated in stress and rest phases within 6 months after PTCA. The predictive values of pre-PTCA scan for the diagnosis of reversibility and prediction of perfusion improvement after PTCA were evaluated. Results: Perfusion improvement after PTCA was noted in 52 of 60 patients (86.7%). The positive predictive value of pre-intervention MPI for diagnosis of reversibility was 94.3% and the corresponding negative predictive value was 71.4%. Conclusion: Myocardial perfusion imaging may play an important role for accurate prediction of perfusion improvement after percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty.
Exploring Curved Schematization of Territorial Outlines

Hand-drawn schematized maps traditionally make extensive use of curves. However, there are few automated approaches for curved schematization; most previous work focuses on straight lines. We present a new algorithm for area-preserving curved schematization of territorial outlines. Our algorithm converts a simple polygon into a schematic crossing-free representation using circular arcs. We use two basic operations to iteratively replace consecutive arcs until the desired complexity is reached. Our results are not restricted to arcs ending at input vertices. The method can be steered towards different degrees of “curviness”: we can encourage or discourage the use of arcs with a large central angle via a single parameter. Our method creates visually pleasing results even for very low output complexities. To evaluate the effectiveness of our design choices, we present a geometric evaluation of the resulting schematizations. Besides the geometric qualities of our algorithm, we also investigate the potential of curved schematization as a concept. We conducted an online user study investigating the effectiveness of curved schematizations compared to straight-line schematizations. While the visual complexity of curved shapes was judged higher than that of straight-line shapes, users generally preferred curved schematizations. We observed that curves significantly improved the ability of users to match schematized shapes of moderate complexity to their unschematized equivalents.
Facilitators and Barriers of Antiretroviral Therapy Initiation among HIV Discordant Couples in Kenya: Qualitative Insights from a Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Implementation Study

Introduction The World Health Organization now recommends antiretroviral therapy (ART) initiation for all HIV-infected individuals regardless of CD4 cell count or disease status. Understanding the facilitators and barriers to initiation of and adherence to ART is essential to successful scale-up of “universal” ART. Methods To investigate facilitators and barriers to ART initiation, we conducted 44 in-depth individual or couple interviews with 63 participants (33 participants with HIV and 30 without HIV) already enrolled in a prospective implementation study of oral antiretroviral-based prevention in Kisumu, Kenya between August and September 2014. A semi-structured interview guided discussions on: 1) perceived advantages and disadvantages of ART; 2) reasons for accepting or declining ART initiation; and 3) influence of prevention of transmission to partner or infant influencing ART use. Transcripts from the interviews were iteratively analyzed using inductive content analysis. Results HIV-infected participants indicated that living a healthier life, preventing HIV transmission to others, and appearing “normal” or “healthy” again facilitated their initiation of ART. While appearing “normal” allowed these individuals to interact with their communities without stigmatization, they also perceived community opposition to their initiating ART, because appearing “normal” again prevented community members from easily identifying infected individuals in their community. Denial of diagnosis, disclosure stigma, perceived side-effects, and challenges in obtaining refills were additional barriers to ART initiation. Conclusions Community perceptions play an important role in both facilitating and inhibiting ART initiation. Perceived stigma, including perceived community opposition to widespread ART use, is an important barrier to ART initiation. Addressing such barriers, while capitalizing on facilitators, to ART initiation should be central to universal ART scale-up efforts.
The Relationship Between M in “Calibrated fMRI” and the Physiologic Modulators of fMRI

The “calibrated fMRI” technique requires a hypercapnia calibration experiment in order to estimate the factor “M”. It is desirable to be able to obtain the M value without the need of a gas challenge calibration. According to the analytical expression of M, it is a function of several baseline physiologic parameters, such as baseline venous oxygenation and CBF, both of which have recently been shown to be significant modulators of fMRI signal. Here we studied the relationship among hypercapnia-calibrated M, baseline venous oxygenation and CBF, and assessed the possibility of estimating M from the baseline physiologic parameters. It was found that baseline venous oxygenation and CBF are highly correlated (R2=0.77, P<0.0001) across subjects. However, the hypercapnia-calibrated M was not correlated with baseline venous oxygenation or CBF. The hypercapnia-calibrated M was not correlated with an estimation of M based on analytical expression either. The lack of correlation may be explained by the counteracting effect of venous oxygenation and CBF on the M factor, such that the actual M value of an individual may be mostly dependent on other parameters such as hematocrit. Potential biases in hypercapnia-based M estimation were also discussed in the context of possible reduction of CMRO2 during hypercapnia.
Survival and Growth in the Presence of Elevated Copper: Transcriptional Profiling of Copper-Stressed Pseudomonas aeruginosa

ABSTRACT Transcriptional profiles of Pseudomonas aeruginosa exposed to two separate copper stress conditions were determined. Actively growing bacteria subjected to a pulse of elevated copper for a short period of time was defined as a “copper-shocked” culture. Conversely, copper-adapted populations were defined as cells actively growing in the presence of elevated copper. Expression of 405 genes changed in the copper-shocked culture, compared to 331 genes for the copper-adapted cultures. Not surprisingly, there were genes identified in common to both conditions. For example, both stress conditions resulted in up-regulation of genes encoding several active transport functions. However, there were some interesting differences between the two types of stress. Only copper-adapted cells significantly altered expression of passive transport functions, down-regulating expression of several porins belonging to the OprD family. Copper shock produced expression profiles suggestive of an oxidative stress response, probably due to the participation of copper in Fenton-like chemistry. Copper-adapted populations did not show such a response. Transcriptional profiles also indicated that iron acquisition is fine-tuned in the presence of copper. Several genes induced under iron-limiting conditions, such as the siderophore pyoverdine, were up-regulated in copper-adapted populations. Interesting exceptions were the genes involved in the production of the siderophore pyochelin, which were down-regulated. Analysis of the copper sensitivity of select mutant strains confirmed the array data. These studies suggest that two resistance nodulation division efflux systems, a P-type ATPase, and a two-component regulator were particularly important for copper tolerance in P. aeruginosa.