Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Neuroplasticity as a Double-edged Sword: Deaf Enhancements and Dyslexic Deficits in Motion Processing

We examined the hypothesis that aspects of processing that are most modifiable by experience (i.e., plastic) display the most vulnerability in developmental disorders and the most compensatory enhancement after sensory deprivation. A large literature reports that motion processing and magnocellular visual function is selectively deficient in dyslexia. A smaller literature reports enhancements in such functions in deaf individuals. However, studies with dyslexic and deaf individuals have used different experimental paradigms to assess visual function, and no research has yet examined both sides of modifiability (i.e., enhancements and deficits) using the same experimental paradigm. In the present research, visual function was compared in dyslexic (n = 15), deaf (n = 17), and control adults by using automated peripheral kinetic and foveal static perimetry. In the kinetic perimetry task, the dyslexic group showed deficits ( p < .003), whereas the deaf group showed enhancements ( p < .001) for detecting moving light points in the periphery. In the foveal static perimetry task, neither the dyslexic ( p = .866) nor the deaf ( p = .632) group differed significantly from controls in foveal contrast sensitivity thresholds, and no group or individual approached ceiling performance on this task. Taken together, the present data bridge previous literatures and suggest that motion processing tasks are selectively modifiable, either to decrement or enhancement, whereas foveal contrast sensitivity does not differ in dyslexic or deaf groups.
Optical spectroscopy of DENIS mini-survey brown dwarf candidates

We present optical (6500-9200A) spectroscopy of eight cool dwarfs detected in a 231 square degree “Mini-survey” of the Deep NEar Infrared Survey (DENIS) data. We are able to confirm that the spectral types derived from the Mini-survey infrared spectroscopy are meaningful. We provide a spectral sequence which extends beyond the M-dwarf range and into the proposed “L” class of dwarfs. The dominant spectral features in the optical for these L-type dwarfs are resonance lines of Cs I and molecular band heads of CrH and FeH. The other dominant feature in these L-type spectra is a broad 600 A absorption dip centered on 7700 A, which we identify with extremely strong (equivalent width ∼ several hundred A) absorption associated with the 7664,7698 A resonance doublet of K I. We find that model atmospheres which include the effects of molecular condensation without dust opacity (to simulate rapid gravitational settling of dust grains) produce significantly better agreement with observed optical spectra for L-type dwarfs, than models including dust opacity. This suggests gravitational settling of dust grains plays an important role in L-dwarf photospheres. The extreme strength of the K I resonance doublet, and disappearance of TiO and VO, and the consequent dominance of CrH and FeH in L-dwarf spectra offer considerable prospects as sensitive effective temperature diagnostics, even at low spectral resolution.
Phenology-Based Vegetation Index Differencing for Mapping of Rubber Plantations Using Landsat OLI Data

Accurate and up-to-date mapping and monitoring of rubber plantations is challenging. In this study, we presented a simple method for rapidly and accurately mapping rubber plantations in the Xishuangbanna region of southwest China using phenology-based vegetation index differencing. Temporal profiles of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Atmospherically Resistant Vegetation Index (ARVI), Normalized Difference Moisture Index (NDMI), and Tasselled Cap Greenness (TCG) for rubber trees, natural forests and croplands were constructed using 11 Landsat 8 OLI images acquired within one year. These vegetation index time series accurately demonstrated the unique seasonal phenological dynamics of rubber trees. Two distinct phenological phases (i.e., defoliation and foliation) of rubber trees were clearly distinguishable from natural forests and croplands. Rubber trees undergo a brief defoliation-foliation process between late December and mid-March. Therefore, vegetation index differencing between the nearly complete defoliation (leaf-off) and full foliation (leaf flushing) phases was used to delineate rubber plantations within fragmented tropical mountainous landscapes. The method presented herein greatly improved rubber plantation classification accuracy. Overall classification accuracies derived from the differences of the five vegetation indices varied from 92% to 96% with corresponding kappa coefficients of 0.84–0.92. These results demonstrate the promising potential of phenology-based vegetation index differencing for mapping and monitoring rubber expansion at the regional scale.
IEC 61850-based WLAN peer-to-peer feeder protection improvement in smart grid substation automation system

The development of a computational platform of a communication network for an automation system using the precepts of IEC 61850 has become a great trend in substation automation systems (SASs) research. Recent developments in wireless communication technologies, especially the IEEE802.11 have enabled cost-effective remote control systems with a capability of monitoring, control and protection in the real-time operating conditions of substations. The message delay and throughput in substation automation while using the WLAN and smart grid must satisfy the standard requirements specified in the IEC 61850-5. In this paper, the end-to-end (ETE) delay of IEC 61850-based messages and operating time of the over current protection using the WLAN-based communication network has been evaluated using Opnet Modeler Edition 18.0.
The Symbol Associated with the Solution of a Stochastic Differential Equation

We consider stochastic differential equations which are driven by multidimensional Levy processes. We show that the infinitesimal generator of the solution is a pseudo-differential operator whose symbol is calculated explicitely. For a large class of Feller processes many properties of the sample paths can be derived by analysing the symbol. It turns out that the solution of the SDE under consideration is a Feller process if the coefficient of the SDE is bounded and that the symbol is of a particulary nice structure.
RUNNING HEAD : GROUNDING THE ACQUISITION OF CONTEXTUALIZED CONCEPTS Grounding the Acquisition of Contextualized Concepts : A Connectionist Approach

Conceptual knowledge is acquired through recurrent experiences, by extracting statistical regularities at different levels of granularity. At a fine level, patterns of feature co-occurrence are categorized into objects. At a coarser level, patterns of concept co-occurrence are categorized into contexts. We present and test CONCAT, a connectionist model that simultaneously learns to categorize objects and contexts. The model contains two hierarchically organized CALM modules (Murre, Phaf, & Wolters, 1992). The first module, the Object Module, forms object representations based on co-occurrences between features. These representations are used as input for the second module, the Context Module, which categorizes contexts based on object co-occurrences. Feedback connections from the Context Module to the Object Module send activation from the active context to those objects that frequently occur within this context. We demonstrate that context feedback contributes to the successful categorization of objects, especially when bottom-up feature information is degraded or ambiguous. Whenever we interact with a particular object, we automatically activate stored knowledge about similar objects that we have encountered before. In other words, we activate a concept, a mental representation referring to a particular class of objects in the world. Concepts enable us to recognize and categorize objects, to draw inferences about their characteristics, and to react to them appropriately. Moreover, we can think and talk about objects that are not directly present by using our conceptual knowledge of those objects. Thus, concepts are the basic building blocks of cognition, and they are necessary to understand and interact with the world around us (Murphy, 2004). Most theories of concept learning assume that conceptual knowledge of objects is acquired through experience (e. During recurrent interactions with different exemplars of a class of objects (e.g., balls), the features that are invariant across those exemplars (e.g., shape), and thus relevant for the category, are extracted and stored in memory to form a concept of the category (the concept BALL). The features that vary across exemplars (e.g., color) are discarded, as well as information about the different contexts in which exemplars are encountered. These models thus assume that concepts are primarily based on bottom-up feature information, and they generally ignore the role of context information in conceptual processing (Yeh & Barsalou, 2006). However, across many domains of cognition there is evidence that the context profoundly influences conceptual processing and performance (for an overview see Yeh & Barsalou, 2006). Studies of visual processing showed that visual …
Estimation of the noise correlation matrix

To harvest the potential of multi-channel noise reduction methods, it is crucial to have an accurate estimate of the noise correlation matrix. Existing algorithms either assume speech absence and exploit a voice activity detector (VAD), or make use of additional assumptions like a diffuse noise field. Therefore, these algorithms are limited with respect to their tracking speed and the type of noise fields for which they can estimate the correlation matrix. In this paper we present a new method for noise correlation matrix estimation that makes no assumptions about the type of noise field, nor uses a VAD. The presented method exploits the existence of accurate single-channel noise PSD estimators, as well as the availability of one noise reference per microphone pair. For spatially and temporally non-stationary noise fields, the proposed method leads to improved performance compared to widely used state-of-the-art reference methods in terms of both segmental SNR and beamformer response error.
Improved Iterative Correction for Distant Spelling Errors

Noisy channel models, widely used in modern spellers, cope with typical misspellings, but do not work well with infrequent and difficult spelling errors. In this paper, we have improved the noisy channel approach by iterative stochastic search for the best correction. The proposed algorithm allowed us to avoid local minima problem and improve the F1 measure by 6.6% on distant spelling errors.
Reconstruction of the Regulatory Network for Bacillus subtilis and Reconciliation with Gene Expression Data

We introduce a manually constructed and curated regulatory network model that describes the current state of knowledge of transcriptional regulation of Bacillus subtilis. The model corresponds to an updated and enlarged version of the regulatory model of central metabolism originally proposed in 2008. We extended the original network to the whole genome by integration of information from DBTBS, a compendium of regulatory data that includes promoters, transcription factors (TFs), binding sites, motifs, and regulated operons. Additionally, we consolidated our network with all the information on regulation included in the SporeWeb and Subtiwiki community-curated resources on B. subtilis. Finally, we reconciled our network with data from RegPrecise, which recently released their own less comprehensive reconstruction of the regulatory network for B. subtilis. Our model describes 275 regulators and their target genes, representing 30 different mechanisms of regulation such as TFs, RNA switches, Riboswitches, and small regulatory RNAs. Overall, regulatory information is included in the model for ∼2500 of the ∼4200 genes in B. subtilis 168. In an effort to further expand our knowledge of B. subtilis regulation, we reconciled our model with expression data. For this process, we reconstructed the Atomic Regulons (ARs) for B. subtilis, which are the sets of genes that share the same “ON” and “OFF” gene expression profiles across multiple samples of experimental data. We show how ARs for B. subtilis are able to capture many sets of genes corresponding to regulated operons in our manually curated network. Additionally, we demonstrate how ARs can be used to help expand or validate the knowledge of the regulatory networks by looking at highly correlated genes in the ARs for which regulatory information is lacking. During this process, we were also able to infer novel stimuli for hypothetical genes by exploring the genome expression metadata relating to experimental conditions, gaining insights into novel biology.
Characterization of (2S,4R)-1-[5-chloro-1-[(2,4-dimethoxyphenyl)sulfonyl]-3-(2-methoxy-phenyl)-2-oxo-2,3-dihydro-1H-indol-3-yl]-4-hydroxy-N,N-dimethyl-2-pyrrolidine carboxamide (SSR149415), a selective and orally active vasopressin V1b receptor antagonist.

(2S,4R)-1-[5-Chloro-1-[(2,4-dimethoxyphenyl)sulfonyl]-3-(2-methoxy-phenyl)-2-oxo-2,3-dihydro-1H-indol-3-yl]-4-hydroxy-N,N-dimethyl-2-pyrrolidine carboxamide (SSR149415), the first selective, nonpeptide vasopressin V1b receptor antagonist yet described, has been characterized in vitro and in vivo. SSR149415 showed competitive nanomolar affinity for animal and human V1b receptors and exhibited much lower affinity for rat and human V1a, V2, and oxytocin receptors. Moreover, this compound did not interact with a large number of other receptors, enzymes, or ion channels. In vitro, SSR149415 behaved as a full antagonist and potently inhibited arginine vasopressin (AVP)-induced Ca2+ increase in Chinese hamster ovary cells expressing rat or human V1b receptors. The in vivo activity of SSR149415 has been studied in several models of elevated corticotropin secretion in conscious rats. SSR149415 inhibited exogenous AVP-induced increase in plasma corticotropin, from 3 mg/kg i.p. and 10 mg/kg p.o. upwards. Similarly, this compound antagonized AVP-potentiated corticotropin release provoked by exogenous corticoliberin at 3 mg/kg p.o. The effect lasted for more than 4 h at 10 mg/kg p.o. showing a long-lasting oral effect. SSR149415 (10 mg/kg p.o.) also blocked corticotropin secretion induced by endogenous AVP increase subsequent to body water loss. Moreover, 10 mg/kg i.p SSR149415 inhibited plasma corticotropin elevation after restraint-stress in rats by 50%. In the four-plate test, a mouse model of anxiety, SSR149415 (3 mg/kg p.o. upwards) displayed anxiolytic-like activity after acute and 7-day repeated administrations. Thus, SSR149415 is a potent, selective, and orally active V1b receptor antagonist. It represents a unique tool for exploring the functional role of V1b receptors and deserves to be clinically investigated in the field of stress and anxiety.
The Draft Genome of Ciona intestinalis: Insights into Chordate and Vertebrate Origins

The first chordates appear in the fossil record at the time of the Cambrian explosion, nearly 550 million years ago. The modern ascidian tadpole represents a plausible approximation to these ancestral chordates. To illuminate the origins of chordate and vertebrates, we generated a draft of the protein-coding portion of the genome of the most studied ascidian, Ciona intestinalis. TheCiona genome contains ∼16,000 protein-coding genes, similar to the number in other invertebrates, but only half that found in vertebrates. Vertebrate gene families are typically found in simplified form in Ciona, suggesting that ascidians contain the basic ancestral complement of genes involved in cell signaling and development. The ascidian genome has also acquired a number of lineage-specific innovations, including a group of genes engaged in cellulose metabolism that are related to those in bacteria and fungi.
Measurement of sap flow in plant stems

Transpiration rates for whole plants, individual branches or tillers can be determined by techniques which measure the rate at which sap ascends stems. All of these methods use heat as a tracer for sap movement, but they are fundamentally different in their operating principles. Two methods commonly employed, the stem heat balance and trunk sector heat balance methods, use the heat balance principle; the stem is heated electrically and the heat balance is solved for the amount of heat taken up by the moving sap stream, which is then used to calculate the mass flow of sap in the stem. In the heat-pulse method, rather than using continuous heating, short pulses of heat are applied and the mass flow of sap is determined from the velocity of the heat pulses moving along the stem. In addition, rates of sap flow can be determined empirically, using the thermal dissipation technique, from the temperature of sapwood near a continuously-powered heater implanted in the stem. Users must understand the theory underlying each of these methods, so that they can select the method most appropriate to their application and take precautions against potential sources of error. When attempting to estimate transpiration by stands of vegetation from measurements of sap flow in individual plants, users must also select an appropriate sampling strategy and scaling method.
Effects of network delay on training for telesurgery

Telesurgery is defined as robotic surgery performed over a distance using a communication link. Methods of training for telesurgery are unknown. We investigated whether trainees perform better with latencies at the outset (700ms) or with zero latency and a training ramp (0, 350, 700ms). Four test exercises were conducted. Performance of the groups was compared for the different delay settings. Straight cut and grasp steadiness exercises showed no significant difference except at 700ms versus 0ms (p≪0.05). In object placement, differences occurred in the lower latencies (700ms versus 0ms; 700ms versus 350ms; p≪0.05), but the groups were not different at the end of the trial (700ms versus 700ms). A Fitts' law exercise showed no difference in performance between the groups at 700ms. In conclusion, training for telesurgery may be equally effective with full latency at the outset or by using a training ramp.
Spatial Attention and the Maintenance of Representations of a Robot's Environment

Mobile robots are often faced with complex unstructured environments, which tax their ability to describe and represent. In this paper we describe an approach for handling this complexity by restricting the features of the environment that are represented to those that are relevant to a particular task. We propose an approach, based on the use of saliency driven spatial attention, to lter out irrelevant features, and to detect relevant changes in the robot's environment which can then be used to update the robot's representation of its
Aggregated representations and metrics for scalable flow analysis

While monitoring network traffic at the operator level allows to collect highly valuable data for monitoring large scale distributed attacks, scalability remains a major challenge due to the large data volumes to handle. In particular, collecting and storing NetFlow data is feasible but accurate analysis is still a challenging topic. Hence, this paper leverages an aggregated representation of the network traffic which is further analyzed using dedicated entropic based metrics and machine learning techniques. The main advantage is a reduction of the computational complexity while the accuracy still remains acceptable as highlighted by evaluation on real datasets.
Introduction to Spatio-Temporal Pattern Recognition

In many pattern recognition tasks we may be interested in asking questions about the behavior of sequences of observations on a particular random vector. Given that we have observed the sequence of feature vectors x1, x2, . , xi, at i discrete points in time, for example, how likely is it that x will take the value xi+1 at time i+1. We may be interested in asking questions about the behavior of sequences of observations on a particular random vector. Given that I have observed the sequence of feature vectors x1, x2, . , xi, at i discrete points in time, how likely is it that x will take the value xi+1 at time i + 1.
Associating Faces and Names in Japanese Photo News Articles on the Web

We propose a system which extracts faces and person names from news articles with photos on the Web and associates them automatically. The system detects face images in news photos with a face detector and extracts person names from news text with a morphological analyzer. In addition, the bag-of-keypoints technique is applied to the extracted face images for filtering out non-face images. The system uses the eigenface representation as image features of the extracted faces, and associates them with the extracted names by the modified k-means clustering in the eigenface subspace. In the experiment, we obtained the 66% precision rate regarding association of faces and names.
Cloud download: using cloud utilities to achieve high-quality content distribution for unpopular videos

Video content distribution dominates the Internet traffic. The state-of-the-art techniques generally work well in distributing popular videos, but do not provide satisfactory content distribution service for unpopular videos due to low data health or low data transfer rate. In recent years, the worldwide deployment of cloud utilities provides us with a novel perspective to consider the above problem. We propose and implement the cloud download scheme, which achieves high-quality video content distribution by using cloud utilities to guarantee the data health and enhance the data transfer rate. Specifically, a user sends his video request to the cloud which subsequently downloads the video from the Internet and stores it in the cloud cache. Then the user can usually retrieve his requested video (whether popular or unpopular) from the cloud with high data rate in any place at any time, via the intra-cloud data transfer acceleration. Running logs of our real deployed commercial system (named VideoCloud) confirm the effectiveness and efficiency of cloud download. The users' average data transfer rate of unpopular videos exceeds 1.6 Mbps, and over 80% of the data transfer rates are more than 300 Kbps which is the basic playback rate of online videos. Our study provides practical experiences and valuable heuristics for making use of cloud utilities to achieve efficient Internet services.
Cdo Interacts with APPL1 and Activates AKT in Myoblast Differentiation

Cdo activates Akt via indirect interaction with APPL1 during myoblast differentiation, and this complex likely mediates some of the promyogenic effect of cell–cell interaction. The promyogenic function of Cdo involves a coordinated activation of p38MAPK and Akt via interaction with scaffold proteins, JLP and Bnip-2 for p38MAPK and APPL1 for Akt.
Animating Chinese Lion Dance with High-level Controls

Unlike filters in image / signal processing tools, current animation packages do not provide feasible controls for the creation and variation of the character motions. In this paper, we design a character animation prototyping framework with a level of rhythmic animation control scheme. Controls from lower level to higher level are achieved by action commands with the motion and timing parameters according to the principles of traditional animation. By choreographing a sequence of customized action commands in rhythm, animated characters perform a dramatic Chinese Lion Dance with the intuitional user controls such as accentuated drum beats.