Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interarticulator Programming in Obstruent Production

Abstract Most work on speech motor control has been devoted to the spatial and temporal coordination of articulatory movements for successive units, segments or syllables, in the speech chain. An intrasegmental temporal domain has generally been lacking in speech production models, but such a domain is necessary at least for certain classes of speech sounds, e.g., voiceless obstruents, clicks, ejectives. The present paper examines the nature of laryngeal-oral coordination in voiceless obstruent production in different languages using the combined techniques of electromyography, transillumination and fiberoptic filming of the larynx together with aerodynamic and palatographic records for information on supralaryngeal articulations. The results suggest that laryngeal articulatory movements are organized in one or more continuous opening and closing gestures that are precisely coordinated with supralaryngeal events according to the aerodynamic requirements of speech production.
Extension and subsidence of the Pearl River Mouth Basin, northern South China Sea

The uniform stretching model has been applied to seismic reflection profiles and well-log information from the Pearl River Mouth Basin on the northern flank of the South China Sea. Stretching factors were calculated from subsidence curves determined from the stratigraphy by using the backstripping technique to remove the effects of compactiori and sediment loading. Variations in rift topography, palaeobathymetry and global sea-level were taken into account. We argue that the Pearl River Mouth Basin formed by lithospheric extension by a factor of about 1.8, lasting from Late Cretaceous to late Oligocene times. Stretching factors calculated from subsidence agree with those determined from the geometry of normal faulting and from crustal thinning. Thus there is no indication of a significant discrepancy between the different estimates of stretching. The geometry of faulting suggests that considerable amounts of local footwall uplift occurred during the rifting period. Small differences between the observed and calculated subsidence curves ( ~ 400 m in the middle Miocene) are best explained by minor amounts of extension (s ~ 1.1). The time-temperature history of sediments within the basin has also been calculated so that expected vitrinite reflectance and oil abundance could be determined. The results are consistent with each other and are in reasonable agreement with observations from wells.
Alterations in welding process voltage affect the generation of ultrafine particles, fume composition, and pulmonary toxicity

Abstract The goal was to determine if increasing welding voltage changes the physico-chemical properties of the fume and influences lung responses. Rats inhaled 40 mg/m3 (3 h/day × 3 days) of stainless steel (SS) welding fume generated at a standard voltage setting of 25 V (regular SS) or at a higher voltage (high voltage SS) of 30 V. Particle morphology, size and composition were characterized. Bronchoalveolar lavage was performed at different times after exposures to assess lung injury. Fumes collected from either of the welding conditions appeared as chain-like agglomerates of nanometer-sized primary particles. High voltage SS welding produced a greater number of ultrafine-sized particles. Fume generated by high voltage SS welding was higher in manganese. Pulmonary toxicity was more substantial and persisted longer after exposure to the regular SS fume. In summary, a modest raise in welding voltage affected fume size and elemental composition and altered the temporal lung toxicity profile.
In vitro T lymphopoiesis: A model system for stem cell gene therapy for AIDS

Abstract: Stable introduction of therapeutic genes into hematopoietic stem cells has the potential to reconstitute immunity in individuals with HIV infection. However, many important questions regarding the safety and efficacy of this approach remain unanswered and may be addressed in a non‐human primate model. To facilitate evaluation of expression of foreign genes in T cells derived from transduced hematopoietic progenitor cells, we have established a culture system that supports the differentiation of rhesus macaque and human CD34+ bone marrow derived cells into mature T cells. Thymic stromal monolayers were prepared from the adherent cell fraction of collagenase digested fetal or neonatal thymus. After 10–14 days, purified rhesus CD34+ bone marrow‐derived cells cultured on thymic stromal monolayers yielded CD3+CD4+CD8+, CD3+CD4+CD8−, and CD3+CD4−CD8+ cells. Following stimulation with mitogens, these T cells derived from CD34+ cells could be expanded over 1,000‐fold and maintained in culture for up to 20 weeks. We next evaluated the ability of rhesus CD34+ cells transduced with a retroviral vector containing the marker gene neo to undergo in vitro T cell differentiation. CD34+ cells transduced in the presence of bone marrow stroma and then cultured on rhesus thymic stroma resulted in T cells containing the retroviral marker gene. These studies should facilitate both in vitro and in vivo studies of hematopoietic stem cell therapeutic strategies for AIDS.
Cephalosporin and Ciprofloxacin Resistance in Salmonella, Taiwan

We report the prevalence and characteristics of Salmonella strains resistant to ciprofloxacin and extended-spectrum cephalosporins in Taiwan from January to May 2004. All isolates resistant to extended-spectrum cephalosporins carried blaCMY-2, and all ciprofloxacin-resistant Salmonella enterica serotype Choleraesuis isolates were genetically related.
NTNU-2 at SemEval-2017 Task 10: Identifying Synonym and Hyponym Relations among Keyphrases in Scientific Documents

This paper presents our relation extraction system for subtask C of SemEval-2017 Task 10: ScienceIE. Assuming that the keyphrases are already annotated in the input data, our work explores a wide range of linguistic features, applies various feature selection techniques, optimizes the hyper parameters and class weights and experiments with different problem formulations (single classification model vs individual classifiers for each keyphrase type, single-step classifier vs pipeline classifier for hyponym relations). Performance of five popular classification algorithms are evaluated for each problem formulation along with feature selection. The best setting achieved an F1 score of 71.0% for synonym and 30.0% for hyponym relation on the test data.
Partially-commutative context-free languages

The paper is about a class of languages that extends context-free languages (CFL) and is stable under shuffle. Specifically, we investigate the class of partially-commutative context-free languages (PCCFL), where non-terminal symbols are commutative according to a binary independence relation, very much like in trace theory. The class has been recently proposed as a robust class subsuming CFL and commutative CFL. This paper surveys properties of PCCFL. We identify a natural corresponding automaton model: stateless multi-pushdown automata. We show stability of the class under natural operations, including homomorphic images and shuffle. Finally, we relate expressiveness of PCCFL to two other relevant classes: CFL extended with shuffle and trace-closures of CFL. Among technical contributions of the paper are pumping lemmas, as an elegant completion of known pumping properties of regular languages, CFL and commutative CFL.
Dependence of O+ escape rate from the Venusian upper atmosphere on IMF directions

We investigate the dependence of the O+ escape rate on the upstream interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) direction by using data from the Analyser of Space Plasma and Energetic Atoms (ASPERA‐4) instrument and the magnetometer (MAG) onboard Venus Express. We consider two cases, namely the perpendicular IMF case (167 events) and the parallel IMF case (82 events), where IMF is nearly perpendicular to the Venus‐Sun line and nearly parallel to it. By integrating O+ fluxes observed on the nightside, total O+ escape rates of (5.8 ± 2.9) × 1024 s−1 (perpendicular IMF case) and (4.9 ± 2.2) × 1024 s−1 (parallel IMF case) are obtained. As these values are not significantly different, the upstream IMF direction does not affect the total amount of O+ outflow from Venus. The different acceleration mechanisms must balance each other in order to keep the escape rate the same.
Great cities and their traffic

A rapidly growing proportion of the world's population is living in cities with steadily deteriorating transport systems. This book is about the transport problems, policies and plans of the world's great metropolises. It is a study mainly of thirty cities, chosen from every continent in the hope of obtaining a fair picture of the metropolitan transport problem and how it is being tackled throughout the world. The sample contains ten cities from Europe (london, paris, hamburg, bremen, copenhagen, goteborg, stockholm, vienna, athens and istanbul), nine from north America (new york, boston, toronto, detroit, chicago, denver, salt lake city, san francisco and los angeles), seven from asia (teheran, karachi, calcutta, Singapore, hong kong, tokyo and manila), two from Australia (Sydney and Melbourne), one from South America (bogota), and one from africa (lagos) . The reason for confining the study to large cities was the author's belief (a) that the transport problems of a city are related to its size, and (b) that cities of the same size everywhere have broadly the same problems. For a comparative study there is more interest in a comparison of cities of similar size, albeit situated in different parts of the world, than of cities of very different sizes within the same country.
INFERENCES ABOUT INBREEDING DEPRESSION BASED ON CHANGES OF THE INBREEDING COEFFICIENT

In a mixed‐mating population, the fitness of selfed individuals, relative to outcrossed individuals, can be estimated from observed changes of the inbreeding coefficient F. In general, three measurements of F, or two measurements of F and one of the selfing rate, spanning two generations are needed. If however, adult F is assumed constant among generations, the adult F and selfing rate of one generation are sufficient to estimate relative fitness. Estimates of the relative fitness of selfed individuals for 14 Mimulus populations, assuming equilibrium of adult F, averaged 0.38, which is significantly lower than the 0.50 threshold needed to favor selfing genotypes. However, estimates for some populations showed large variance and over the 14 populations, relative fitness did not correlate with selfing rate. Violations of the equilibrium assumption causes a positive bias of the estimate and a spurious negative correlation of estimates with selfing rate. Estimates of relative fitness based on two generations of F do not suffer these problems. The need for large sample sizes, multiallelic loci, and moderate levels of natural selfing limits the usefulness of using changes of F to infer inbreeding depression.
Biphasic, energy-efficient, current-controlled stimulation back-end for retinal visual prosthesis

This paper reports an energy-efficient waveform generator, dedicated to implantable retinal microstimulators. The circuit features flexible current-mode stimuli such as rising and falling exponential pulses in addition to rectangular pulses. In order to apply the stimulation current to the electrode at the defined current levels (±96μA) and with sufficient voltage headroom (±3V), a class AB second generation current conveyor is designed as the output stage. To upconvert the 1.2-V supply voltage to ±3.3V, the output stage is equipped with an on-chip electrode-tissue driver. Duration of the generated current pulses is programmable within the range of 100μs to 3ms. Current-steering DACs are used to set the amplitudes of pulses. They exhibit DNL and INL of 0.04 and 0.17LSB, respectively. The amplitude, duration, and time constant of exponential pulses are independently programmable. Designed in the IBM in 130nm process, the circuit consumes 1.5×1.5 mm2 of silicon area. Post-layout simulation results indicate that the stimuli generator meets expected requirements when connected to electrode-tissue impedance as high as 30kΩ. The proposed design consumes a maximum of 1.2mW in the rectangular pulse mode.
On the relationship between farmland biodiversity and land-use intensity in Europe

Worldwide agriculture is one of the main drivers of biodiversity decline. Effective conservation strategies depend on the type of relationship between biodiversity and land-use intensity, but to date the shape of this relationship is unknown. We linked plant species richness with nitrogen (N) input as an indicator of land-use intensity on 130 grasslands and 141 arable fields in six European countries. Using Poisson regression, we found that plant species richness was significantly negatively related to N input on both field types after the effects of confounding environmental factors had been accounted for. Subsequent analyses showed that exponentially declining relationships provided a better fit than linear or unimodal relationships and that this was largely the result of the response of rare species (relative cover less than 1%). Our results indicate that conservation benefits are disproportionally more costly on high-intensity than on low-intensity farmland. For example, reducing N inputs from 75 to 0 and 400 to 60 kg ha−1 yr−1 resulted in about the same estimated species gain for arable plants. Conservation initiatives are most (cost-)effective if they are preferentially implemented in extensively farmed areas that still support high levels of biodiversity.
Development of the Neurochemical Architecture of the Central Complex

The central complex represents one of the most conspicuous neuroarchitectures to be found in the insect brain and regulates a wide repertoire of behaviors including locomotion, stridulation, spatial orientation and spatial memory. In this review article, we show that in the grasshopper, a model insect system, the intricate wiring of the fan-shaped body (FB) begins early in embryogenesis when axons from the first progeny of four protocerebral stem cells (called W, X, Y, Z, respectively) in each brain hemisphere establish a set of tracts to the primary commissural system. Decussation of subsets of commissural neurons at stereotypic locations across the brain midline then establishes a columnar neuroarchitecture in the FB which is completed during embryogenesis. Examination of the expression patterns of various neurochemicals in the central complex including neuropeptides, a neurotransmitter and the gas nitric oxide (NO), show that these appear progressively and in a substance-specific manner during embryogenesis. Each neuroactive substance is expressed by neurons located at stereotypic locations in a given central complex lineage, confirming that the stem cells are biochemically multipotent. The organization of axons expressing the various neurochemicals within the central complex is topologically related to the location, and hence birthdate, of the neurons within the lineages. The neurochemical expression patterns within the FB are layered, and so reflect the temporal topology present in the lineages. This principle relates the neuroanatomical to the neurochemical architecture of the central complex and so may provide insights into the development of adaptive behaviors.
Alcances de El Niño como predictor del caudal de los ríos andinos argentinos

El objetivo de este trabajo es aportar mayor conocimiento sobre la potencialidad de la temperatura superficial del mar (TSM) y en especial de la anomalia sobre el Pacifico ecuatorial (Nino3+4) como predictor de los caudales de los rios andinos argentinos y determinar el retardo temporal de dicha influencia en escala mensual a estacional. Se presenta una breve resena actualizada de las caracteristicas de los regimenes hidricos de estos rios y mediante el estudio de las correlaciones entre sus caudales en la estacion de maximo escurrimiento y las TSM correspondientes a los meses previos se determinan relaciones a partir de las cuales se pueden diferenciar cuatro subregiones: 1) Cuyo Norte, donde la relacion entre Nino3+4 y los caudales alcanza alrededor de 14 meses de antelacion al periodo de maximo caudal, 2) Cuyo Sur, donde esta antelacion se produce con alrededor de ocho meses, 3) Patagonia Norte, donde la relacion entre caudales y Nino3+4 ocurre en forma simultanea y 4) Patagonia Sur, con caracteristicas similares a Cuyo Norte. Para las regiones 1, 2 y 4, los campos de correlaciones entre TSM y caudales muestran patrones tipicos de eventos El Nino/La Nina, evidenciando la relacion entre estas anomalias del Pacifico y la precipitacion en cordillera.
Alternative splicing and disease

Splicing is a molecular mechanism, by which introns are removed from an mRNA precursor and exons are ligated to form a mature mRNA. Mutations that cause defects in the splicing mechanism are known to be responsible for many diseases, including cystic fibrosis and familial dysautonomia. If mutations that cause defects in splicing are responsible for such severe deleterious phenotypic differences, it is possible that mutations in splicing are also responsible for mildly deleterious phenotypic differences. Although deleterious mutations are rapidly eliminated from the population by purifying selection, the selection against mild deleterious effects is not as strong. Since mildly deleterious mutations have a chance of surviving natural selection, we might be mistakenly referring to these mutations as neutral variation between individuals. Splicing has also been shown to be seriously affected in cancer. Examination of cancerous tissues revealed alterations in expression levels of genes involved in mRNA processing and also a slight reduction in the level of exon skipping — the most common form of alternative splicing in humans. This implies that defects in genes involved in the regulation of splicing in cancerous tissues affect the delicate regulation of the inclusion level of alternatively skipped exons, shifting their mode of splicing back to constitutive. It may be that splicing silencers play a more prominent role in alternative splicing regulation than previously anticipated.
Regulation of egg antigen-induced in vitro proliferative response by splenic suppressor T cells in murine Schistosoma japonicum infection

Beginning about 5 weeks after infection, C57BL/6J mice infected with Schistosoma japonicum developed granulomas around parasite eggs trapped in the liver. These granulomas attained peak size about 9 weeks after infection and then spontaneously regressed. This regression was also induced by the injection of serum immunoglobulin G1 but not lymphoid cells from chronically infected mice, but it was conceivable that lymphoid cells from mice infected for 10 weeks could also induce regression. We investigated the possibility of cellular suppression of egg antigen-induced immune responses by coculturing spleen cells from 5- to 6-week-infected mice with spleen cells from mice infected for 10 weeks or longer. Mitomycin C-resistant Thy 1.2+, Lyt 2.2+ splenic T cells from mice infected for 10 to 25 weeks consistently suppressed the egg antigen-stimulated proliferation of spleen cells from 5- to 6-week-infected mice. Suppression was dependent upon specific antigen and optimal concentrations of egg antigen and T suppressor cells. Once induced, the suppressor cells were nonspecific. Cultured T cells from uninfected mice also occasionally suppressed the acute spleen cell proliferative response, but these cells were mitomycin C sensitive. These in vitro observations suggest that granulomatous inflammation in vivo may also be down regulated by suppressor T cells and that these cells may also be implicated in the nonspecific depression of cellular and humoral responses to antigens observed during the course of this infection.
A modified object-oriented classification algorithm and its application in high-resolution remote-sensing imagery

High-resolution satellite images offer abundant information on the Earth's surface for remote-sensing applications. The traditional pixel-based image classification method only used by spectral information has been proved to have several drawbacks. To satisfactorily interpret high-resolution imagery, other important information such as geometry, texture and semantics must be used, which are represented not only in single pixels but in meaningful image objects. So, a modified high-resolution image classification algorithm with multi-characteristics based on objects is presented in this article. First, image objects are extracted by multi-scale multi-characteristic segmentation. Second, characteristics such as spectral information, geometry, texture and semantics are extracted by the corresponding extraction algorithm. Finally, the image objects are classified by means of fuzzy-logic classification with a weighted average calculation method. Preliminary results show promise in terms of classification quality and accuracy.
Northern Barbados accretionary prism: Structure, deformation, and fluid flow interpreted from 3D seismic and well‐log data

We reanalyzed 3D seismic reflection and logging‐while‐drilling data from the toe of the northern Barbados accretionary prism to interpret structure, deformation, and fluid flow related to subduction processes. The seafloor amplitude and coherence reveal an abrupt change in the thrust orientation from NNE at the thrust front and north and NNW about 5 km west of the thrust front. These thrust sets are separated by a triangular‐shaped quiet area, which may represent a zone of low strength. The northeast‐trending band of strong negative amplitude and high coherence in the décollement, known to be an interval of arrested consolidation, overlaps the quiet area, suggesting that the arrested consolidation may be related to the lack of thrust imbrication, and thus, vertical drainage for fluid in the accretionary prism. Fractal analysis of the décollement and top of the subducting oceanic basement indicates that the relief of the décollement correlates with the topography of the oceanic basement. Differential compaction of the underthrust sediment overlying the rugged oceanic basement, together with the basement faults that penetrate into the décollement probably caused relief or even faulting in the décollement.
SemPIF: A Semantic Meta-policy Interchange Format for Multiple Web Policies

We propose a semantics-enabled layered policy architecture for the exchange and management of multiple policies created by different policy languages on the Web. This architecture consists of four layers: Unifying Logic (UNL), Policy Interchange Format (PIF), Privacy Protection/DRM (PPD), and Domain Specific Applications (DSA). A meta-Policy Interchange Format (meta-PIF) layer is also introduced, side by side with the corresponding PIF layer, allowing agents in the facilitator to provide uniform services of interchange, reconciliation, and combination of policies. This SemPIF architecture extends W3C's Semantic Web architecture to permit the reuse of earlier work. A scenario of agents in the facilitator employing SemPIF for Digital Rights Management (DRM) and privacy protection policies on digital library subscription services will be demonstrated.
Translational requirement of La Crosse virus S-mRNA synthesis: in vivo studies

By using methods to isolate cytoplasmic RNAs which limit degradation, the effect of drugs which inhibit protein synthesis on the accumulation of La Crosse virus plus-strand S RNAs in vivo has been studied. Cycloheximide and puromycin treatment of infected cultures caused an abortive transcript of ca. 205 nucleotides (nt) to accumulate, whereas pactamycin led to the appearance of an RNA which was slightly shorter (ca. 200 nt). Both the 205- and 200-nt RNAs contained the same range of host primers at their 5' end, but their 3' ends mapped at ca. positions 175 and 165, respectively. Examination of the sequence in this region and at the mature mRNA termination site (position 886) suggests that the sequence YAAAAAT(A)GCAG is involved in transcription termination.