Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Induction of Filopodia by Direct Local Elevation of Intracellular Calcium Ion Concentration

In neuronal growth cones, cycles of filopodial protrusion and retraction are important in growth cone translocation and steering. Alteration in intracellular calcium ion concentration has been shown by several indirect methods to be critically involved in the regulation of filopodial activity. Here, we investigate whether direct elevation of [Ca2+]i, which is restricted in time and space and is isolated from earlier steps in intracellular signaling pathways, can initiate filopodial protrusion. We raised [Ca2+]i level transiently in small areas of nascent axons near growth cones in situ by localized photolysis of caged Ca2+ compounds. After photolysis, [Ca2+]i increased from ∼60 nM to ∼1 μM within the illuminated zone, and then returned to resting level in ∼10–15 s. New filopodia arose in this area within 1–5 min, and persisted for ∼15 min. Elevation of calcium concentration within a single filopodium induced new branch filopodia. In neurons coinjected with rhodamine-phalloidin, F-actin was observed in dynamic cortical patches along nascent axons; after photolysis, new filopodia often emerged from these patches. These results indicate that local transient [Ca2+]i elevation is sufficient to induce new filopodia from nascent axons or from existing filopodia.
Deep Reinforcement Learning-Based Path-Tracking for Unmanned Vehicle Navigation Enhancement

Despite the growing interest in autonomous vehicles, practical challenges remain particularly in achieving high tracking performance. In this study, we address this issue by developing a path tracking algorithm based on deep reinforcement learning. To this end, we elaborately design the Markov decision process and implement the deep Q-network (DQN) training algorithm. Simulation results validate the superior convergence speed, accuracy, and stability of the proposed DQN-based tracking algorithm in comparison to the conventional approach.
The Overseas Student Teaching Experience: Creating Optimal Culture Learning

The preparation of teachers to address the diverse needs of societies demands that more than just the demographics of the teaching force be questioned. This study examined the nature of the international student teaching experience and its impact on the professional and personal development of new teachers. Fifty returning students responded to an open-ended questionnaire designed to elicit how the experience helped or hindered them personally and professionally. Findings suggest that an overseas experience has immense benefits for the student teacher, having impact on beliefs about self and others, professional development in terms of global mindedness, and improved self-efficacy. These categories combine to demonstrate a new understanding of one's own role and improved ability to interact and teach in diverse cultural settings.
Load Balancing Beam Selection Alogorithm using Fingerprint DB in UAV Supported Cellular Systems

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is attracting attention as a key element of the New Radio (NR) system as it can exceed the limits of the ground network to prepare for the rapidly increasing data usage and create new application services. However, high-altitude UAVs have a high Line-Of-Sight (LOS) probability, resulting in interference problems between adjacent cells in multi-cell networks. Therefore, this paper proposes an algorithm that selects the optimal beam to reduce the impact of interference and ensure high transmission efficiency. Specifically, the proposed algorithm consists of the process of building a Fingerprint Database (fingerprint database) and the process of selecting a load balancing beam. Simulations were conducted based on the downlink system for performance analysis, and signal-to-interference-plus-noise cumulative distribution function (SINR CDF) is used as performance analysis indicators.
The language-independent bottleneck features

In this paper we present novel language-independent bottleneck (BN) feature extraction framework. In our experiments we have used Multilingual Artificial Neural Network (ANN), where each language is modelled by separate output layer, while all the hidden layers jointly model the variability of all the source languages. The key idea is that the entire ANN is trained on all the languages simultaneously, thus the BN-features are not biased towards any of the languages. Exactly for this reason, the final BN-features are considered as language independent. In the experiments with GlobalPhone database, we show that Multilingual BN-features consistently outperform Monolingual BN-features. Also, cross-lingual generalization is evaluated, where we train on 5 source languages and test on 3 other languages. The results show that the ANN can produce very good BN-features even for unseen languages, in some cases even better than if we trained the ANN on the target language only.
An early testing and defense web application framework for malicious input attacks

Input validation vulnerabilities, one of the largest problems in software security today, are readily identified by software assurance (SA) tools. Software development organizations are increasingly adopting SA tools to quickly identify vulnerabilities in their software systems. These tools, usually applied when implementation is complete, have a comprehensive and extendable rule set to detect known and new vulnerabilities. A simple and effective framework is needed to provide developers with a strategic approach to securing against malicious input attacks early in software development. We introduce a Java Web Application Reliability and Defense (WARD) framework, a two-part security solution composed of a vulnerability detection component, SecureUnit, and a vulnerability protection component, SecureFilter. SecureUnit enables developers to write automated, reusable, and customizable JUnit penetration tests that launch attacks on their systems to reveal security vulnerabilities. SecureFilter is a customizable server-side choke point containing a regular expression-based filter to match legal input according to system requirements. WARD provides an attack-then-defend approach for developers to build security into a software system early in the software process. We integrated WARD v1.0 with WebGoat, an open-source web application security test bed, and successfully “warded off” 38 of 43 (88%) injected cross-site scripting exploits. WARD v2.0 will address the encoded (e.g. with HTML entities, hex characters) exploits that were not stopped from entering WebGoat in WARD v1.0.
Surface Defect Detection Method Based on Cross-Data Space Adversarial Defense

Surface defect detection is a crucial method for controlling product quality, and convolutional neural networks(CNN) have shown great potential in this field. However, the researchers found that adversarial examples can cause the CNN to produce inaccurate results. It remains to be studied whether CNN can be applied in important industries. In order to improve the adversarial defense capability of neural networks, this paper proposes a neural network training framework based on cross-data space adversarial defense(CDSAD) for classified neural networks. The framework CDSAD trains a network that can adapt to multiple data distributions. During the inference process, the network employs multi-perspective evaluation methods to defend, warn and detect adversarial examples. The defensive capability of the CDSAD was tested against multiple adversarial attack algorithms using the CIFAR 10 and triode surface defect datasets. Experiment results demonstrate that the CDSAD defends against multiple adversarial attack algorithms without requiring any information about the opponent. The defensive effect is further improved when the framework acquires opponent information for adversarial identification module(AIM) training.
Chromatin Remodelers: From Function to Dysfunction

Chromatin remodelers are key players in the regulation of chromatin accessibility and nucleosome positioning on the eukaryotic DNA, thereby essential for all DNA dependent biological processes. Thus, it is not surprising that upon of deregulation of those molecular machines healthy cells can turn into cancerous cells. Even though the remodeling enzymes are very abundant and a multitude of different enzymes and chromatin remodeling complexes exist in the cell, the particular remodeling complex with its specific nucleosome positioning features must be at the right place at the right time in order to ensure the proper regulation of the DNA dependent processes. To achieve this, chromatin remodeling complexes harbor protein domains that specifically read chromatin targeting signals, such as histone modifications, DNA sequence/structure, non-coding RNAs, histone variants or DNA bound interacting proteins. Recent studies reveal the interaction between non-coding RNAs and chromatin remodeling complexes showing importance of RNA in remodeling enzyme targeting, scaffolding and regulation. In this review, we summarize current understanding of chromatin remodeling enzyme targeting to chromatin and their role in cancer development.
Genistein Attenuates Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis and Increases Hepatic PPARγ in a Rat Model

Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) has become a global chronic liver disease, but no effective medicine has been proven to cure it. This study investigated the protective effects of genistein, a phytoestrogen, on NASH and examined whether it has any effect on hepatic PPARγ. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into four groups: control group fed ad libitum with standard rat diet, NASH group fed ad libitum with high-fat diet to induce NASH and NASH + Gen8 group and NASH + Gen16 group fed with high-fat diet plus intragastric administration of 8 or 16 mg/kg genistein once daily. After 6 weeks, liver samples were collected to determine MDA, TNF-α, PPARγ, and histopathology. The findings were that levels of hepatic MDA and TNF-α increased in NASH group, but 16 mg/kg genistein reduced these levels significantly. Downregulation of hepatic PPARγ was observed in NASH group, but genistein significantly upregulated the expression of PPARγ in both NASH + Gen groups. The histological appearance of liver in NASH group presented pathological features of steatohepatitis which were diminished in both NASH + Gen groups. The results suggest that genistein attenuates the liver histopathology of NASH with upregulation of hepatic PPARγ, reduction of oxidative stress, and inhibition of inflammatory cytokine.
Protection of the Photosynthetic Apparatus from Extreme Dehydration and Oxidative Stress in Seedlings of Transgenic Tobacco

A genetic program that in sunflower seeds is activated by Heat Shock transcription Factor A9 (HaHSFA9) has been analyzed in transgenic tobacco seedlings. The ectopic overexpression of the HSFA9 program protected photosynthetic membranes, which resisted extreme dehydration and oxidative stress conditions. In contrast, heat acclimation of seedlings induced thermotolerance but not resistance to the harsh stress conditions employed. The HSFA9 program was found to include the expression of plastidial small Heat Shock Proteins that accumulate only at lower abundance in heat-stressed vegetative organs. Photosystem II (PSII) maximum quantum yield was higher for transgenic seedlings than for non-transgenic seedlings, after either stress treatment. Furthermore, protection of both PSII and Photosystem I (PSI) membrane protein complexes was observed in the transgenic seedlings, leading to their survival after the stress treatments. It was also shown that the plastidial D1 protein, a labile component of the PSII reaction center, and the PSI core protein PsaB were shielded from oxidative damage and degradation. We infer that natural expression of the HSFA9 program during embryogenesis may protect seed pro-plastids from developmental desiccation.
Urban Transport Expansions, Employment Decentralization, and the Spatial Scope of Agglomeration Economies ∗

This paper investigates the relationships between urban highway construction and the de- centralization of jobs and workers'residential locations by industry between 1960 and 2000. Estimates indicate that highways cause signi…cantly greater amounts of residential than job de- centralization. Identi…cation of these treatment eects relies on exogenous variation available from planned portions of the federal highway system and variation across cities in the number of highways received due to these cities'relative locations. Each radial highway displaced an estimated 16 percent of the central city working population but only 6 percent of the jobs to the suburbs. These estimates are fairly consistent across industry. These results support the idea that local spillovers remain an important incentive for …rms to to cluster spatially, even in the face of transportation cost reductions. � Preliminary and Incomplete. Please do not cite without permission.
Large-scale image classification with trace-norm regularization

With the advent of larger image classification datasets such as ImageNet, designing scalable and efficient multi-class classification algorithms is now an important challenge. We introduce a new scalable learning algorithm for large-scale multi-class image classification, based on the multinomial logistic loss and the trace-norm regularization penalty. Reframing the challenging non-smooth optimization problem into a surrogate infinite-dimensional optimization problem with a regular ℓ1-regularization penalty, we propose a simple and provably efficient accelerated coordinate descent algorithm. Furthermore, we show how to perform efficient matrix computations in the compressed domain for quantized dense visual features, scaling up to 100,000s examples, 1,000s-dimensional features, and 100s of categories. Promising experimental results on the "Fungus", "Ungulate", and "Vehicles" subsets of ImageNet are presented, where we show that our approach performs significantly better than state-of-the-art approaches for Fisher vectors with 16 Gaussians.
Values in UN speeches

The presence of values in politically charged speeches delivered by mediating organizations such as the United Nations (UN) contributes towards the attainment of world peace. This study investigated factors that contribute towards the inclusion of values in political speeches written for the delivery of UN representatives to audiences of dev-eloped and developing countries. Semi-structured interviews were conducted on 13 current and former, full-time and part-time speechwriters at the UN headquarters in New York. The study found the UN’s values to be the most important factor, followed by the audiences’ demographics, audiences’ country of origin (i.e., developed or developing countries), and finally, the speechwriters’ values. Additionally, the study found more similarities than differences in terms of the values included in speeches written for audiences of developed and developing countries. However, different styles were usually used to express the values.
Accounting for Rape: Psychology, Feminism and Discourse Analysis in the Study of Sexual Violence

1. Rape Supportive Culture. 2. The Social Psychology of Rape Perception. 3. Toward a Feminist Discourse Analysis of Accounts for Rape. 4. Talking about Female Rape: The Social Construction of Hazard/Risk and Accountability. 5. Making Sense of Male Rape. 6. Metaphors About Female and Male Rape. Conclusions.
Forming a Corpus of Voice Queries for Music Information Retrieval

The use of audio queries for searching multimedia content has increased rapidly with the rise of music information retrieval; there are now many Internet-accessible systems that take audio queries as input. However, testing the robustness of such a system can be problematic, as there is currently no standard test-bed of queries and music ﬁles available. A corpus of audio queries would aid researchers in the development of both audio signal processing techniques and audio query systems. Such a corpus would also be essential for making empirical comparisons between different systems and methods. We propose a pilot study that will ﬁeld test a procedure for collecting audio queries. The lessons learned in the pilot study will guide us in reﬁning the collection methodology, and we will make a ﬁnal set of queries freely available to MIR researchers. The participants for this pilot study will be attendees of the ISMIR 2002 Conference.
Movie viewing habits of university students

This paper aims to analyze a pilot study that was conducted with university students regarding their movie viewing habits, focusing on the various influences and sources of information that have an effect on their choices concerning both the methods of viewing movies and the selection of certain movies as well. Among its main results is the general disregard to traditionally highly regarded influences like movie awards or information aggregation websites (such as the Internet Movie Database for example), the overwhelming dominance of piracy when it comes to current movie viewing trends and some of the main expectations concerning legal movie streaming services (which could turn them into viable alternative options).
A study on Hidden Structural Model and its application to labeling sequences

This paper proposes Hidden Structure Model (HSM) for statistical modeling of sequence data. The HSM generalizes our previous proposal on structural representation by introducing hidden states and probabilistic models. Compared with the previous structural representation, HSM not only can solve the problem of misalignment of events, but also can conduct structure-based decoding, which allows us to apply HSM to general speech recognition tasks. Different from HMM, HSM accounts for the probability of both locally absolute and globally contrastive features. This paper focuses on the fundamental formulation and theories of HSM. We also develop methods for the problems of state inference, probability calculation and parameter estimation of HSM. Especially, we show that the state inference of HSM can be reduced to a quadratic programming problem. We carry out two experiments to examine the performance of HSM on labeling sequences. The first experiment tests HSM by using artificially transformed sequences, and the second experiment is based on a Japanese corpus of connected vowel utterances. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of HSM.
Cross-border Co-operation, Institutionalization and Political Space Across the English Channel

CHURCH A. and REID P. (1999) Cross-border co-operation, institutionalization and political space across the English Channel, Reg. Studies 33 , 643-655. Cross-border initiatives are based on flexible co-operative networks and have many of the characteristics which the institutionalist perspective argues are often present in regions that have developed effective institutional forms. Transfrontier programmes involving local authorities in northern France and southern England are examined. The paper explores the significance of cross-border strategies for the development and restructuring of the role of local governance in institutional arrangements and territories. It also considers the interaction between cross-border spaces, the transnational spatial planning regions promoted by the European Commission and the emerging regional politics of South East England. CHURCH A. and REID P. (1999) La cooperation transfrontaliere, l'institutionnalisation et l'espace politique outre Manche, Reg. Studies 33 , 643-655.
SPAK and OSR1 Sensitivity of Excitatory Amino Acid Transporter EAAT3

Background/Aims: Kinases involved in the regulation of epithelial transport include SPAK (SPS1-related proline/alanine-rich kinase) and OSR1 (oxidative stress-responsive kinase 1). SPAK and OSR1 are both regulated by WNK (with-no-K(Lys)) kinases. The present study explored whether SPAK and/or OSR1 influence the excitatory amino acid transporter EAAT3, which accomplishes glutamate and aspartate transport in kidney, intestine and brain. Methods: cRNA encoding EAAT3 was injected into Xenopus laevis oocytes with or without additional injection of cRNA encoding wild-type SPAK, constitutively active T233ESPAK, WNK insensitive T233ASPAK, catalytically inactive D212ASPAK, wild-type OSR1, constitutively active T185EOSR1, WNK insensitive T185AOSR1 and catalytically inactive D164AOSR1. Glutamate-induced current was taken as measure of electrogenic glutamate transport and was quantified utilizing dual electrode voltage clamp. Furthermore, Ussing chamber was employed to determine glutamate transport in the intestine from gene-targeted mice carrying WNK insensitive SPAK (spaktg/tg) and from corresponding wild-type mice (spak+/+). Results: EAAT3 activity was significantly decreased by wild-type SPAK and T233ESPAK, but not by T233ASPAK and D212ASPAK. SPAK decreased maximal transport rate without affecting significantly affinity of the carrier. Similarly, EAAT3 activity was significantly downregulated by wild-type OSR1 and T185EOSR1, but not by T185AOSR1 and D164AOSR1. Again OSR1 decreased maximal transport rate without affecting significantly affinity of the carrier. Intestinal electrogenic glutamate transport was significantly lower in spak+/+ than in spaktg/tg mice. Conclusion: Both, SPAK and OSR1 are negative regulators of EAAT3 activity.
VAMP: Visualization and analysis of array-CGH, transcriptome and other molecular profiles

MOTIVATION Microarray-based CGH (Comparative Genomic Hybridization), transcriptome arrays and other large-scale genomic technologies are now routinely used to generate a vast amount of genomic profiles. Exploratory analysis of this data is crucial in helping to understand the data and to help form biological hypotheses. This step requires visualization of the data in a meaningful way to visualize the results and to perform first level analyses. RESULTS We have developed a graphical user interface for visualization and first level analysis of molecular profiles. It is currently in use at the Institut Curie for cancer research projects involving CGH arrays, transcriptome arrays, SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) arrays, loss of heterozygosity results (LOH), and Chromatin ImmunoPrecipitation arrays (ChIP chips). The interface offers the possibility of studying these different types of information in a consistent way. Several views are proposed, such as the classical CGH karyotype view or genome-wide multi-tumor comparison. Many functionalities for analyzing CGH data are provided by the interface, including looking for recurrent regions of alterations, confrontation to transcriptome data or clinical information, and clustering. Our tool consists of PHP scripts and of an applet written in Java. It can be run on public datasets at http://bioinfo.curie. fr/vamp AVAILABILITY The VAMP software (Visualization and Analysis of array-CGH,transcriptome and other Molecular Profiles) is available upon request. It can be tested on public datasets at http://bioinfo.curie. fr/vamp. The documentation is available at http://bioinfo.curie. fr/vamp/doc.