Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Excision of `repulson' singularities: a spacetime result and its gauge theory analogue

We discuss spacetime singularity resolution in the context of the gravity/gauge correspondence, for brane systems which give rise to gauge theories with eight supercharges and no hypermultiplets. The discussion is aimed at non-experts. Writeup of talk on hep-th/9911161 with C.V. Johnson and J.Polchinski, given in various forms at: PASCOS-99, Aspen winter conference `Way Beyond the Standard Models', Banff CIAR Gravity+Cosmology Programme Meeting.
Robust rigid image registration with arbitrary extrinsic photometric noise

A recently proposed multi parametric quadratic programming (QP) based approach to image matching under complex photometric variations has shown quite an improvement over other state-of-the-art algorithms. However, it is not an entirely satisfactory solution for many practical applications as it does not account for geometric dissimilarities between the images. We extend the QP-based method and propose a new method for robust rigid image registration under both photometric and geometric deviations. The new algorithm retains the distinctive photometric modelling power of its predecessor, while it can also handle affine geometric transformations.
Commentary on ‘His master’s voice’: an emotion-focused perspective

ABSTRACT This commentary reviews the study by Lietaer and Gundrum that categorized Rogers’ responses in therapy using Hill’s Measure of Therapist Response Modes. This is an important study that reveals Rogers’ therapeutic style at a microscopic level. The evolution of Rogers’ approach across time is considered and contrasted with that of other therapists and the experiential psychotherapy group at Leuven. The authors’ conclusion that Rogers’ style is essentially experiential in his approach is considered within the framework of emotion focused therapy, the process-experiential approach.
Research on open domain Named entity recognition based on Chinese query logs

Search engine query logs contain quantities of Named Entities. As the basic work of information extraction, traditional Named-entity extraction methods only can extract specific categories of entities. It is very difficult for them to be applied to the query log Named-entity recognition directly for their limitation. In this paper, a novel approach is proposed to extract Named Entities from user query logs. In order to avoid the dependence on large-scale tagging corpus, we annotate the data automatically by using distant supervision method. Thus the problem that the training data needs human-annotation effort is solved. Moreover, open domain Named Entities are extracted from user query logs based on the conditional random field model. Evaluation on user query logs shows the effectiveness of our approach in extracting Named Entities in open domain.
Report after Recruitment in Fission Yeast

Current models depict that telomerase recruitment equates to activation. Telomeric DNA-binding proteins and the telomerase accessory proteins coordinate the recruitment of telomerase to the ends of chromosomes in a telomere lengthand cell-cycle-dependent manner [1–4]. Recent studies have demonstrated that the telomeric protein TPP1 and its binding protein TIN2 are key proteins for both telomerase recruitment and processivity in mammalian cells [5–7]. Although the precise molecular mechanism of telomerase recruitment has not yet been established, targeted point mutations within the oligonucleotide/oligosaccharide-binding (OB)-fold domain of TPP1 have been shown to impair telomerase association and processivity [8–10]. In fission yeast, telomerase is recruited through an interaction between the telomerase subunit Est1 and Ccq1, a component of the Pot1-Tpz1 telomere complex (POT1-TPP1 orthologs) [11– 15]. Here, we demonstrate that association of telomerase with telomeres does not engage activity. We describe a mutation of Tpz1 that causes critical telomere shortening despite telomeric accumulation of the telomerase catalytic subunit, Trt1. Furthermore, Est1-directed telomerase association with Ccq1 is transient, and the Est1-Ccq1 interaction does not remain the bridge between telomeres and telomerase. Rather, direct interaction of Trt1 with Tpz1 is critical for telomere elongation. Moreover, Ccq1, which has been well characterized as a telomerase recruiter, is also required for the activation of telomere-associated telomerase. Our findings reveal a layer of telomerase regulation that controls activity after recruitment.
Internet science-Creating better browser warnings

The number of internet users is increasing everyday, the number of security threats is growing as well. Browser warnings try to avoid users from being defrauded. They warn the users about the possibility of a threat, but it is always up to the user to decide whether to heed or ignore the warning. One main issue is the overwhelming amount of security warnings that each user might face, which makes it hard for the user to distinguish between serious or trivial threats. Better warnings can be created by considering items such as: how to design the display of warnings that affects the user’s attention; how to involve social psychological factors in designing the warnings to have an impact on the user’s decision; or realizing when to present a warning message and etc. The aim of this seminar paper is to first present the reasons why the users ignore a browser warning or turn it off and afterwards to discuss some recommendations for creating more effective warnings.
Intracerebral Hemorrhage With Severe Ventricular Involvement: Lumbar Drainage for Communicating Hydrocephalus

Background and Purpose— The objective was to analyze the feasibility of a lumbar drainage (LD) for a communicating malresorptive hydrocephalus in patients with supratentorial hemorrhage (intracerebral hemorrhage) accompanied by severe ventricular involvement (intraventricular hemorrhage) who required an external ventricular drain (EVD). Methods— In this retrospective study, 16 patients received an EVD and concurrent LD and were compared with 39 historical patients treated with EVD alone. The duration of required EVD and need for permanent ventriculoperitoneal-shunt were analyzed. Results— LD was inserted after 12 (4 to 18) days. In LD-treated patients, the LD was capable to replace repeated EVD exchanges, resulting in a shorter EVD-duration (12 versus 16 days) compared with patients treated with EVD alone. The overall duration of extracorporal cerebrospinal fluid drainage was longer (16 days EVD versus 21 days EVD+LD) and the frequency of ventriculoperitoneal-shunt lower (18.75% versus 33%; P<0.03) in LD-treated patients. Conclusion— Our data suggest that LD is safe and feasible for treatment of nonpersistent communicating hydrocephalus after intracerebral hemorrhage. After adequate treatment of the occlusive hydrocephalus using an EVD in the acute phase, LD discloses an alternative for further extracorporal cerebrospinal fluid drainage.
Position paper: the science of boxing

The ubiquity of Web 2.0 applications handling sensitive information means that static analysis of applications written in JavaScript has become an important security problem. The highly dynamic nature of the language makes this difficult. The eval construct, which allows execution of a string as program code, is particularly notorious in this regard. Eval is a form of metaprogramming construct: it allows generation and manipulation of program code at run time. Other metaprogramming formalisms are more principled in their behaviour and easier to reason about; consider, for example, Lisp-style code quotations, which we call staged metaprogramming. We argue that, instead of trying to reason directly about uses of eval, we should first transform them to staged metaprogramming, then analyse the transformed program. To demonstrate the feasibility of this approach, we describe an algorithm for transforming uses of eval on strings encoding program text into uses of staged metaprogramming with quoted program terms. We present our algorithm in the context of a JavaScript-like language augmented with staged metaprogramming.
The application of knowledge growing system for inferring the behavior of genes interaction

Knowledge Growing System (KGS) is a novel perspective in Artificial Intelligence (AI) which is aimed to emulate how the human brain obtains new knowledge from information delivered by human sensory organs. The new knowledge is then used as the basis for making an estimation in the future of the phenomenon being observed as the basis for the most appropriate decision or action that will be decided or taken. In this paper we address the application of KGS to infer the behavior of genes interaction in Genetic Regulatory System (GRS) in order to estimate their behavior in the subsequent interaction time. For this purpose we model the genes as multi-agent that performs collaborative computations in Multiagent Collaborative Computation (MCC) paradigm. In order to show how KGS works in MCC framework, we use yeast genes-interaction values as the case study.
The Efficacy of Tetracyclines in Peripheral and Intracerebral Prion Infection

We have previously shown that tetracyclines interact with and reverse the protease resistance of pathological prion protein extracted from scrapie-infected animals and patients with all forms of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, lowering the prion titre and prolonging survival of cerebrally infected animals. To investigate the effectiveness of these drugs as anti-prion agents Syrian hamsters were inoculated intramuscularly or subcutaneously with 263K scrapie strain at a 10−4 dilution. Tetracyclines were injected intramuscularly or intraperitoneally at the dose of 10 mg/kg. A single intramuscular dose of doxycycline one hour after infection in the same site of inoculation prolonged median survival by 64%. Intraperitoneal doses of tetracyclines every two days for 40 or 44 days increased survival time by 25% (doxycycline), 32% (tetracycline); and 81% (minocycline) after intramuscular infection, and 35% (doxycycline) after subcutaneous infection. To extend the therapeutic potential of tetracyclines, we investigated the efficacy of direct infusion of tetracyclines in advanced infection. Since intracerebroventricular infusion of tetracycline solutions can cause overt acute toxicity in animals, we entrapped the drugs in liposomes. Animals were inoculated intracerebrally with a 10−4 dilution of the 263K scrapie strain. A single intracerebroventricular infusion of 25 µg/ 20 µl of doxycycline or minocycline entrapped in liposomes was administered 60 days after inoculation, when 50% of animals showed initial symptoms of the disease. Median survival increased of 8.1% with doxycycline and 10% with minocycline. These data suggest that tetracyclines might have therapeutic potential for humans.
Hypolipidemic effects of HVC1 in a high cholesterol diet-induced rat model of hyperlipidemia

HVC1, a novel formation containing four herbs, was developed and its hypolipidemic effects in rats with high cholesterol diet (HCD)-induced hyperlipidemia were investigated. The rats were given a HCD for 8 weeks. The HVC1-treated groups were orally administered HVC1 at doses of 10, 50 or 250 mg/kg, respectively, and the simvastatin group was treated at a dose of 10 mg/kg. The normal diet and HCD control groups were administered with physiological saline. Oral administration of HVC1 (10, 50 or 250 mg/kg) significantly reduced the body weight of rats with hyperlipidemia and regulated the total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels in the serum. In addition, tissue analysis revealed that lipid accumulation in the liver and aorta was reduced by HVC1 administration. Furthermore, HVC1 significantly reduced the mRNA expression of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ, 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA reductase and low-density lipoprotein receptor, as well as the protein level of 5′ adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase in the liver. The results clearly demonstrate that HVC1 has a potent hypolipidemic effect, and suggest that HVC1 should be evaluated as a potential treatment for hyperlipidemia.
Surface permanent magnet machine self-sensing at zero and low speeds using improved observer for position, velocity, and disturbance torque estimation

This paper proposes an improved method for the estimation of position, velocity and disturbance torque in a surface permanent magnet (SPM) machine self-sensing (position sensorless) drive that uses high frequency (HF) voltage injection. SPM machines traditionally do not have enough position dependent signals because their symmetric rotors result in near zero spatial saliency. A separate disturbance observer and a saliency-tracking observer with speed-varying bandwidth (BW) tuning are used together to improve the disturbance rejection performance while maintaining the accuracy of self-sensing position and velocity estimation. According to the experimental evaluation, the proposed estimation method can achieve higher BW for the disturbance estimation and decoupling which can increase the stiffness of SPM machine closed-loop self-sensing control. This paper includes experimental comparative evaluation of closed-loop encoder-based versus closed-loop self-sensing-based operation of a SPM machine drive.
The influence of temperature and life stage in shaping migratory patterns during the early marine phase of two Newfoundland (Canada) Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) populations

Owing to the iteroparous nature of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), a seaward migrating cohort may consist of juveniles and adults that differ in size, maturity, experience, and in the motivation and consequences of migratory movements. Few studies have investigated the role of ontogeny in shaping intrapopulation variability in movement patterns among Atlantic salmon monitored under the same environmental conditions. This study contrasted the movements of smolts and kelts in two Canadian (Newfoundland) populations from marine entry through coastal embayments and quantified the influence of local water temperatures on movement patterns. Significant differences in migration routes, migration speed, and diel movements between smolts and kelts were present. Kelts generally displayed faster, more directed, and less nocturnal movements compared with smolts. Temperature influenced seaward movement positively, as well as the degree of diurnal movement. Prolonged nearshore residency by smolts and kelts in the two embayments was accompanied by a considerable improvement in ocean thermal conditions, hypothesized to promote open ocean entry during conditions favorable to migration performance.
HMM-separation-based speech recognition for a distant moving speaker

This paper presents a hands-free speech recognition method based on HMM composition and separation for speech contaminated not only by additive noise but also by an acoustic transfer function. The method realizes an improved user interface such that a user is not encumbered by microphone equipment in noisy and reverberant environments. The use of HMM composition has already been proposed for countering additive noise. In this paper, the same approach is extended to handle convolutional acoustic distortion in a reverberant room, by using an HMM to model the acoustic transfer function. The states of this HMM correspond to different positions of the sound source. It can represent the positions of the sound sources, even if the speaker moves. This paper also proposes a new method, HMM separation, for estimating the HMM parameters of the acoustic transfer function on the basis of a maximum likelihood manner. The proposed method is obtained through the reverse of the process of HMM composition, where the model parameters are estimated by maximizing the likelihood of adaptation data uttered from an unknown position. Therefore, measurement of impulse responses is not required. The paper also describes the performance of the proposed methods for recognizing real distant-talking speech. The results of experiments clarify the effectiveness of the proposed method.
A comparison of nucleus accumbens neuronal firing patterns during cocaine self-administration and water reinforcement in rats

The firing patterns of nucleus accumbens (NA) neurons in the rat were recorded during cocaine self-administration and responding for water. Recordings were obtained from permanently implanted multiple-electrode arrays (eight microwires) inserted bilaterally into rostral portions of the NA in subjects (n = 18) exhibiting stable cocaine self- administration (0.33 mg/infusion), and during stable responding for water reinforcement. Electronically isolated and identified NA neurons exhibited four distinct patterns of phasic activity relative to the reinforced response. Three of these firing patterns were observed during both cocaine self-administration and water reinforcement sessions. Response-related activity was categorized by cells that showed an anticipatory increase in firing rate during the preresponse phase (type PR), and by cells that were excited (type RFE) or inhibited (type RFI) following the response in the reinforcement phase. PR and RFE cells showed significantly reduced peak firing during cocaine self- administration, compared to similar cells in water reinforcement sessions. A fourth type of NA firing pattern (type PR+RF) was observed only in cells recorded during cocaine self-administration sessions (Carelli et al., 1993b). PR+RF neurons exhibited two distinct peaks, one preceding the response and terminating at response completion (like PR cells), and a second peak immediately following the response (like RFE cells) with an inhibitory period between the two peaks (like RFI cells). The findings are discussed in terms of the role of the NA in mediating the reinforcing properties of both cocaine and water.
The Paradox of Sign Language Morphology

Sign languages have two strikingly different kinds of morphological structure: sequential and simultaneous. The simultaneous morphology of two unrelated sign languages, American and Israeli Sign Language, is very similar and is largely inflectional, while what little sequential morphology we have found differs significantly and is derivational. We show that at least two pervasive types of inflectional morphology, verb agreement and classifier constructions, are iconically grounded in spatiotemporal cognition, while the sequential patterns can be traced to normal historical development. We attribute the paucity of sequential morphology in sign languages to their youth. This research both brings sign languages much closer to spoken languages in their morphological structure and shows how the medium of communication contributes to the structure of languages.
Brain Cholesterol: Long Secret Life Behind a Barrier

Abstract—Although an immense knowledge has accumulated concerning regulation of cholesterol homeostasis in the body, this does not include the brain, where details are just emerging. Approximately 25% of the total amount of the cholesterol present in humans is localized to this organ, most of it present in myelin. Almost all brain cholesterol is a product of local synthesis, with the blood–brain barrier efficiently protecting it from exchange with lipoprotein cholesterol in the circulation. Thus, there is a highly efficient apolipoprotein-dependent recycling of cholesterol in the brain, with minimal losses to the circulation. Under steady-state conditions, most of the de novo synthesis of cholesterol in the brain appears to be balanced by excretion of the cytochrome P-450–generated oxysterol 24S-hydroxycholesterol. This oxysterol is capable of escaping the recycling mechanism and traversing the blood–brain barrier. Cholesterol levels and cholesterol turnover are affected in neurodegenerating disorders, and the capacity for cholesterol transport and recycling in the brain seems to be of importance for the development of such diseases. The possibility has been discussed that administration of inhibitors of cholesterol synthesis may reduce the prevalence of Alzheimer disease. No firm conclusions can, however, be drawn from the studies presented thus far. In the present review, the most recent advances in our understanding of cholesterol turnover in the brain is discussed.
Functional Consequences of a Novel Variant of PCSK1

Background Common single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 1 with modest effects on PC1/3 in vitro have been associated with obesity in five genome-wide association studies and with diabetes in one genome-wide association study. We here present a novel SNP and compare its biosynthesis, secretion and catalytic activity to wild-type enzyme and to SNPs that have been linked to obesity. Methodology/Principal Findings A novel PC1/3 variant introducing an Arg to Gln amino acid substitution at residue 80 (within the secondary cleavage site of the prodomain) (rs1799904) was studied. This novel variant was selected for analysis from the 1000 Genomes sequencing project based on its predicted deleterious effect on enzyme function and its comparatively more frequent allele frequency. The actual existence of the R80Q (rs1799904) variant was verified by Sanger sequencing. The effects of this novel variant on the biosynthesis, secretion, and catalytic activity were determined; the previously-described obesity risk SNPs N221D (rs6232), Q665E/S690T (rs6234/rs6235), and the Q665E and S690T SNPs (analyzed separately) were included for comparative purposes. The novel R80Q (rs1799904) variant described in this study resulted in significantly detrimental effects on both the maturation and in vitro catalytic activity of PC1/3. Conclusion/Significance Our findings that this novel R80Q (rs1799904) variant both exhibits adverse effects on PC1/3 activity and is prevalent in the population suggests that further biochemical and genetic analysis to assess its contribution to the risk of metabolic disease within the general population is warranted.
Spatial Compatibility Effects With Tool Use

Objective: We explored constraints in responding to spatially variable stimuli when hand movements are transformed into inverse movements of a tool. Background: Generally, the spatial compatibility between stimuli and responses is a powerful determinant of performance. However, many tasks require the use of simple tools such as first-class levers that transform hand movements into inverted movements of a tool. What types of compatibility effects arise with such tools? Method: Participants moved the tip of a pointer to the left or right according to the color of a stimulus. The pointer was manipulated either directly, so that a hand movement caused a pointer movement in the corresponding direction, or indirectly, so that the hand moved the pointer in the opposite direction. Results: Responding was faster when the location of stimulus and the movement direction of the tool corresponded than when they did not correspond, independent of the movement direction of the hand. This occurred when stimulus location was task relevant (Experiment 1) as well as when it was task irrelevant (Experiment 2). Furthermore, responding was delayed when the hand and the relevant end of the tool moved in noncorresponding rather than corresponding directions. Conclusion: These results point to two distinct compatibility effects in tool use: one that relates to the transformation of stimuli into goals and one that relates to the transformation of goals into movements. Application: Potential applications of this research include the prediction and possibly manipulation of unwanted “fulcrum effects” in laparoscopic surgery and other first-class lever movements.