Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gradation of the Stress Response in Rainbow Trout Exposed to Stressors of Different Severity: The Role of Brain Serotonergic and Dopaminergic Systems

After an intense acute stressor, fish develop a metabolic and behavioural response that usually lasts for several hours. Brain monoaminergic systems, particularly the serotonergic system, appear to play a key role in the central regulation of the stress response. However, the influence of stressor severity on brain monoaminergic systems and on the induced stress responses is yet poorly understood. We hypothesise that serotonergic system could have a direct role in the integration of sensory information during stressor exposure and in the organisation of the subsequent integrated stress response. According to our hypothesis, a low stressor intensity would induce a low response of brain serotonergic system and therefore stress responses of low magnitude and duration. To test this hypothesis, we exposed fish to handling disturbance for 5 s, 15 s or 3 min. We sampled fish at 0 (controls), 3, 15, 45 and 240 min after the start of the stress protocol. Brain levels of serotonin, dopamine and their respective main oxidative metabolites were quantified, along with plasma levels of stress markers (catecholamines, cortisol, glucose and lactate). Regarding stress markers, the 5‐s and 15‐s stress protocols induced similar and relatively low elevations in all parameters assessed. As expected, the 3‐min protocol induced responses of a higher intensity and duration in all plasma parameters. Interestingly, the alterations of brain monoaminergic systems did not follow the same trend. The three stress protocols induced increases in the serotonergic activity in all brain regions analysed (hypothalamus, telencephalon and medulla oblongata), independently of the duration of the handling disturbance, whereas the effects on the dopaminergic system were minor and brain region‐dependent. These data suggest that the brain serotonergic system, although likely involved in the recognition of the stressor stimuli, is not the only actor determining the magnitude and duration of the acute stress response in trout.
Proving non-termination

The search for proof and the search for counterexamples (bugs) are complementary activities that need to be pursued concurrently in order to maximize the practical success rate of verification tools.While this is well-understood in safety verification, the current focus of liveness verification has been almost exclusively on the search for termination proofs. A counterexample to termination is an infinite programexecution. In this paper, we propose a method to search for such counterexamples. The search proceeds in two phases. We first dynamically enumerate lasso-shaped candidate paths for counterexamples, and then statically prove their feasibility. We illustrate the utility of our nontermination prover, called TNT, on several nontrivial examples, some of which require bit-level reasoning about integer representations.
Multi-authority security framework for scalable EHR systems

Electronic health record (EHR) systems can be operated in a large-scale distributed environment, such as cloud computing, which might have to be managed by multiple authorities who control the access to patient records. In this way, a large amount of data from patients can be hosted on a large-scale distributed system. Unfortunately, the security of such systems is usually inadequate, which results in the hindrance of the EHR systems adoption in practice. Attribute-based systems have been a popular choice that could provide a flexible and reliable access control to EHR databases, which are usually managed by a single authority, who is responsible for setting up the system's policy. In a large-scale distributed system, it might be necessary to have multiple authorities, who can handle users located in different areas. Nevertheless, one of the challenges is how to enable multiple authorities with a single access policy. In this paper, we provide a sound solution to this issue. Our EHR system provides a secure environment for EHR users to use the system conveniently and provide the flexibility and scalability.
Melatonin Modulates the Immune System Response and Inflammation in Diabetic Rats Experimentally-Induced by Alloxan

Abstract Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a metabolic disease, which causes an increase in the proinflammatory cytokines tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin 1β (IL-1β), and also proliferation of monocyte chemotactic protein. In the present study, the potential effects of melatonin on proinflammatory cytokines, hematological values, and lymphoid tissues were investigated in diabetic rats. In the study, 36 male rats were randomly divided into 4 groups as follows: Control, Mel (melatonin), DM, and DM-Mel. For 15 days, an isotonic saline solution was given to the Control and DM groups; melatonin was administered to the Mel and DM-Mel groups intraperitoneally. At the end of the study, all animals were sacrificed by drawing the blood from their hearts under deep anesthesia. Samples of the spleen, thymus, and lymph nodes were fixed in 10% formaldehyde for histologic analysis. Increases in proinflammatory serum cytokine concentrations, mast cells, and total white blood cell counts as well as tissue destruction in the lymphoid organs were determined in the DM group via biochemical, hematological, and histologic analyses. However, the findings for the DM-Mel group revealed decreases in serum IL-1β concentration and mast cell densities, and destructions in lymphoid tissues by the melatonin administration. The present study suggests that melatonin treatment may control immune system regulation and inhibit the production of proinflammatory cytokines and tissue mast cell accumulation by preventing the destruction of lymphoid organs in the diabetic process.
Towards monolingual programming environments

Most programming environments are much too complex. One way of simplifying them is to reduce the number of mode-dependent languages the user has to be familiar with. As a first step towards this end, the feasibility of unified command/programming/debugging languages, and the concepts on which such languages have to be based, are investigated. The unification process is accomplished in two phases. First, a unified command/programming framework is defined and, second, this framework is extended by adding an integrated debugging capability to it. Strict rules are laid down by which to judge language concepts presenting themselves as candidates for inclusion in the framework during each phase. On the basis of these rules many of the language design questions that have hitherto been resolved this way or that, depending on the taste of the designer, lose their vagueness and can be decided in an unambiguous manner.
Recommending communities at the regional & city level

An exploratory study was undertaken to compare the community ecosystems of Boston, Silicon Valley, and New York City. The motivation was to understand what new groups could be recommended to improve the community landscapes. In particular, business and technology Meetup groups were studied with respect to type, number, size; and the interconnectedness across groups. The core data for the study was obtained via Meetup’s API which enables access to community information. Using a trained, manually coded subset of titles and topic tags, machine learning was performed to categorize groups. Summary statistics were then produced and cities compared. For example, Boston’s tech Meetup foundation was built upon programming languages such as PhP and Java. In contrast, New York City historically has cultivated a stronger business networking culture; however this type of group has been less pronounced in Boston. Next, social network analysis was utilized to identify key community groups via centrality measures and to identify “nearest neighbors” for certain groups. The content-based machine learning output was combined with the social network analysis to create a tiered, hybrid recommendation system. Lessons learned from the study would appear generalizable to cities beyond the three initial covered. For example, an economic advisor could recreate the community evolution of a city, and perform comparative regional analysis to then develop new recommendation for community growth. The next project steps were to move from ‘proof of concept’ towards developing a prototype community recommendation system.
Implementation of Artificial Creativity: Redefining Creativity

ABSTRACT Creativity is hard to define and until there is a precise definition it will be virtually impossible to implement artificial creativity. The work presented explores the existing definitions, analyses them and proposes the concept of neural network to define artificial creativity. To implement artificial creativity the study of creativity in human beings, the factors that promote creativity and the study of environment is needed [5]. Along with the above factors a true random number generator, with complexity as low as possible, is needed. The later part has been implemented as Corpuscular Random Number Generator [6]. The work concentrates on the definition. Specifically it analyzes creativity in human beings, and in that too based on characteristics of creative individual. It has been found that the creativity derives its strength from internal motivation but is hindered by external stimuli, [5]. Artificial Intelligence is a problem that can be resolved but the basis of creativity seemed intricate to decipher. The work is based on the belief that if creativity is precisely defined and the ambiguity in the existing definition is removed then the concept of artificial creativity can be implemented. The work is based on a thorough study of the psychological factors that shape up a creative individual. Some basic changes in the existing definition have also been proposed.
X-Tracer: A reconfigurable X-tolerant trace compressor for silicon debug

The effectiveness of at-speed silicon debug is constrained by the limited trace buffer size and/or trace port bandwidth, requiring highly-efficient trace data compression solutions. As it is usually inevitable to have unknown `X' values during silicon debug, trace compressor should be equipped with X-tolerance feature in order not to significantly degrade error detection capability. To tackle this problem, this paper presents a novel reconfigurable X-tolerant trace compressor, namely X-Tracer, which is able to tolerate as many X-bits as possible in the trace streams while guaranteeing high compression ratio, at the cost of little extra design-for-debug hardware. Experimental results on benchmark circuits demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed technique.
Projecting future drug expenditures--2004.

PURPOSE Drug expenditure trends since 2002 and projected drug expenditures for 2004 are discussed. SUMMARY In 2002 there was a moderation in the trend of increasing drug expenditures. Drug expenditures increased by 12.3% between 2001 and 2002. This trend continued in the first half of 2003, with expenditures increasing by only 10% compared with 2002. This moderation in the drug expenditures trend can be attributed to many factors, especially patent expirations and decreases in new drug approvals. Higher cost sharing for consumers and a general economic slowdown in the United States affecting employment and insurance coverage have resulted in a smaller increase in drug utilization. In 2004, there should be a 10-12% increase in drug expenditures for outpatient settings, a 19-21% increase for clinics, and a 6-8% increase for hospitals. CONCLUSION Drug expenditure growth should continue to outpace the growth in overall health care expenditures and the growth in the U.S. economy.
Asymptotic error performance of space-time codes over fully correlated Rician fading MIMO channels with imperfect CSI

We analyze the asymptotic error performance of different receiver schemes based on block space-time codes over a fully correlated Rician fading MIMO channel. The receivers differ in the way they obtain the channel state information at the receiver (CSIR) required to detect the transmitted signal. The baseline is a genie-aided receiver, which has perfect CSIR knowledge without any power or rate expenditure. Alternatively, a mismatched receiver extracts CSIR by pilot symbol insertion and uses it in the perfect CSIR decision metric. Finally, an optimum receiver, avoiding direct CSIR detection, estimates the transmitted data from the whole received sample and from the knowledge of pilot symbols. Key results are the receiver diversity and asymptotic power gain.
Constructing Crossword Grids : Use of Heuristics vs Constraints

This paper reports on the construction of crossword puzzles, by lling in dense blank grids (consisting mostly of white squares) until all the white squares contain letters and all across/down words in the grid are valid English words in the usual crossword style. Two approaches are compared. The rst approach used Prolog and C to build puzzles on a word-by-word basis, using a variety of heuristics to determine the order in which to ll in words and then which words from a large dictionary to put in the grid. The second method used a constraint (CLP) language and its C language interface, to construct puzzles on both a word-by-word and a letter-by-letter basis, using the same constraints as the Prolog/C method but a di erent search strategy. Conclusions are drawn about the need to incorporate better facilities in the CLP language which will use constraints of this kind actively in the search mechanism.
Edge Flows: Stratified Morse Theory for Simple, Correct Isosurface Extraction

We present a method to characterize the topology of the level sets of trilinearly interpolated scalar fields. Our character- ization is based on Morse theory, and in particular a variant called Stratified Morse theory capable of treating the piecewise-smooth aspect of trilinear interpolation. Algorithms such as Marching Cubes generate approximations to these level sets to a varying de- gree of fidelity. It is now folklore that the standard Marching Cubes algorithm has inconsistencies, and while corrected versions are well-established, it is still the case that versions which strive for homeomorphism have complicated case tables. Our characterization explains exactly what is the source of topological problems in Marching Cubes, suggests simpler algorithms that generate isosurfaces homeomorphic to the level sets, and allows short, complete proofs of correctness that can also be used to prove homeomorphism for a subset of the outputs of Marching Cubes itself. We provide an open-source implementation of this algorithm and report on the results of its verification.
Accurate Construction of Consensus Genetic Maps via Integer Linear Programming

We study the problem of merging genetic maps, when the individual genetic maps are given as directed acyclic graphs. The computational problem is to build a consensus map, which is a directed graph that includes and is consistent with all (or, the vast majority of) the markers in the input maps. However, when markers in the individual maps have ordering conflicts, the resulting consensus map will contain cycles. Here, we formulate the problem of resolving cycles in the context of a parsimonious paradigm that takes into account two types of errors that may be present in the input maps, namely, local reshuffles and global displacements. The resulting combinatorial optimization problem is, in turn, expressed as an integer linear program. A fast approximation algorithm is proposed, and an additional speedup heuristic is developed. Our algorithms were implemented in a software tool named MergeMap which is freely available for academic use. An extensive set of experiments shows that MergeMap consistently outperforms JoinMap, which is the most popular tool currently available for this task, both in terms of accuracy and running time. MergeMap is available for download at http://www.cs. ucr.edu/~yonghui/mgmap.html.
Assessing the Risk for Resistance and Elucidating the Genetics of Colletotrichum truncatum That Is Only Sensitive to Some DMI Fungicides

The genus Colletotrichum contains a wide variety of important plant pathogens, and Colletotrichum truncatum is one of the most prevalent species of Colletotrichum on chili in China. Demethylation-inhibitor fungicides (DMIs) are currently registered chemical agents for the management of the anthracnose disease caused by Colletotrichum spp. To assess the risk for DMI resistance development, 112 C. truncatum isolates were collected from infected pepper in 13 regions of China. The sensitivity of C. truncatum isolates to five DMI fungicides was determined based on mycelial growth inhibition assay. C. truncatum was sensitive to prochloraz, epoxiconazole, and difenoconazole, but not to tebuconazole or myclobutanil. Baseline sensitivity using the 112 C. truncatum isolates was established for the first three effective DMIs. Prochloraz, epoxiconazole, and difenoconazole EC50 values were 0.053 ± 0.023, 1.956 ± 0.815, and 1.027 ± 0.644 μg/ml, respectively. Eleven stable DMI-resistant mutants all exhibited lower fitness levels than their wild-type parents, suggesting a low risk of DMI resistance in C. truncatum. By inducing gene expression, CtCYP51 expression increased slightly in the resistant mutants as compared to wild-types when exposed to DMI fungicides and thus contributed at least partially to resistance. Molecular docking with CYP51 structure models was used to explain differential sensitivity of the DMI fungicides in C. truncatum. Our results suggest that the M376L/H373N mutations in CYP51 changed the conformation of DMIs in the binding pocket. These changes prevented the formation of the Fe – N coordinate bond between the heme iron active site and tebuconazole or myclobutanil, and apparently contributed to tebuconazole and myclobutanil insensitivity of C. truncatum.
A branch-and-bound algorithm for checkerboard extraction in camera-laser calibration

We address the problem of camera-to-laserscanner calibration using a checkerboard and multiple imagelaser scan pairs. Distinguishing which laser points measure the checkerboard and which lie on the background is essential to any such system. We formulate the checkerboard extraction as a combinatorial optimization problem with a clear cut objective function. We propose a branch-and-bound technique that deterministically and globally optimizes the objective. Unlike what is available in the literature, the proposed method is not heuristic and does not require assumptions such as constraints on the background or relying on discontinuity of the range measurements to partition the data into line segments. The proposed approach is generic and can be applied to both 3D or 2D laser scanners as well as the cases where multiple checkerboards are present. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach by providing numerical simulations as well as experimental results.
Outside-Xylem Vulnerability, Not Xylem Embolism, Controls Leaf Hydraulic Decline during Dehydration1[CC-BY]

Changes in leaf outside-xylem properties drive leaf and whole-plant hydraulic decline with dehydration, protecting plants from catastrophic embolism in xylem conduits. Leaf hydraulic supply is crucial to maintaining open stomata for CO2 capture and plant growth. During drought-induced dehydration, the leaf hydraulic conductance (Kleaf) declines, which contributes to stomatal closure and, eventually, to leaf death. Previous studies have tended to attribute the decline of Kleaf to embolism in the leaf vein xylem. We visualized at high resolution and quantified experimentally the hydraulic vulnerability of xylem and outside-xylem pathways and modeled their respective influences on plant water transport. Evidence from all approaches indicated that the decline of Kleaf during dehydration arose first and foremost due to the vulnerability of outside-xylem tissues. In vivo x-ray microcomputed tomography of dehydrating leaves of four diverse angiosperm species showed that, at the turgor loss point, only small fractions of leaf vein xylem conduits were embolized, and substantial xylem embolism arose only under severe dehydration. Experiments on an expanded set of eight angiosperm species showed that outside-xylem hydraulic vulnerability explained 75% to 100% of Kleaf decline across the range of dehydration from mild water stress to beyond turgor loss point. Spatially explicit modeling of leaf water transport pointed to a role for reduced membrane conductivity consistent with published data for cells and tissues. Plant-scale modeling suggested that outside-xylem hydraulic vulnerability can protect the xylem from tensions that would induce embolism and disruption of water transport under mild to moderate soil and atmospheric droughts. These findings pinpoint outside-xylem tissues as a central locus for the control of leaf and plant water transport during progressive drought.
French adolescent attitudes towards informal care for physical and emotional or relational problems

The objective of this study was to determine adolescents' attitudes concerning the use of self‐care and traditional medicines. A self‐administered anonymous questionnaire with open‐ended questions was completed by 543 adolescents aged 15–19 y. The results showed that the most frequent self‐care activity for general health problems, in more than three‐quarters of them, was self‐medication; 14% of them resorted to minor home treatment such as taking care of wounds, bandaging or massages. Instructions for use were mentioned by 69% of adolescents as a way of choosing self‐prescribed drugs. Natural medicines were used by 32% of the girls and 23% of the boys, mainly herbal teas or plant‐based medicines, followed by homoeopathy. Self‐care for emotional and relational problems mainly involved thinking about the problem and questioning themselves about their own behaviour or about the way they are. They also mentioned activities such as sports, going out, listening to music, watching television, and trying to think about something else by keeping themselves occupied. Natural medicines were used by 19% of the girls and 13% of the boys. Plant‐based medicines or herbal teas were used most often, followed by drugs or alcohol, with homoeopathy in third place.
Indications of Dynamic Effects on Scaling Relationships Between Channel Sinuosity and Vegetation Patch Size Across a Salt Marsh Platform

Salt marshes are important coastal areas that consist of a vegetated intertidal marsh platform and a drainage network of tidal channels. How salt marshes and their drainage networks develop is not fully understood, but it has been shown that the biogeomorphic interactions and feedbacks between vegetation development and channel formation play an important role. We examined the relationships among tidal channel sinuosity, marsh roughness, vegetation type (pioneer, Elymus athericus or Phragmites australis), and patch size at different spatial scales using a high‐resolution vegetation map (derived from aerial photography) and lower‐resolution satellite imagery processed with linear spectral mixture analysis. The patch‐size distribution in all vegetation types corresponded to a power law, suggesting the presence of self‐organizational processes. While small vegetation patches are more dominant in pioneer vegetation, they were present in all vegetation types. The largest patch size is restricted to E. athericus. We observed an inverse logarithmic relationship between channel sinuosity and vegetation patch size in all vegetation types. The fact that this relationship is observed in both pioneer and later successional stages suggests that after the establishment of a drainage network in the dynamic pioneer stages of salt marsh development, the later stages of salt marsh succession largely inherit the meandering pattern of the early successional stages. Our study confirms recent evidence that no significant changes in the specific features of tidal channel networks (e.g., channel width, drainage density, and efficiency) take place during the later stages of salt marsh development.