Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dynamics on Networks of Cluster States for Globally Coupled Phase Oscillators

Systems of globally coupled phase oscillators can have robust attractors that are heteroclinic networks. We investigate such a heteroclinic network between partially synchronized states where the phases cluster into three groups. For the coupling considered there exist 30 different three-cluster states in the case of five oscillators. We study the structure of the heteroclinic network and demonstrate that it is possible to navigate around the network by applying small impulsive inputs to the oscillator phases. This paper shows that such navigation may be done reliably even in the presence of noise and frequency detuning, as long as the input amplitude dominates the noise strength and the detuning magnitude, and the time between the applied pulses is in a suitable range. Furthermore, we show that, by exploiting the heteroclinic dynamics, frequency detuning can be encoded as a spatiotemporal code. By changing a coupling parameter we can stabilize the three-cluster states and replace the heteroclinic network.
Synaptic influences on rat ganglion‐cell photoreceptors

The intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) provide a conduit through which rods and cones can access brain circuits mediating circadian entrainment, pupillary constriction and other non‐image‐forming visual functions. We characterized synaptic inputs to ipRGCs in rats using whole‐cell and multielectrode array recording techniques. In constant darkness all ipRGCs received spontaneous excitatory and inhibitory synaptic inputs. Light stimulation evoked in all ipRGCs both synaptically driven (‘extrinsic’) and autonomous melanopsin‐based (‘intrinsic’) responses. The extrinsic light responses were depolarizing, about 5 log units more sensitive than the intrinsic light response, and transient near threshold but sustained to brighter light. Pharmacological data showed that ON bipolar cells and amacrine cells make the most prominent direct contributions to these extrinsic light responses, whereas OFF bipolar cells make a very weak contribution. The spatial extent of the synaptically driven light responses was comparable to that of the intrinsic photoresponse, suggesting that synaptic contacts are made onto the entire dendritic field of the ipRGCs. These synaptic influences increase the sensitivity of ipRGCs to light, and also extend their temporal bandpass to higher frequencies. These extrinsic ipRGC light responses can explain some of the previously reported properties of circadian photoentrainment and other non‐image‐forming visual behaviours.
Fair cache sharing and partitioning in a chip multiprocessor architecture

This paper presents a detailed study of fairness in cache sharing between threads in a chip multiprocessor (CMP) architecture. Prior work in CMP architectures has only studied throughput optimization techniques for a shared cache. The issue of fairness in cache sharing, and its relation to throughput, has not been studied. Fairness is a critical issue because the operating system (OS) thread scheduler's effectiveness depends on the hardware to provide fair cache sharing to co-scheduled threads. Without such hardware, serious problems, such as thread starvation and priority inversion, can arise and render the OS scheduler ineffective. This paper makes several contributions. First, it proposes and evaluates five cache fairness metrics that measure the degree of fairness in cache sharing, and shows that two of them correlate very strongly with the execution-time fairness. Execution-time fairness is defined as how uniform the execution times of co-scheduled threads are changed, where each change is relative to the execution time of the same thread running alone. Secondly, using the metrics, the paper proposes static and dynamic L2 cache partitioning algorithms that optimize fairness. The dynamic partitioning algorithm is easy to implement, requires little or no profiling, has low overhead, and does not restrict the cache replacement algorithm to LRU. The static algorithm, although requiring the cache to maintain LRU stack information, can help the OS thread scheduler to avoid cache thrashing. Finally, this paper studies the relationship between fairness and throughput in detail. We found that optimizing fairness usually increases throughput, while maximizing throughput does not necessarily improve fairness. Using a set of co-scheduled pairs of benchmarks, on average our algorithms improve fairness by a factor of 4/spl times/, while increasing the throughput by 15%, compared to a nonpartitioned shared cache.
Semi-global stabilization of linear discrete-time systems subject to input saturation via linear feedback-an ARE-based approach

The authors revisit the problem of semi-global stabilization of linear discrete-time systems subject to input saturation and give an algebraic Riccati equation (ARE)-based approach to the proof of the fact that a linear discrete-time system subject to input saturation is semi-globally stabilizable via linear feedback as long as the linear system in the absence of the saturation is stabilizable and detectable and all its open loop poles are located inside or on the unit circle. <<ETX>>
Real-time detection of hand gestures

This paper presents one of the approaches to the gesture recognition problem, which might be valuable in development of social robots, companions for deaf-mute people or in design of new control methods. A universal PC application for gesture recognition in image sequence acquired from a simple USB camera in real-time was made. The application recognises hand gestures which indicate chosen letters from the sign language alphabet and can be adjusted to any hand-shape pattern. The algorithm is resistant to most lighting changes, different sizes and shapes of users' hands and background patterns.
Distal pancreatectomy: indications and outcomes in 235 patients.

OBJECTIVE Distal pancreatectomy is performed for a variety of benign and malignant conditions. In recent years, significant improvements in perioperative results have been observed at high-volume centers after pancreaticoduodenectomy. Little data, however, are available concerning the current indications and outcomes after distal pancreatectomy. This single-institution experience reviews the recent indications, complications, and outcomes after distal pancreatectomy. METHODS A retrospective analysis was performed of the hospital records of all patients undergoing distal pancreatectomy between January 1994 and December 1997, inclusive. RESULTS The patient population (n = 235) had a mean age of 51 years, (range 1 month to 82 years); 43% were male and 84% white. The final diagnoses included chronic pancreatitis (24%), benign pancreatic cystadenoma (22%), pancreatic adenocarcinoma (18%), neuroendocrine tumor (14%), pancreatic pseudocyst (6%), cystadenocarcinoma (3%), and miscellaneous (13%). The level of resection was at or to the left of the superior mesenteric vein in 96% of patients. A splenectomy was performed in 84% and a cholecystectomy in 15% of patients. The median intraoperative blood loss was 450 ml, the median number of red blood cell units transfused was zero, and the median operative time was 4.3 hours. Two deaths occurred in the hospital or within 30 days of surgery for a perioperative mortality rate of 0.9%. The overall postoperative complication rate was 31%; the most common complications were new-onset insulin-dependent diabetes (8%), pancreatic fistula (5%), intraabdominal abscess (4%), small bowel obstruction (4%), and postoperative hemorrhage (4%). Fourteen patients (6%) required a second surgical procedure; the most common indication was postoperative bleeding. The median length of postoperative hospital stay was 10 days. Patients who underwent a distal pancreatectomy with splenectomy (n = 198) had a similar complication rate (30% vs. 29%), operative time (4.6 vs. 5.1 hours), and intraoperative blood loss (500 vs. 350 ml) and a shorter postoperative length of stay (13 vs. 21 days) than the patients who had splenic preservation (n = 37). CONCLUSIONS This series represents the largest single-institution experience with distal pancreatectomy. These data demonstrate that elective distal pancreatectomy is associated with a mortality rate of <1%. These results demonstrate that, as with pancreaticoduodenectomy, distal pancreatectomy can be performed with minimal perioperative mortality and acceptable morbidity.
The Ability to Move to a Beat Is Linked to the Consistency of Neural Responses to Sound

The ability to synchronize movement to a steady beat is a fundamental skill underlying musical performance and has been studied for decades as a model of sensorimotor synchronization. Nevertheless, little is known about the neural correlates of individual differences in the ability to synchronize to a beat. In particular, links between auditory-motor synchronization ability and characteristics of the brain's response to sound have not yet been explored. Given direct connections between the inferior colliculus (IC) and subcortical motor structures, we hypothesized that consistency of the neural response to sound within the IC is linked to the ability to tap consistently to a beat. Here, we show that adolescent humans who demonstrate less variability when tapping to a beat have auditory brainstem responses that are less variable as well. One of the sources of this enhanced consistency in subjects who can steadily tap to a beat may be decreased variability in the timing of the response, as these subjects also show greater between-trial phase-locking in the auditory brainstem response. Thus, musical training with a heavy emphasis on synchronization of movement to musical beats may improve auditory neural synchrony, potentially benefiting children with auditory-based language impairments characterized by excessively variable neural responses.
Thoughts on Scaffolds

Scaffolds are instrumental in the engineering of functional tissues, and therefore have been an intense area of interest within regenerative biology and medicine in areas of research and development. Many approaches exist for creating scaffolds with either natural or synthetic advanced materials, which are subsequently coupled with cells and other materials and microintegrated with the aid of a bioreactor, finally forming a functional three‐dimensional tissue. Although many advances have been made over the years, none of these have truly been successful, as postulated by literature for either biomedical or clinical utility. For example, generated reconstructs have many limitations, such as poor cell infiltration throughout the entire depth of the scaffold, the associated cost, and the time for generating functional reconstructs mimicking native tissue. These and other roadblocks have truly limited the use of scaffolds as tissue engineering biomaterials/building blocks in regenerative medicine. However, these obstacles have recently been overcome with new scaffolding technologies unearthed and pioneered in 2005, which demonstrate the ability to directly handle large quantities of multiple cell types with both a biopolymer and other advanced materials for simultaneously forming a three‐dimensional living reconstruct mimicking native tissues. These recently discovered platform biotechnologies will have significant ramifications for the engineering of a three‐dimensional tissue and for regenerative medicine in general, as these platforms are versatile.
The Cosmological Constant and the String Landscape

Theories of the cosmological constant fall into two classes, those in which the vacuum energy is fixed by the fundamental theory and those in which it is adjustable in some way. For each class we discuss key challenges. The string theory landscape is an example of an adjustment mechanism. We discuss the status of this idea, and future directions.
Dynamic Selection of Priority Queueing Discipline in Cognitive Radio Networks

In this paper, for the purpose of service differentiation in opportunistic spectrum access (OSA) enabled networks, we take different priority queueing disciplines into account as decision variables in a dynamic optimization model. The objective is to optimize, after the departure of each packet, a weighted utility function of the performance of different classes of cognitive radio traffic by dynamically deciding the priority queueing discipline. A dynamic programming (DP) model, which takes into account the channel availability and channel handover recovery periods of the OSA network, is provided for two classes of traffic to solve this problem. Simulation results are presented.
Detection and parameter estimation of multiple radioactive sources

Given an area where an unknown number of unaccounted radioactive sources potentially exist, and using gamma- radiation count measurements collected at known locations within this area, the problem is to estimate the number of sources as well as their locations and intensities. Two approaches are investigated. The first is based on the maximum likelihood estimation and the generalised maximum likelihood rule for multiple hypothesis testing. The second approach estimates the parameters and the number of sources in the Bayesian framework via Monte Carlo integration. Numerical analysis and the performance comparison of both approaches against the Cramer-Rao bound are carried out.
MBL-Mediated Opsonophagocytosis of Candida albicans by Human Neutrophils Is Coupled with Intracellular Dectin-1-Triggered ROS Production

Mannan-binding lectin (MBL), a lectin homologous to C1q, greatly facilitates C3/C4-mediated opsonophagocytosis of Candida albicans (C. albicans) by human neutrophils, and has the capacity to bind to CR1 (CD35) expressed on circulating neutrophils. The intracellular pool of neutrophil Dectin-1 plays a critical role in stimulating the reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation through recognition of β-1,3-glucan component of phagocytized zymosan or yeasts. However, little is known about whether MBL can mediate the opsonophagocytosis of Candida albicans by neutrophils independent of complement activation, and whether MBL-mediated opsonophagocytosis influence the intracellular expression of Dectin-1 and ROS production. Here we showed that the inhibited phagocytic efficiency of neutrophils as a result of blockage of Dectin-1 was compensated by exogenous MBL alone in a dose-dependent manner. Furthermore, the expressions of Dectin-1 at mRNA and intracellular protein levels were significantly up-regulated in neutrophils stimulated by MBL-pre-incubated C. albicans, while the expression of surface Dectin-1 remained almost unchanged. Nevertheless, the stimulated ROS production in neutrophils was partly and irreversibly inhibited by blockage of Dectin-1 in the presence of exogenous MBL. Confocal microscopy examination showed that intracellular Dectin-1 was recruited and co-distributed with ROS on the surface of some phagocytized yeasts. The β-1,3-glucanase digestion test further suggested that the specific recognition and binding site of human Dectin-1 is just the β-1,3-glucan moiety on the cell wall of C. albicans. These data demonstrate that MBL has an ability to mediate the opsonophagocytosis of Candida albicans by human neutrophils independent of complement activation, which is coupled with intracellular Dectin-1-triggered ROS production.
Statistical Applications in Genetics and Molecular Biology Calculating Confidence Intervals for Prediction Error in Microarray Classification Using Resampling

Cross-validation based point estimates of prediction accuracy are frequently reported in microarray class prediction problems. However these point estimates can be highly variable, particularly for small sample numbers, and it would be useful to provide confidence intervals of prediction accuracy. We performed an extensive study of existing confidence interval methods and compared their performance in terms of empirical coverage and width. We developed a bootstrap case crossvalidation (BCCV) resampling scheme and defined several confidence interval methods using BCCV with and without bias-correction. The widely used approach of basing confidence intervals on an independent binomial assumption of the leave-one-out cross-validation errors results in serious under-coverage of the true prediction error. Two split-sample based methods previously proposed in the literature tend to give overly conservative confidence intervals. Using BCCV resampling, the percentile confidence interval method was also found to be overly conservative without bias-correction, while the bias corrected accelerated (BCa) interval method of Efron returns substantially anti-conservative confidence intervals. We propose a simple bias reduction on the BCCV percentile interval. The method provides mildly conservative inference under all circumstances studied and outperforms the other methods in microarray applications with small to moderate sample sizes.
Applications of time-resolved light scattering measurements to photodynamic therapy dosimetry

Since biological response to photodynamic therapy (PDT) depends on the light fluence distribution and photosensitizer concentration in the tissue, these two variables should ideally be measured noninvasively in individual cases. This can be reduced to determining the optical absorption and transport scattering coefficients of the tissue because, if these two parameters are known, the fluence distribution can be calculated and the photosensitizer concentration can be deduced from its characteristic contribution to the absorption spectrum. The temporal spreading of a picosecond laser pulse as it propagates through tissue carries infonnation about both the scattering and absorption properties of the tissue. A mathematical model is presented which allows derivation of the interaction coefficients from the pulse shape, and preliminary experiments are reported which demonstrate the potential of these techniques in PDT dosimetry. Equivalent information can be obtained in the frequency domain by using modulated light sources andmeasuring thephase and modulation of the detected light. Analytical expressions are developed for these observable quantities in terms ofthe optical interaction coefficients. Particular auention is drawn to the potential oflow (less than 200 MHz) frequency measurements as these can be made with relatively simple instrumentation.
APETALA1 and SEPALLATA3 interact with SEUSS to mediate transcription repression during flower development

The transcriptional repression of key regulatory genes is crucial for plant and animal development. Previously, we identified and isolated two Arabidopsis transcription co-repressors LEUNIG (LUG) and SEUSS (SEU) that function together in a putative co-repressor complex to prevent ectopic AGAMOUS (AG) transcription in flowers. Because neither LUG nor SEU possesses a recognizable DNA-binding motif, how they are tethered to specific target promoters remains unknown. Using the yeast two-hybrid assay and a co-immunoprecipitation assay, we showed that APETALA1 (AP1) and SEPALLATA3 (SEP3), both MADS box DNA-binding proteins, interacted with SEU. The AP1-SEU protein-protein interaction was supported by synergistic genetic interactions between ap1 and seu mutations. The role of SEU proteins in bridging the interaction between AP1/SEP3 and LUG to repress target gene transcription was further demonstrated in yeast and plant cells, providing important mechanistic insights into co-repressor function in plants. Furthermore, a direct in vivo association of SEU proteins with the AG cis-regulatory element was shown by chromatin immunoprecipitation. Accordingly, a reporter gene driven by the AG cis-element was able to respond to AP1- and SEP3-mediated transcriptional repression in a transient plant cell system when supplied with SEU and LUG. These results suggest that AP1 and SEP3 may serve as the DNA-binding partners of SEU/LUG. Our demonstration of the direct physical interaction between SEU and the C-terminal domain of SEP3 and AP1 suggests that AP1 and SEP3 MADS box proteins may interact with positive, as well as negative, regulatory proteins via their C-terminal domains, to either stimulate or repress their regulatory targets.
Von Neumann-Morgenstern Stable Set Bridges Time-Preferences to the Nash Solution

We apply the von Neumann-Morgenstern stable set to the n-player cake division problem. Only time-preferences á la Rubinstein (1982) are assumed. The stable set is defined with respect to the following dominance relation: x dominates y if there is a player who prefers x over y even with one period lag. The Nash bargaining solution is characterized in the language of stable sets. Through the characterization, we establish the existence and uniqueness of the Nash solution.
Threats and Countermeasures in GSM Networks

Mobile networks not only provide great benefits to their users but they also introduce inherent security issues. With respect to security, the emerging risks of denial of service (DOS) attacks will evolve into a critical danger as the availability of mobile networks becomes more and more important for the modern information society. This paper outlines a critical flaw in GSM networks which opens the avenue for distributed denial of service attacks. We propose a way to mitigate the attacks by adding minimal authentication to the GSM channel assignment protocol.
A Virtual Node Based Network Distance Prediction Mechanism

Network distance prediction mechanism based on network coordinate system provides an efficient way to obtain latency between node pairs with limited times of measurements. However, most of today's prediction mechanisms use single metric space embedding, which cannot describe the complex hierarchical structure of Internet precisely and produce large prediction errors. In this paper a virtual node based network distance prediction mechanism named VNetPharos is proposed, which divides edge networks into independent prediction regions, and each prediction region maintains a virtual node to represent the joint between the region and core network. Distance of any two nodes is represented as the sum of distances between nodes and their virtual nodes and distance between the two virtual nodes. Analysis results show that VNetPharos can improve the distance prediction accuracy effectively.
On short-ter tra c flow forecasting and its reliability

Recent advances in time series, where deterministic and stochastic modelings as well as the storage and analysis of big data are useless, permit a new approach to short-term traffic flow forecasting and to its reliability, i.e., to the traffic volatility. Several convincing computer simulations, which utilize concrete data, are presented and discussed.
Modeling Errors in Long-Haul Optical Fiber Transmission Systems by Using Instantons and Edgeworth Expansion

In this work we use a new approach to model error events in long-haul optical fiber transmission systems. Existing approaches for obtaining probability density functions (PDFs) rely on numerical simulations or analytical approximations. Numerical simulations make far tails of the PDFs difficult to obtain, while analytical approximations are often inaccurate, as they neglect nonlinear interaction between pulses and noise. Our approach combines the instanton method from statistical mechanics, to model far tails of the PDFs, with numerical simulations to refine the middle part of the PDFs. We combine the two methods by using an orthogonal polynomial expansion constructed specifically for this problem. We demonstrate the approach on an example of a specific submarine transmission system.