Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fast Population Coding

Uncertainty coming from the noise in its neurons and the ill-posed nature of many tasks plagues neural computations. Maybe surprisingly, many studies show that the brain manipulates these forms of uncertainty in a probabilistically consistent and normative manner, and there is now a rich theoretical literature on the capabilities of populations of neurons to implement computations in the face of uncertainty. However, one major facet of uncertainty has received comparatively little attention: time. In a dynamic, rapidly changing world, data are only temporarily relevant. Here, we analyze the computational consequences of encoding stimulus trajectories in populations of neurons. For the most obvious, simple, instantaneous encoder, the correlations induced by natural, smooth stimuli engender a decoder that requires access to information that is nonlocal both in time and across neurons. This formally amounts to a ruinous representation. We show that there is an alternative encoder that is computationally and representationally powerful in which each spike contributes independent information; it is independently decodable, in other words. We suggest this as an appropriate foundation for understanding time-varying population codes. Furthermore, we show how adaptation to temporal stimulus statistics emerges directly from the demands of simple decoding.
Toward One Giga Frames per Second — Evolution of in Situ Storage Image Sensors

The ISIS is an ultra-fast image sensor with in-pixel storage. The evolution of the ISIS in the past and in the near future is reviewed and forecasted. To cover the storage area with a light shield, the conventional frontside illuminated ISIS has a limited fill factor. To achieve higher sensitivity, a BSI ISIS was developed. To avoid direct intrusion of light and migration of signal electrons to the storage area on the frontside, a cross-sectional sensor structure with thick pnpn layers was developed, and named “Tetratified structure”. By folding and looping in-pixel storage CCDs, an image signal accumulation sensor, ISAS, is proposed. The ISAS has a new function, the in-pixel signal accumulation, in addition to the ultra-high-speed imaging. To achieve much higher frame rate, a multi-collection-gate (MCG) BSI image sensor architecture is proposed. The photoreceptive area forms a honeycomb-like shape. Performance of a hexagonal CCD-type MCG BSI sensor is examined by simulations. The highest frame rate is theoretically more than 1Gfps. For the near future, a stacked hybrid CCD/CMOS MCG image sensor seems most promising. The associated problems are discussed. A fine TSV process is the key technology to realize the structure.
Computing Confidence Intervals for Common IR Measures

Condence intervals quantify the uncertainty in an average and oer a robust alternative to hypothesis testing. We measure the performance of standard and bootstrapped condence intervals on a number of common IR measures using several TREC and NTCIR collections. The performance of an interval is its empirical coverage of the estimated statistic. We nd that both standard and bootstrapped intervals give excellent coverage for all measures except in situations of abysmal retrieval performance. We recommend using standard condence intervals when statistical software is handy, and bootstrap percentile intervals as equivalent when no statistical libraries are available.
Fermented Milks and Milk Products as Functional Foods—A Review

Fermented foods and beverages possess various nutritional and therapeutic properties. Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) play a major role in determining the positive health effects of fermented milks and related products. The L. acidophilus and Bifidobacteria spp are known for their use in probiotic dairy foods. Cultured products sold with any claim of health benefits should meet the criteria of suggested minimum number of more than 106 cfu/g at the time of consumption. Yoghurt is redefined as a probiotic carrier food. Several food powders like yoghurt powder and curd (dahi) powder are manufactured taking into consideration the number of organisms surviving in the product after drying. Such foods, beverages and powders are highly acceptable to consumers because of their flavor and aroma and high nutritive value. Antitumor activity is associated with the cell wall of starter bacteria and so the activity remains even after drying. Other health benefits of fermented milks include prevention of gastrointestinal infections, reduction of serum cholesterol levels and antimutagenic activity. The fermented products are recommended for consumption by lactose intolerant individuals and patients suffering from atherosclerosis. The formulation of fermented dietetic preparations and special products is an expanding research area. The health benefits, the technology of production of fermented milks and the kinetics of lactic acid fermentation in dairy products are reviewed here.
Reactive Oxygen Species–Mediated Mitochondria-to-Nucleus Signaling: A Key to Aging and Radical-Caused Diseases

Mitochondria-generated reactive oxygen species have been implicated as a common feature that connects aging of organisms and age-related diseases. Efficient elimination of these radicals by antioxidants correlates with increased life span. Understanding how the mitochondrion signals to the nucleus to regulate antioxidant proteins might be a key to aging processes and treatment of human diseases. The mitochondrial respiratory chain generates reactive oxygen species (ROS), oxygen-containing molecules that are chemically reactive because they contain unpaired electrons, as a by-product of aerobic metabolism. These ROS are rapidly detoxified by antioxidant proteins. The failure of effective detoxification of cells from mROS contributes to aging and has been implicated in the development and progression of age-related diseases. ROS can be decreased by dietary antioxidants or by antioxidant proteins, which are encoded by nuclear genes. Because the source of ROS and the location of gene regulation are separated, mitochondria-to-nucleus signaling is thought to regulate cellular detoxification. Notable advances have been made in identifying the protective signaling pathways that are activated by increased intracellular oxidant levels. There is increasing evidence that protein oxidation directly regulates phosphatases and kinases. Some of these signaling molecules appear to function as ROS sensors that initiate signaling from the mitochondria to the nucleus. Understanding how the mitochondrion signals to the nucleus to regulate antioxidant proteins might be useful in efforts to extend life span in humans or to improve treatments for neurodegenerative or other diseases influenced by ROS.
Chordal networks of polynomial ideals

We introduce a novel representation of structured polynomial ideals, which we refer to as chordal networks. The sparsity structure of a polynomial system is often described by a graph that captures the interactions among the variables. Chordal networks provide a computationally convenient decomposition into simpler (triangular) polynomial sets, while preserving the underlying graphical structure. We show that many interesting families of polynomial ideals admit compact chordal network representations (of size linear in the number of variables), even though the number of components is exponentially large. Chordal networks can be computed for arbitrary polynomial systems using a refinement of the chordal elimination algorithm from [Cifuentes-Parrilo-2016]. Furthermore, they can be effectively used to obtain several properties of the variety, such as its dimension, cardinality, and equidimensional components, as well as an efficient probabilistic test for radical ideal membership. We apply our methods to examples from algebraic statistics and vector addition systems; for these instances, algorithms based on chordal networks outperform existing techniques by orders of magnitude.
Fast Comparison Encryption Scheme using cheating text technique

The significant database performance gains can be had by implementing light-weight compression schemes and operators that work directly on compressed data. By classifying compression schemes according to a set of basic properties, operating directly on compressed data in column-oriented DBMS systems (c-store). This paper consist a new technique using cheating text (meaningful) with the FCE. It helps, for fast search of data, to improve the efficiency, for providing more security to the data base systems and to overcome the existing systems limitations. This approach provides a combination of architectural simplicity and the ability to configure data.
Indra : A DistributedApproachto Network Intrusion DetectionandPrevention

While advances in computer and communications technology have made the network ubiquitous, they have also rendered networked systems vulnerable to malicious attacks orchestrated from a distance. These attacks, usually called cracker attacks or intrusions, start with crackers infiltrating a network through a vulnerable host and then going on to launch further attacks. Crackers depend on increasingly sophisticated techniques like using distributed attack sources. On the other hand, software that guards against them remains rooted in traditional centralized techniques, presenting an easily-targetable single point of failure. Scalable, distributed network intrusion prevention software is sorely needed. We propose Indra – a distributed scheme that depends on sharing information between trusted peers in a network to guard the network as a whole against intrusion attempts. We further describe a plugin mechanism that enables an administrator to simultaneously plug weaknesses in thousands of machines with a single E-Mail.
Struct2Net: a web service to predict protein–protein interactions using a structure-based approach

Struct2Net is a web server for predicting interactions between arbitrary protein pairs using a structure-based approach. Prediction of protein–protein interactions (PPIs) is a central area of interest and successful prediction would provide leads for experiments and drug design; however, the experimental coverage of the PPI interactome remains inadequate. We believe that Struct2Net is the first community-wide resource to provide structure-based PPI predictions that go beyond homology modeling. Also, most web-resources for predicting PPIs currently rely on functional genomic data (e.g. GO annotation, gene expression, cellular localization, etc.). Our structure-based approach is independent of such methods and only requires the sequence information of the proteins being queried. The web service allows multiple querying options, aimed at maximizing flexibility. For the most commonly studied organisms (fly, human and yeast), predictions have been pre-computed and can be retrieved almost instantaneously. For proteins from other species, users have the option of getting a quick-but-approximate result (using orthology over pre-computed results) or having a full-blown computation performed. The web service is freely available at http://struct2net.csail. mit.edu.
Patterning colloidal nanotopographies

Creating a device where cell reactions to nanoscale topographies and a control (usually planar) surface can be monitored simultaneously is advantageous from a biological perspective. Through the utilization of both natural lithography and conventional photolithography techniques, it has been possible to create a structure where planar and nanopillared surfaces lie collaterally on one device. By patterning an optical resist, exposing this to the desired mask pattern, developing and coating in poly-L-lysine, a surface adhesive to gold colloidal particles is presented. Following immersion in a colloidal sol, in this case a 20 nm diameter gold colloidal sol, colloids adhere to the poly-L-lysine across the primed surface. In a subsequent dry etch step, the colloids that are present where the resist has been removed act as an etch mask, resulting in pillars being etched into the surface of a base substrate, in this instance either silicon or quartz. By removing the resist and also the colloids, a device results where planar and nanopillared areas lie collaterally. This allows cell reactions on the two surfaces to be monitored simultaneously.
Prevalence of Fosfomycin Resistance among CTX-M-Producing Escherichia coli Clinical Isolates in Japan and Identification of Novel Plasmid-Mediated Fosfomycin-Modifying Enzymes

ABSTRACT We evaluated the in vitro activity of fosfomycin against a total of 192 CTX-M β-lactamase-producing Escherichia coli strains isolated in 70 Japanese clinical settings. Most of the isolates (96.4%) were found to be susceptible to fosfomycin. On the other hand, some of the resistant isolates were confirmed to harbor the novel transferable fosfomycin resistance determinants named FosA3 and FosC2, which efficaciously inactivate fosfomycin through glutathione S-transferase activity.
MicroRNA expression profiling in exosomes derived from gastric cancer stem-like cells

Cancer stem-like cells (CSCs) have been identified as the initial cell in formation of cancer. Quiescent CSCs can “hide out” from traditional cancer therapy which may produce an initial response but are often unsuccessful in curing patients. Thus, levels of CSC in patients may be used as an indicator to measure the chance of recurrence of cancer after therapy. The goals of our work are to develop specific exosomal miRNA clusters for gastric CSCs that can potentially predict which patients are at high risk for developing gastric cancer (GC) in order to diagnose GC at an early stage. Here, upon sorting gastric CSCs, we initially isolated and characterized exosomes secreted by both gastric CSCs and their differentiated cells (DCs). By deep sequencing of each exosomal miRNA library, 11 typical differentially expressed miRNAs were identified as signature miRNAs for CSC. Gene target prediction, GO annotation and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis showed possible functions associated with these signature miRNAs. Hence, upon research of exosomal miRNAs that would influence behavior of tumor cells and their microenvironment, this study shows that a specific miRNA signature is present in CSCs, and implies that a potential miRNA biomarker reflecting the stage of gastric cancer progression and metastasis could be developed in the foreseeable future.
Gastroprotective Effects of Grape Seed Proanthocyanidin Extracts against Nonsteroid Anti-Inflammatory Drug-Induced Gastric Injury in Rats

Background/Aims To investigate the gastroprotective effects of grape seed proanthocyanidin extracts (GSPEs) against nonsteroid anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID)-induced gastric mucosal injury in rats. Methods Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly allocated to the normal control, indomethacin, low-dose GSPE, high-dose GSPE and misoprostol groups. All groups except the normal control group received pretreatment drugs for 6 consecutive days. On the 5th and 6th day, indomethacin was administered orally to all groups except for normal control group. The microscopic features of injury were analyzed. The levels of gastric mucosal glutathione, gastric mucosal prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), and proinflammatory cytokines were investigated. Results The total areas of ulceration in the GSPE and misoprostol groups were significantly decreased compared with the indomethacin group (p<0.05). However, a difference in ulcer formation among the drug treatment groups was not observed. Meanwhile, the glutathione levels in the high-dose GSPE group were higher than those of both the indomethacin and misoprostol groups (p<0.05) and were similar to those of the normal control group. Additionally, there was no difference among the groups in the levels of gastric mucosal PGE2 and proinflammatory cytokines. Conclusions High-dose GSPE has a strong protective effect against NSAID-induced gastric mucosal injury, which may be associated with the antioxidant effects of GSPE.
White Matter Hyperintensity Burden and Susceptibility to Cerebral Ischemia

Background and Purpose— White matter hyperintensity (WMH) burden increases risk of ischemic stroke; furthermore, it predicts infarct growth in acute cerebral ischemia. We hypothesized that WMH would be less severe in patients with TIA as compared to those with acute ischemic stroke and completed infarct. Methods— Cases (TIA, n=30) and controls (acute ischemic stroke, n=120) were selected from an ongoing longitudinal cohort study of patients with stroke and matched for age, gender, and race/ethnicity. All subjects had brain MRI within 48 hours of presentation to evaluate for evidence of acute cerebral ischemia. WMH burden on MRI was quantified using a validated computer-assisted program with high inter-rater reliability. Results— Median WMH volume in individuals with TIA was 3.7 cm3 (interquartile range, 1.5- 8.33 cm3) compared to 6.9 cm3 (interquartile range, 3.1–11.9 cm3) in acute ischemic stroke (P<0.04). In multivariable analysis, the odds of completed infarct were higher (OR, 2.19; 95% CI, 1.27–3.77; P<0.005) in subjects with larger volumes of WMH. Conclusions— WMH burden was significantly less in subjects with TIA as opposed to those with ischemic stroke. These data provide further evidence to support a detrimental role of WMH burden on the capacity of cerebral tissue to survive acute ischemia.
On the Oscillation of Second-Order Nonlinear Neutral Delay Dynamic Equations on Time Scales

Based on Riccati transformation and the inequality technique, we establish some new sufficient conditions for oscillation of the second-order neutral delay dynamic equations on time scales. Our results not only extend and improve some known theorems, but also unify the oscillation of the second-order nonlinear delay differential equation and the second-order nonlinear delay difference equation on time scales. At the end of this paper, we give an example to illustrate the main results.
Mixed-state entanglement and quantum error correction.

Entanglement purification protocols (EPPs) and quantum error-correcting codes (QECCs) provide two ways of protecting quantum states from interaction with the environment. In an EPP, perfectly entangled pure states are extracted, with some yield D, from a mixed state M shared by two parties; with a QECC, an arbitrary quantum state |\ensuremath{\xi}〉 can be transmitted at some rate Q through a noisy channel \ensuremath{\chi} without degradation. We prove that an EPP involving one-way classical communication and acting on mixed state M^(\ensuremath{\chi}) (obtained by sharing halves of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen pairs through a channel \ensuremath{\chi}) yields a QECC on \ensuremath{\chi} with rate Q=D, and vice versa. We compare the amount of entanglement E(M) required to prepare a mixed state M by local actions with the amounts ${\mathit{D}}_{1}$(M) and ${\mathit{D}}_{2}$(M) that can be locally distilled from it by EPPs using one- and two-way classical communication, respectively, and give an exact expression for E(M) when M is Bell diagonal. While EPPs require classical communication, QECCs do not, and we prove Q is not increased by adding one-way classical communication. However, both D and Q can be increased by adding two-way communication. We show that certain noisy quantum channels, for example a 50% depolarizing channel, can be used for reliable transmission of quantum states if two-way communication is available, but cannot be used if only one-way communication is available. We exhibit a family of codes based on universal hashing able to achieve an asymptotic Q (or D) of 1-S for simple noise models, where S is the error entropy. We also obtain a specific, simple 5-bit single-error-correcting quantum block code. We prove that iff a QECC results in high fidelity for the case of no error then the QECC can be recast into a form where the encoder is the matrix inverse of the decoder. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.
Ca0.15Zr0.85O1.85 Thin Film for Application to MIM Capacitor on Organic Substrate

Abstract Ca0.15Zr0. 85O1.85 (CSZ) films were grown on Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si substrates at various temperatures using radio-frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering with a CaZrO3 target. Crystalline CSZ phase was formed in the film grown even at room temperature (RT). For the film grown at 300°C, a dielectric constant (k) of value 27.6 and a low tan δ of 0.005 were obtained at 100 kHz, and a similar k value of 26.7 with a high Q-value of 646 was obtained at 2.0 GHz. This film also showed a large capacitance density (264 nF/cm2), a small TCC (75 ppm/°C at 100 kHz), a low leakage current (1.44×10−8 A/cm2 at 1.5 MV/cm), and a large breakdown field strength (2.25 MV/cm). Moreover, a 600 nm-thick CSZ film grown on polyimide substrate at RT satisfied all the ITRS 2016 requirements for a capacitor on an organic substrate. Therefore, the CSZ film, grown at a temperature ≤300°C, is a good candidate for use in embedded capacitors in printed circuit boards.
THE RESPONSES OF THE PUPIL OF GEKKO GEKKO TO EXTERNAL LIGHT STIMULUS

1. The responses of the pupil of a nocturnal gecko (Gekko gekko) to external light stimulus were studied. 2. The responses of the pupil are determined by light entering the pupil and not by light acting directly on the iris. 3. The responses of the pupil are very uniform in sensitivity including spectral sensitivity for light coming in different directions to the eye. 4. The possible change in area of the pupil is more than 300-fold and probably represents an effort to shield the pure rod retina from saturating light intensities. 5. The pupil continues to contract sharply for changes in external light intensity which give retinal illuminations corresponding to 106 quanta/sec. striking a retinal rod. 6. There is a large degree of spatial summation of the response; circular external light fields subtending 5 and 140° giving the same illumination at the pupil give approximately the same pupil response. 7. The spectral sensitivity curve agrees with the absorption curve of an extracted pigment from a closely related gecko described by Crescitelli in the followig paper. It is similar to the human scotopic curve but its maximum is displaced about 20 to 30 mµ towards the red end of the spectrum. The fall in sensitivity towards the red end of the spectrum is described by the equation See PDF for Equation
Modeling Three-Dimensional Interference and SIR in Highly Directional mmWave Communications

Recently, new opportunities for utilizing extremely high frequencies have become instrumental in developing fifth-generation~(5G) mobile technology. The use of highly directional antennas in millimeter-wave (mmWave) bands poses an important question of whether two- dimensional modeling suffices to capture the resulting system performance. Accounting for the effects of human body blockage by mmWave transmissions, in this work we compare the performance of the conventional two-dimensional and the proposed three- dimensional modeling. With our stochastic geometry based approach, we consider the aggregate interference and signal-to- interference ratio (SIR) to be the main metrics of interest. Both counterpart models attempt to capture the inherent behavior of 5G mmWave systems by incorporating the effects of human body blockage and antenna directivity. We thus deliver a realistic numerical assessment by comparing the three-dimensional modeling with its two-dimensional projection to reveal the resulting discrepancy.