Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Distinct Roles of Synaptic and Extrasynaptic NMDA Receptors in Excitotoxicity

Excitatory synaptic activity governs excitotoxicity and modulates the distribution of NMDA receptors (NMDARs) among synaptic and extrasynaptic sites of central neurons. We investigated whether NMDAR localization was functionally linked to excitotoxicity by perturbing F-actin, a cytoskeletal protein that participates in targeting synaptic NMDARs in dendritic spines. Depolymerizing F-actin did not affect NMDA-evoked whole-cell currents. However, the number of dendritic NMDAR clusters and the NMDAR-mediated component of miniature spontaneous EPSCs were reduced, whereas the number of AMPA receptor clusters and AMPA receptor-mediated component of EPSCs was unchanged. This selective perturbation of synaptically activated NMDARs had no effect on neuronal death or the accumulation of 45Ca2+evoked by applying exogenous NMDA or l-glutamate, which reach both synaptic and extrasynaptic receptors. However, it increased survival and decreased 45Ca2+accumulation in neurons exposed to oxygen glucose deprivation, which causes excitotoxicity by glutamate release at synapses. Thus, synaptically and extrasynaptically activated NMDARs are equally capable of excitotoxicity. However, their relative contributions vary with the location of extracellular excitotoxin accumulation, a factor governed by the mechanism of extracellular neurotransmitter accumulation, not the synaptic activation of NMDARs.
Bacillus subtilis comes of age as a vaccine production host and delivery vehicle

Bacillus subtilis is a vaccine production host and delivery vector with several advantages such as a low production cost, straightforward administration as it is safe for human consumption and the production of spores exerting adjuvant effects. This review summarizes the expression approaches and provides an updated outlook of how a myriad of pathogens have been targeted under this technology. Furthermore, by reviewing the literature, several promising candidates in terms of immunogenic and immunoprotective potential have been identified. The immune profiles achieved comprise either humoral or cellular responses, which reflect versatility for application in the fight of distinct pathologies that demand specific polarization on the immune responses. Some perspectives for this field are also envisioned.
Time-varying communication channels: Fundamentals, recent developments, and open problems

In many modern wireless communication systems, the assumption of a locally time-invariant (block-fading) channel breaks down due to increased user mobility, data rates, and carrier frequencies. Fast time-varying channels feature significant Doppler spread in addition to delay spread. In this tutorial paper, we review some characterizations and sparse models of time-varying channels. We then discuss several models and methods recently proposed for communications over time-varying wireless channels, and we point out some related open problems and potential research directions.
Localization of Nitric-oxide Synthase in Plant Peroxisomes*

The presence of nitric-oxide synthase (NOS) in peroxisomes from leaves of pea plants (Pisum sativum L.) was studied. Plant organelles were purified by differential and sucrose density gradient centrifugation. In purified intact peroxisomes a Ca2+-dependent NOS activity of 5.61 nmol ofl-[3H]citrulline mg−1 protein min−1 was measured while no activity was detected in mitochondria. The peroxisomal NOS activity was clearly inhibited (60–90%) by different well characterized inhibitors of mammalian NO synthases. The immunoblot analysis of peroxisomes with a polyclonal antibody against the C terminus region of murine iNOS revealed an immunoreactive protein of 130 kDa. Electron microscopy immunogold-labeling confirmed the subcellular localization of NOS in the matrix of peroxisomes as well as in chloroplasts. The presence of NOS in peroxisomes suggests that these oxidative organelles are a cellular source of nitric oxide (NO) and implies new roles for peroxisomes in the cellular signal transduction mechanisms.
Response time as a metric for comparison of speech recognition by humans and machines

The performance of automatic speech recognition systems is usually assessed in terms of error rate. Human speech recognition produces few errors, but relative difficulty of processing can be assessed via response time techniques. We report the construction of a measure analogous to response time in a machine recognition system. This measure may be compared directly with human response times. We conducted a trial comparison of this type at the phoneme level, including both tense and lax vowels and a variety of consonant classes. The results suggested similarities between human and machine processing in the case of consonants, but differences in the case of vowels.
Integrin av / 35 Participates in the Binding of Photoreceptor Rod Outer Segments during Phagocytosis by Cultured Human Retinal Pigment Epithelium

METHODS. Monoclonal antibodies against human integrin subunit ov and heterodimers av/33 (LM609) and av/35 (P1F6) were used to label freshly isolated human fetal RPE explant and cultured human fetal RPE and to immunoprecipitate membrane proteins from cultured human RPE. Effects of antibodies and peptides that inhibit integrin vitronectin receptors on phagocytosis of ROS by RPE were determined using cultured human fetal RPE and fluorescein-labeled bovine outer segments.
A Proposal of an Associating Image-Based Password Creating Method and a Development of a Password Creating Support System

In recent years, one of the most widely used authentication methods is a password-based authentication method. In this method, users are required to create a secure (i.e.\ difficult to crack) and memorable (i.e.\ easy to remember) password when they create one. Taking account of these two important requirements, a mnemonic phrase-based password has been proposed. However, it is easy to crack a password if the users adopt famous phrases (e. g.\ music lyrics, movie quotes) to create a mnemonic phrase-based password. In this paper, we propose an associating image-based password creating method to create a password which is difficult to crack and easy to remember. Furthermore, we propose and develop a password creating support system for our method.
Simulation Based Evaluation of Methods for Improving Database Systems Efficiency

In this paper, we present the designed and implemented experimentation system giving on to make more complex investigations in database problems area. The objective of experiments is to evaluate methods and algorithms for improving efficiency of database systems. We concentrate on software and hardware altering methods, including indexing, joining tables, manipulations relevant to a data buffer, library and a dictionary, using RAID arrays and hard drive issues. Some results of investigations are presented and discussed.
Grid-fault tolerant operation of DFIG wind turbine generator using a passive resistance network

With increasing penetration of wind turbines in the utility grid new regulation codes have been issued that require them to have low voltage ride-through capability. In this paper, a passive resistive network, consisting of shunt and series elements are applied at the stator side of DFIG wind turbine is presented. The network is inactive during steady state operation and enabled for short intervals of time during the initiation of voltage sag and recovery events. Computer simulation and experimental results confirming the operation during balanced and unbalanced voltage sags are shown in the paper.
A Medicinal Herb Scutellaria lateriflora Inhibits PrP Replication in vitro and Delays the Onset of Prion Disease in Mice

Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE) are characterized by the misfolding of the host encoded prion protein (PrPC) into a pathogenic isoform (PrPSc) which leads to the accumulation of β-sheet-rich fibrils and subsequent loss of neurons and synaptic functions. Although many compounds have been identified which inhibit accumulation or dissolve fibrils and aggregates in vitro there is no therapeutic treatment to stop these progressive neurodegenerative diseases. Here we describe the effects of the traditional medicinal herb Scutellaria lateriflora (S. lateriflora) and its natural compounds, the flavonoids baicalein and baicalin, on the development of prion disease using in vitro and in vivo models. S. lateriflora extract as well as both constituents reduced the PrPres accumulation in scrapie-infected cell cultures and cell-free conversion assays and lead to the destabilization of pre-existing PrPSc fibrils. Moreover, tea prepared from S. lateriflora, prolonged significantly the incubation time of scrapie-infected mice upon oral treatment. Therefore S. lateriflora extracts as well as the individual compounds can be considered as promising candidates for the development of new therapeutic drugs against TSEs and other neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
International consensus on bilateral cochlear implants and bimodal stimulation

Binaural hearing allows listeners with normal hearing to understand speech better in silence and noisy conditions and is an essential requirement for spatial hearing and sound localization. Other benefits of binaural hearing are more natural hearing, reduced listening effort and an improved quality of life. The cortical projection of the ear is fundamentally contralateral and only a small proportion of fibers in the auditory neural pathway have homolateral cortical projection. This results in insufficient homolateral neural and cortical development in cases of monaural stimulation.
Supersense Tagging of Unknown Nouns Using Semantic Similarity

The limited coverage of lexical-semantic resources is a significant problem for NLP systems which can be alleviated by automatically classifying the unknown words. Supersense tagging assigns unknown nouns one of 26 broad semantic categories used by lexicographers to organise their manual insertion into WORDNET. Ciaramita and Johnson (2003) present a tagger which uses synonym set glosses as annotated training examples. We describe an unsupervised approach, based on vector-space similarity, which does not require annotated examples but significantly outperforms their tagger. We also demonstrate the use of an extremely large shallow-parsed corpus for calculating vector-space semantic similarity.
Visual Themes and Sentiment on Social Networks To Aid First Responders During Crisis Events

Online Social Networks explode with activity whenever a crisis event takes place. Most content generated as part of this activity is a mixture of text and images, and is particularly useful for first responders to identify popular topics of interest and gauge the pulse and sentiment of citizens. While multiple researchers have used text to identify, analyze and measure themes and public sentiment during such events, little work has explored visual themes floating on networks in the form of images, and the sentiment inspired by them. Given the potential of visual content for influencing users' thoughts and emotions, we perform a large scale analysis to compare popular themes and sentiment across images and textual content posted on Facebook during the terror attacks that took place in Paris in 2015. Using state-of-the-art image summarization techniques, we discovered multiple visual themes which were popular in images, but were not identifiable through text. We uncovered instances of misinformation and false flag (conspiracy) theories among popular image themes, which were not prominent in user generated textual content, and can be of particular inter- est to first responders. Our analysis also revealed that while textual content posted after the attacks reflected negative sentiment, images inspired positive sentiment. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first large scale study of images posted on social networks during a crisis event.
Group Factor Analysis for Alzheimer's Disease

For any neuroimaging study in an institute, brain images are normally acquired from healthy controls and patients using a single track of protocol. Traditionally, the factor analysis procedure analyzes image data for healthy controls and patients either together or separately. The former unifies the factor pattern across subjects and the latter deals with measurement errors individually. This paper proposes a group factor analysis model for neuroimaging applications by assigning separate factor patterns to control and patient groups. The clinical diagnosis information is used for categorizing subjects into groups in the analysis procedure. The proposed method allows different groups of subjects to share a common covariance matrix of measurement errors. The empirical results show that the proposed method provides more reasonable factor scores and patterns and is more suitable for medical research based on image data as compared with the conventional factor analysis model.
Visual evoked potentials and magnocellular and parvocellular segregation

We have measured visual evoked potentials (VEPs) to luminance-modulated, square-wave alternating, 3-deg homogeneous disks for stimulus frequencies ranging from 1 Hz to 16.7 Hz. The aim of the study was to determine the range of frequencies at which we could reproduce the two-branched contrast-response (C-R) curves we had seen at 1 Hz (Valberg & Rudvin, 1997) and which we interpreted as magnocellular (MC) and parvocellular (PC) segregation. Low-contrast stimuli elicited relatively simple responses to luminance increments resulting in waveforms that may be the signatures of inputs from magnocellular channels to the visual cortex. At all frequencies, the C-R curves of the main waveforms were characterized by a steep slope at low contrasts and a leveling off at 10%–20% Michelson contrast. This was typically followed by an abrupt increase in slope at higher contrasts, giving a distinctive two-branched C-R curve. On the assumption that the low-contrast, high-gain branch reflects the responsivity of magnocellular-pathway inputs to the cortex, the high-contrast branch may be attributed to additional parvocellular activation. While a two-branched curve was maintained for frequencies up to 8 Hz, the high-contrast response was significantly compromised at 16.7 Hz, revealing a differential low-pass filtering. A model decomposing the measured VEP response into two separate C-R curves yielded a difference in sensitivity of the putative MC- and PC-mediated response that, when plotted as a function of frequency, followed a trend similar to that found for single cells. Due to temporal overlap of responses, the MC and PC contributions to the waveforms were hard to distinguish in the transient VEP. However, curves of time-to-peak (delay) as a function of contrast often went through a minimum before the high-contrast gain increase of the corresponding C-R curve, supporting the notion of a recruitment of new cell ensembles in the transition from low to high contrasts.
Histiocytosis X: Characteristics, behavior, and treatments as illustrated in a case series

Background: Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) is a proliferative disorder predominantly found in children. It often presents with pain in calvarium or spine and may cause neuroendocrine symptoms. The gold standard for diagnosing LCH is the detection of Birbeck Granules by EM. Here, we describe two unique presentations of LCH and we review current treatment guidelines. Case Description: The first patient was a 23-year-old man who presented with progressive swelling and redness of the left eye. MRI revealed a left retrobulbar lesion extending into the middle cranial fossa with no signal abnormality in the brain parenchyma. The lesion was resected and pathological analysis revealed LCH. Bone scans were negative and the patient was discharged soon after. He later underwent fractionated radiotherapy (cumulative dose 26 Gy). Follow-up MRIs show no disease at 24 months post-op. The second patient was a 56-year-old man with left frontal skull pain for 5 months. Imaging showed a solitary osteolytic lesion extending into both dura and scalp with no signal abnormality of the parenchyma. Excisional biopsy revealed LCH. Surgery was well tolerated and follow-up imaging shows no recurrence at 24 months post-op. Conclusion: We demonstrate that LCH, though uncommon, must remain on the differential when osteolytic lesions present in the adult. Although LCH often has the clinical and radiographical presentation of an abscess, pathology analysis can successfully diagnose LCH based on markers and morphological characteristics. LCH has an excellent prognosis when treated aggressively with surgical resection and radiotherapy as both of our patients were and are now disease free at 2 year follow-up.
Acquisition of Information is Achieved by the Measurement Process in Classical and Quantum Physics

No consensus seems to exist as to what constitutes a measurement which is still considered somewhat mysterious in many respects in quantum mechanics. At successive stages mathematical theory of measure, metrology and measurement theory tried to systematize this field but significant questions remain open about the nature of measurement, about the characterization of the observer, about the reliability of measurement processes etc. The present paper attempts to talk about these questions through the information science. We start from the idea, rather common and intuitive, that the measurement process basically acquires information. Next we expand this idea through four formal definitions and infer some corollaries regarding the measurement process from those definitions. Relativity emerges as the basic property of measurement from the present logical framework and this rather surprising result collides with the feeling of physicists who take measurement as a myth. In the closing this paper shows how the me.
UPnP-Based Sensor Network Management Architecture

Abstract— We propose a management framework for sensor networks based on the standard service discovery protocol, UPnP. Using UPnP, we can achieve easy deployment of sensor network services and provide zeroconfiguration sensor networking. Since sensor nodes are highly resource limited, it is not feasible to accommodate UPnP protocol in each sensor node. Thus, the framework includes an UPnP agent, called BOSS (Bridge Of the SensorS), which is implemented in the base station and lies between the UPnP controllers and the non-UPnP sensor nodes to be managed. In addition to the BOSS agent, UPnP device and service descriptions for sensor network services and management are documented in XML. We implemented the framework using an xscale-based base station and Berkeley’s sensor node, MICA2. We propose a management framework for sensor networks based on the standard service discovery protocol, UPnP. Using UPnP, we can achieve easy deployment of sensor network services and provide zeroconfiguration sensor networking. Since sensor nodes are highly resource limited, it is not feasible to accommodate UPnP protocol in each sensor node. Thus, the framework includes an UPnP agent, called BOSS (Bridge Of the SensorS), which is implemented in the base station and lies between the UPnP controllers and the non-UPnP sensor nodes to be managed. In addition to the BOSS agent, UPnP device and service descriptions for sensor network services and management are documented in XML. We implemented the framework using an xscale-based base station and Berkeley’s sensor node, MICA2.
Theory, design and perspectives of electromagnetic wave absorbers

Electromagnetic absorbers for free space and cavity absorption are discussed. Classical configurations are described as well as more recent designs. The presented layouts are able to provide absorbing behaviors spanning from ultra-narrow band to ultra-wideband. A comparison among various solutions is presented both in terms of achievable bandwidth and in terms of minimum theoretical thickness. The problem of cavity resonances is also addressed. It is shown that resonances can be damped by using alternative solutions with respect to the classic use of lossy magnetic materials.
Where and How Breastfeeding Promotion Initiatives Should Focus Its Attention? A Study from Rural Wardha

Background: In India, the practice of breastfeeding is almost universal, but initiation of breastfeeding is generally quite late and colostrum is discarded. Integrated Management of Neonatal and Childhood Illness (IMNCI) strategy recommended systematic assessment of breastfeeding and emphasized counseling of the mother on proper positioning and attachment of infant to the breast. Objective: To assess breastfeeding among mothers of below six months children in rural Wardha. Materials and Methods The present cross-sectional study was undertaken in surrounding 23 villages of Kasturba Rural Health Training Center (KRHTC), Anji. Two Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs) trained in IMNCI paid house visits to 99 mothers during the study period and undertook the assessment of breastfeeding using IMNCI assessment form for young infants. Auxiliary Nurse Midwives observed and recorded the positioning and attachment of infant to the breast as per IMNCI guidelines. The data were entered and analyzed using Epi_Info (version 6.04d) software package. Results: Most of the deliveries 94 (94.9%) took place in the healthcare facilities. Majority 61 (61.6%) newborn babies had received breastfeeding within half an hour. About half of the mothers had any of the feeding problems like feeding less than eight times in 24 h, giving any other food or drinks or is low weight for age. Significantly more mothers with feeding problems had problems in positioning and attachment of infant to the breast as compared with those mothers who did not have any feeding problems. Conclusions: In the settings, where practice of institutional delivery is high, the staff of healthcare facility should ensure education of the mothers regarding position and attachment of infant to the breast before discharge from the healthcare facility. At the village level, Village Health Nutrition Day (VHND) can be utilized for health education of future mothers and support for the breastfeeding mothers. The IMNCI assessment form for young infant should also include assessment of positioning of infant.
Stroke in Birjand, Iran: A Hospital-Based Study of Acute Stroke

Background Stroke, or cerebrovascular accident (CVA), is the second leading cause of death in the world and based on the World Health Organization (WHO) report in 2006, it is responsible for 9.9% of all deaths in the world which over 85% of these deaths occurred in developing countries. Objectives The aim of this study was to investigate the data related to the frequency, risk factors, types and mortality of stroke in Birjand city. Patients and Methods A retrospective cohort of consecutive patients with diagnosed stroke who were admitted to hospital (the only neurological center of Birjand) between 2002 and 2008 was designed. A stroke was defined according to clinical features and CT-scan which was confirmed by agreement of a staff neurologist. Collected data included date of admission, age, sex, and hospital outcome as well as related risk factors. Results Totally, 1219 stroke (85.4% ischemic type) with the mean age of 69.6 ± 12.9 years and female: male ratio of 1.09 was included in over 6 years. The stroke hospital admission rates were 48.6 and 103.4 /100,000 population /year in the first and the last year of the study, respectively. There was an increasing trend in stroke incidence rate during the study (P < 0.01). The most common epidemiological risk factors for stroke in our region were hypertension, cardiac diseases, a history of stroke, diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, and smoking (54.7, 24.4, 20.1, 14.9, 12.2, and 9%, respectively). Overall in-hospital mortality rate was 17.1%. Conclusions The stroke hospital admission rate might be increasing in Birjand. Therefore, health care administrators and public health authorities must work harder to promote the knowledge and practice of society about the stroke related risk factors and prevention methods.