Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Auditory Feedback Assists Post hoc Error Correction of Temporal Reproduction, and Perception of Self-Produced Time Intervals in Subsecond Range

We examined whether auditory feedback assists the post hoc error correction of temporal reproduction, and the perception of self-produced time intervals in the subsecond and suprasecond ranges. Here, we employed a temporal reproduction task with a single motor response at a point in time with and without auditory feedback. This task limits participants to reducing errors by employing auditory feedback in a post hoc manner. Additionally, the participants were asked to judge the self-produced timing in this task. The results showed that, in the presence of auditory feedback, the participants exhibited smaller variability and bias in terms of temporal reproduction and the perception of self-produced time intervals in the subsecond range but not in the suprasecond range. Furthermore, in the presence of auditory feedback, the positive serial dependency of temporal reproduction, which is the tendency of reproduced intervals to be similar to those in adjacent trials, was reduced in the subsecond range but not in the suprasecond range. These results suggest that auditory feedback assists the post hoc error correction of temporal reproduction, and the perception of self-produced time intervals in the subsecond range.
Initial rotor position detection in PMSM based on low frequency harmonic current injection

This paper presents an approach for the initial rotor position detection in permanent magnet synchronous machine (PMSM) drives. It is based on injection of low frequency current and excitation of small rotor speed oscillations. In this way information about spatial position of the rotor flux can be retrieved from the stator voltage response regardless of the rotor (average) speed. The method presented is based on the standard synchronous reference frame proportional-integral (SRF PI) current controller augmented by a bank of harmonic integral (I) controllers. Such expanded current controller typically used in selective active filters provides simultaneously precise control of the harmonic current injection and spectral decomposition of the applied stator voltage. In the theoretical analyses presented relationships between the rotor flux position information and outputs of the harmonic I controllers are established. Based on this analysis a simple rotor position tracking and magnet flux polarity detection system is constructed. Experimental results presented demonstrate feasibility of this approach for initial rotor position detection in PMSM drives.
(S)-lacosamide inhibition of CRMP2 phosphorylation reduces postoperative and neuropathic pain behaviors through distinct classes of sensory neurons identified by constellation pharmacology

Abstract Chronic pain affects the life of millions of people. Current treatments have deleterious side effects. We have advanced a strategy for targeting protein interactions which regulate the N-type voltage-gated calcium (CaV2.2) channel as an alternative to direct channel block. Peptides uncoupling CaV2.2 interactions with the axonal collapsin response mediator protein 2 (CRMP2) were antinociceptive without effects on memory, depression, and reward/addiction. A search for small molecules that could recapitulate uncoupling of the CaV2.2–CRMP2 interaction identified (S)-lacosamide [(S)-LCM], the inactive enantiomer of the Food and Drug Administration–approved antiepileptic drug (R)-lacosamide [(R)-LCM, Vimpat]. We show that (S)-LCM, but not (R)-LCM, inhibits CRMP2 phosphorylation by cyclin dependent kinase 5, a step necessary for driving CaV2.2 activity, in sensory neurons. (S)-lacosamide inhibited depolarization-induced Ca2+ influx with a low micromolar IC50. Voltage-clamp electrophysiology experiments demonstrated a commensurate reduction in Ca2+ currents in sensory neurons after an acute application of (S)-LCM. Using constellation pharmacology, a recently described high content phenotypic screening platform for functional fingerprinting of neurons that uses subtype-selective pharmacological agents to elucidate cell-specific combinations (constellations) of key signaling proteins that define specific cell types, we investigated if (S)-LCM preferentially acts on certain types of neurons. (S)-lacosamide decreased the dorsal root ganglion neurons responding to mustard oil, and increased the number of cells responding to menthol. Finally, (S)-LCM reversed thermal hypersensitivity and mechanical allodynia in a model of postoperative pain, and 2 models of neuropathic pain. Thus, using (S)-LCM to inhibit CRMP2 phosphorylation is a novel and efficient strategy to treat pain, which works by targeting specific sensory neuron populations.
Rod and Cone Function in Patients with KCNV2 Retinopathy

Background To investigate rod and cone function and disease mechanisms in patients with KCNV2 retinopathy. Methodology/Principal Findings Psychophysical examinations as well as detailed electrophysiological examinations with Ganzfeld and multifocal electroretinogram (ERG) were performed to study response dynamics. Additionally, fundus photography, autofluorescence imaging and spectral domain OCTs were carried out for morphological characterization. Molecular genetic analysis revealed compound heterozygosity in five patients and homozygosity for the KCNV2 gene in one patient. The mutations resulted in complete absence of Kv8.2 subunits in three patients (no protein group, NOP), while the other three patients expressed mutant Kv8.2 subunits resulting in altered Kv2.1/Kv8.2 heteromeric or residual Kv2.1 homomeric potassium channel function (altered protein group, ALP). Although more advanced morphological changes were visible in the NOP group, a clear functional difference between the two groups could not be observed. All patients showed characteristic dynamics of the b-wave intensity-response function, however, scotopic b-wave response amplitudes were within normal limits. We also observed severely reduced oscillatory potentials. Conclusions/Significance A specific genotype-phenotype correlation in retinal function could not be demonstrated. KCNV2 mutations cause a unique form of retinal disorder illustrating the importance of K+-channels for the resting potential, activation and deactivation of photoreceptors, while phototransduction remains unchanged. The reduced oscillatory potentials further suggest an altered function of the inner retina. Besides the characteristically steep amplitude-versus-intensity relationship, flicker responses at intermediate frequencies (5–15 Hz) are significantly reduced and shifted in phase.
Description of the functional blocks for the cross-coupled charge pump design algorithm

This paper presents the circuit model that is used for the cross-coupled charge pump design algorithm. Symbolic description of the pump stage model as an analog functional block for high-voltage application is firstly discussed. Design process has been done by using simplified BSIM model equations assuming the long channel MOSFET. Characteristics have been verified by ELDO Spice and compared with the found relationships. Static and dynamic parameters of the subcircuit have been tested in two-stages structure by LT Spice simulator. Analysis results show the consistency between model and real circuits characteristics under given conditions. Complex model provides the reliable results for significantly smaller strange capacitances in comparision with the main pump capacitances. The model can be used for design and prediction of the pump parameters without long-time simulation process. The strong inversion region of MOSFET is expected, thus equations are correct for other MOSFET models that are used in chip design (PSP).
Semi-automatic Assessment of Cervical Vertebral Maturation Stages using Cephalograph Images and Centroid-based Clustering

Adresa za dopisivanje Emir Sokic Mr.Sci. Sveuciliste u Sarajevu Elektrotehnicki fakultet Zavod za automatsku kontrolu i elektroniku Zmaja od Bosne bb. , 71000 Sarajevo Bosna i Hercegovina Tel. 00387 61 798 874 esokic@etf.unsa. ba Sažetak Koristenjem radiograma istraživala se ucinkovitost razlicitih numerickih tehnika za poluautomatske procjene stupnja sazrijevanja vratnih kralježaka (CVM). Metode: Kefalogrami 211 pacijenata snimljeni su i spremljeni u digitalnom obliku. Nakon toga su, s pomocu posebno razvijenog softvera i tih pohranjenih radiograma, specijalisti ortodoncije oznacili i mjerili za svakog pacijenta nekoliko karakteristicnih kefalometrijskih obilježja. Rezultati su bili potrebni za automatsko određivanje stupnja sazrijevanja vratnih kralježaka s nekoliko numerickih tehnika, među kojima K znaci klasteriranje (grupiranje), a Fuzzy C – dusteriranje (rasipanje). Rezultati su uspoređeni s podacima koje su dobili specijalisti. Rezultati: Najbolji rezultati dobiveni su koristenjem Fuzzy C rasipanja. Tocna ocjena stupnja CVM-a iznosila je oko 70 posto, a procjena klase bila je visa od 99 posto. Zakljucak: Eksperimentalni rezultati pokazuju da se može razviti potpuno automatizirani sustav za procjenu i predviđanje stupnjeva CVM-a, premda jos treba rijesiti manje teskoce prije primjene u klinickoj praksi.
Real-Time Physics Simulation Packages: An Evaluation Study

This paper includes a review of three physics simulation packages that can be used to provide researchers with a virtual ground for modeling, implementing and simulating complex models, as well as testing their control methods with less cost and time of development. The inverted pendulum model was used as a test bed for comparing ODE, DANCE and Webots, while Linear State Feedback was used to control its behavior. The packages were compared with respect to model creation, solving systems of differential equation, data storage, setting system variables, control the experiment and ease of use. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview about our experience with these environments and to demonstrate some of the benefits and drawbacks involved in practice for each package. Keywords—DANCE, Inverted Pendulum, ODE, Simulation Packages, Webots.
Decentralized user authentication in a global file system

The challenge for user authentication in a global file system is allowing people to grant access to specific users and groups in remote administrative domains, without assuming any kind of pre-existing administrative relationship. The traditional approach to user authentication across administrative domains is for users to prove their identities through a chain of certificates. Certificates allow for general forms of delegation, but they often require more infrastructure than is necessary to support a network file system.This paper introduces an approach without certificates. Local authentication servers pre-fetch and cache remote user and group definitions from remote authentication servers. During a file access, an authentication server can establish identities for users based just on local information. This approach is particularly well-suited to file systems, and it provides a simple and intuitive interface that is similar to those found in local access control mechanisms. An implementation of the authentication server and a file server supporting access control lists demonstrate the viability of this design in the context of the Self-certifying File System (SFS). Experiments demonstrate that the authentication server can scale to groups with tens of thousands of members.
Age‐related sensitization profiles for hazelnut (Corylus avellana) in a birch‐endemic region

To cite this article: De Knop KJ, Verweij MM, Grimmelikhuijsen M, Philipse E, Hagendorens MM, Bridts CH, De Clerck LS, Stevens WJ, Ebo DG. Age‐related sensitization profiles for hazelnut (Corylus avellana) in a birch‐endemic region. Pediatr Allergy Immunol 2011; 22: e139–e149.
Feature Subset Selection Based on Bio-Inspired Algorithms

Many feature subset selection algorithms have been proposed and discussed for years. However, the problem of finding the optimal feature subset from full data still re- mains to be a difficult problem. In this paper, we propose novel methods to find the rele- vant feature subset by using biologically-inspired algorithms such as Genetic Algorithm and Particle Swarm Optimization. We also propose a variant of the approach considering the significance of each feature. We verified the performance of the proposed methods by experiments with various real-world datasets. Our feature selection methods based on the biologically-inspired algorithms produced better performance than other methods in terms of the classification accuracy and the feature relevance. In particular, the modified method considering feature significance demonstrated even more improved performance.
Association between Common Variation at the FTO Locus and Changes in Body Mass Index from Infancy to Late Childhood: The Complex Nature of Genetic Association through Growth and Development

An age-dependent association between variation at the FTO locus and BMI in children has been suggested. We meta-analyzed associations between the FTO locus (rs9939609) and BMI in samples, aged from early infancy to 13 years, from 8 cohorts of European ancestry. We found a positive association between additional minor (A) alleles and BMI from 5.5 years onwards, but an inverse association below age 2.5 years. Modelling median BMI curves for each genotype using the LMS method, we found that carriers of minor alleles showed lower BMI in infancy, earlier adiposity rebound (AR), and higher BMI later in childhood. Differences by allele were consistent with two independent processes: earlier AR equivalent to accelerating developmental age by 2.37% (95% CI 1.87, 2.87, p = 10−20) per A allele and a positive age by genotype interaction such that BMI increased faster with age (p = 10−23). We also fitted a linear mixed effects model to relate genotype to the BMI curve inflection points adiposity peak (AP) in infancy and AR. Carriage of two minor alleles at rs9939609 was associated with lower BMI at AP (−0.40% (95% CI: −0.74, −0.06), p = 0.02), higher BMI at AR (0.93% (95% CI: 0.22, 1.64), p = 0.01), and earlier AR (−4.72% (−5.81, −3.63), p = 10−17), supporting cross-sectional results. Overall, we confirm the expected association between variation at rs9939609 and BMI in childhood, but only after an inverse association between the same variant and BMI in infancy. Patterns are consistent with a shift on the developmental scale, which is reflected in association with the timing of AR rather than just a global increase in BMI. Results provide important information about longitudinal gene effects and about the role of FTO in adiposity. The associated shifts in developmental timing have clinical importance with respect to known relationships between AR and both later-life BMI and metabolic disease risk.
Cocaine Use in the Era of Social Reform: The Natural History of a Social Problem in Canada, 1880–1911

Current interest in the non-medical use of cocaine in Canada can be gauged by the attention this drug is getting in the various media. Not surprisingly, researchers have now entered the arena in the hope of answering some of the questions posed by this phenomenon. A similar trend occurred in regard to marijuana more than a decade ago when popular concern led to a federal commission that eventually recommended the repeal of the offence of cannabis possession. The wave of concern created considerable scholarly interest in Canada's approach to the control of narcotic drugs, including cannabis, which had been defined as narcotic for legal purposes. Much research followed on various fronts, from studies on the effects of cannabis on health to the social consequences of punishment. Several studies have examined the origins of Canada's legislative response to narcotic drug use. A principal conclusion from these studies is that legislation became possible because of hostility toward minority groups associated with drug use, specifically, the Chinese who were known for their use of opium. In the present paper, however, we see that drug control grew as much out of a “cocaine scare” as out of concern with opium use. Moreover, cocaine attracted attention in part precisely because its use was not confined to despised minorities, but permeated society as a whole, affecting “young people as well as seniors,” “men and women,” those from “poorer classes,” those from “respectable families” and those “who should and do know better. ”
Resource Directed Loop Pipelining: Exposing Just Enough Parallelism

Many techniques have been proposed for exploiting instruction-level parallelism, ranging from the optimal and expensive but ignoring resource constraints, to various forms of introducing resource constraints. One of the most aggressive of these techniques is resource-constrained software pipelining (RCSP). RCSP works by repeatedly scheduling successive iterations of a loop in parallel until the data and resource dependence structure of the loop causes the process to converge on a repeating scheduling pattern. This repeating pattern is then used as the new loop body. In principle, this process can be made optimal with respect to full unrolling and scheduling of the loop. Of course, this is not the same as absolute optimality; however, given the NP-hard nature of the problem and the results of Schwiegelshohn et al., this may be the strongest form possible for general loop pipelining. The main drawback of RCSP is that, in practice, its space/time overhead can be fairly expensive. In this paper, we present resource-directed loop pipelining (RDLP), a new approach that attempts to retain many of the advantages of RCSP while minimizing the expense. It does so by allowing the availability of target resources to in some sense guide the application of parallelism exposing and parallelizing transformations. One of the key features of RDLP is the separation of control heuristics from transformations that allow the loop pipelining to be as general as the underlying system of code motion transformations. Results are presented which show that even with very unsophisticated heuristics, RDLP achieves roughly the same performance as RCSP, while providing a fourfold decrease in the space/time cost; moreover, we show that RDLP exposes 'just enough' parallelism-incurs a minimum of code explosion-to maximally utilize resources.
Use of Highly Variable Intergenic Spacer Sequences for Multispacer Typing of Rickettsia conorii Strains

ABSTRACT By use of the nearly perfectly colinear genomes of Rickettsia conorii and Rickettsia prowazekii, we compared the usefulness of three types of sequences for typing of R. conorii isolates: (i) 5 variable coding genes comprising the 16S ribosomal DNA, gltA, ompB, and sca4 (gene D) genes, which are present in both genomes, and the ompA gene, which is degraded in R. prowazekii; (ii) 28 genes degraded in R. conorii but intact in R. prowazekii, including 23 split and 5 remnant genes; and (iii) 27 conserved and 25 variable intergenic spacers. The 4 conserved and 23 split genes as well as the 27 conserved intergenic spacers each had identical sequences in 34 human and 5 tick isolates of R. conorii. Analysis of the ompA sequences identified three genotypes of R. conorii. The variable intergenic spacers were significantly more variable than conserved genes, split genes, remnant genes, and conserved spacers (P < 10−2 in all cases). Four of the variable intergenic spacers (dksA-xerC, mppA-purC, rpmE-tRNAfMet, and tRNAGly-tRNATyr) had highly variable sequences; when they were combined for typing, multispacer typing (MST) identified 27 different genotypes in the 39 R. conorii isolates. Two batches from the same R. conorii strain, Malish (Seven), with different culture passage histories were found to exhibit the same MST type. MST was more discriminatory for strain genotyping than multiple gene sequencing (P < 10−2). Phylogenetic analysis based on MST sequences was concordant with the geographic origins of R. conorii isolates. Our study supports the usefulness of MST for strain genotyping. This tool may be useful for tracing a strain and identifying its source during outbreaks, including those resulting from bioterrorism.
Experimental evaluation of an HVAC system under dynamic pricing with comfort constraints

This paper deals with the problem of Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) control optimization under dynamic pricing policies. In contrast to other appliances, the HVAC system entails a more challenging problem since not only the cost should be taken into account but also the user comfort temperature. We design a mechanism that firstly estimates and predicts the temperature considering HVAC configuration and then optimizes the energy cost assuming a given electricity price policy. In addition, we present a technique that relaxes the temperature constraints with the aim of further reducing the energy consumption. The proposed solutions are validated in a real scenario where a heating system is controlled by a processing unit that monitors the temperature using wireless modules and the electricity price in a given time instant which is given by the utility.
Abnormal Function of C-Fibers in Patients with Diabetic Neuropathy

The mechanisms underlying the development of painful and nonpainful neuropathy associated with diabetes mellitus are unclear. We have obtained microneurographic recordings from unmyelinated fibers in eight patients with diabetes mellitus, five with painful neuropathy, and three with neuropathy without pain. All eight patients had large-fiber neuropathy, and seven patients had pathological thermal thresholds in their feet, indicating the involvement of small-caliber nerve fibers. A total of 163 C-fibers were recorded at knee level from the common peroneal nerve in the patients (36–67 years old), and these were compared with 77 C-fibers from healthy controls (41–64 years old). The ratio of mechano-responsive to mechano-insensitive nociceptors was ∼2:1 in the healthy controls, whereas in the patients, it was 1:2. In patients, a fairly large percentage of characterized fibers (12.5% in nonpainful and 18.9% in painful neuropathy) resembled mechano-responsive nociceptors that had lost their mechanical and heat responsiveness. Such fibers were rarely encountered in age-matched controls (3.2%). Afferent fibers with spontaneous activity or mechanical sensitization were found in both patient groups. We conclude that small-fiber neuropathy in diabetes affects receptive properties of nociceptors that leads to an impairment of mechano-responsive nociceptors.