Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Expression and Localization of Prestin and the Sugar Transporter GLUT-5 during Development of Electromotility in Cochlear Outer Hair Cells

Electromotility, i.e., the ability of cochlear outer hair cells (OHCs) to contract and elongate at acoustic frequencies, is presumed to depend on the voltage-driven conformational changes of "motor" proteins present in the OHC lateral plasma membrane. Recently, two membrane proteins have been proposed as candidates for the OHC motor. A sugar transporter, GLUT-5, was proposed based on its localization in the OHCs and on the observation that sugar transport alters the voltage sensitivity of the OHC motor mechanism. Another candidate, "prestin," was identified from a subtracted OHC cDNA library and shown to impart voltage-driven shape changes to transfected cultured cells. We used antibodies specific for these two proteins to show that they are highly expressed in the lateral membrane of OHCs. We also compared the postnatal expression patterns of these proteins with the development of electromotility in OHCs of the apical turn of the rat organ of Corti. The patch-clamp recording of transient charge movement associated with electromotility indicates that half of the maximal expression of the motor protein occurs at postnatal day 9. Prestin incorporation in the plasma membrane begins from postnatal day 0 and increases progressively in a time course coinciding with that of electromotility. GLUT-5 is not incorporated into the lateral plasma membrane of apical OHCs until postnatal day 15. Our results suggest that, although GLUT-5 may be involved in the control of electromotility, prestin is likely to be a fundamental component of the OHC membrane motor mechanism.
Genetic mapping of the ability of Theiler's virus to persist and demyelinate

Theiler's virus, a murine picornavirus, is responsible for two different types of disease: strains DA, BeAn, and WW persist for more than a year in the white matter of the central nervous system and cause primary demyelination; strains GDVII and FA, on the other hand, cause an acute encephalitis that kills the host in a matter of days. To map the regions of the viral genome responsible for persistence and demyelination, cDNA clones of the entire genomes of the DA and GDVII strains were constructed and cloned into Bluescript plasmid (A. McAllister, F. Tangy, C. Aubert, and M. Brahic, Microb. Pathogen. 7:381-388, 1989; F. Tangy, A. McAllister, and M. Brahic, J. Virol. 63:1101-1106, 1989). We constructed chimeric viruses obtained by exchanging regions between the cDNA clones. Analysis of the disease phenotypes produced by the chimeric viruses allowed us to map persistence and demyelination to a genome segment coding for the VP1 capsid protein and 27 amino acids of protein 2A.
Action Potentials Initiate in the Axon Initial Segment and Propagate through Axon Collaterals Reliably in Cerebellar Purkinje Neurons

Purkinje neurons are the output cells of the cerebellar cortex and generate spikes in two distinct modes, known as simple and complex spikes. Revealing the point of origin of these action potentials, and how they conduct into local axon collaterals, is important for understanding local and distal neuronal processing and communication. By using a recent improvement in voltage-sensitive dye imaging technique that provided exceptional spatial and temporal resolution, we were able to resolve the region of spike initiation as well as follow spike propagation into axon collaterals for each action potential initiated on single trials. All fast action potentials, for both simple and complex spikes, whether occurring spontaneously or in response to a somatic current pulse or synaptic input, initiated in the axon initial segment. At discharge frequencies of less than ∼250 Hz, spikes propagated faithfully through the axon and axon collaterals, in a saltatory manner. Propagation failures were only observed for very high frequencies or for the spikelets associated with complex spikes. These results demonstrate that the axon initial segment is a critical decision point in Purkinje cell processing and that the properties of axon branch points are adjusted to maintain faithful transmission.
Selective decryption of outsourced IoT data

Outsourcing of IoT-data is a common concept when using third-party services, e.g. an external building management service is given access to the building's sensor measurements. However, the measurements captured from building systems often need to be protected from unauthorized access, because they are linked to persons, processes or business secrets, and therefore data protection requirements apply. Nevertheless, due to the large data volumes, external storage is desirable from a business perspective. We propose the concept of a Security Broker based on symmetric encryption schemes. It offers a key management scheme to flexibly create short decryption keys for time intervals or specific ranges of measurement values. We further show how the scheme can be generalized or a combination of the schemes can be applied. We implemented a prototype in Java and analyzed its performance. The evaluation proved the mechanism's applicability for mainstream applications running on off-the-shelf computing equipment.
New Evidence on the Money's Worth of Individual Annuities

This paper presents new information on the expected present discounted value of payouts on individual life annuities. The annuity we examine is the single premium immediate life annuity, an insurance product that pays out a nominal level sum as long as the covered person lives, in exchange for an initial lump-sum premium. This annuity offers protection against the risk of someone outliving his saving, given uncertainty about longevity. For reasonable estimates of behavioral parameters, we calculate that individual annuities are currently priced so that retirees without bequest motives should find these policies of substantial value in configuring their portfolios to smooth retirement consumption. We also find that the expected present discounted value of payouts, relative to the initial cost of the annuity, has increased over the last decade. These findings bear on the policy debate regarding the role of individual choice and self-reliance in retirement planning.
An Antibody–Drug Conjugate Targeting the Endothelin B Receptor for the Treatment of Melanoma

Purpose: To identify and evaluate targets amenable to antibody therapy in melanoma. Experimental Design: We searched for mRNA transcripts coding for cell-surface proteins with expression patterns similar to that of the melanoma oncogene MITF. One such candidate, the endothelin B receptor (EDNBR), was first analyzed for a functional contribution to tumor growth by conditional induction of shRNA. Second, antibodies were raised to the receptor, conjugated with monomethyl auristatin E, and tested for efficacy against melanoma tumor models generated from cell lines. Results: Conditional knockdown of the receptor in tumor xenograft models resulted in only a modest impact on tumor growth. A monoclonal antibody reactive with the N-terminal tail of EDNBR was found to internalize rapidly into melanoma cells. When conjugated with monomethyl auristatin E, the antibody–drug conjugate (ADC) showed remarkable efficacy against human melanoma cell lines and xenograft tumor models that was commensurate with levels of receptor expression. Comparative immunohistochemistry revealed a range of EDNBR expression across a panel of human melanomas, with the majority expressing levels equivalent to or greater than that in the models responsive to the ADC. Conclusion: An ADC targeting the EDNBR is highly efficacious in preclinical models of melanoma. Clin Cancer Res; 17(5); 965–75. ©2011 AACR.
Maximum likelihood normalization for robust speech recognition

It is well-known that additive and channel noise cause shift and scaling in MFCC features. Empirical normalization techniques to estimate and compensate for the effects, such as cepstral mean subtraction and variance normalization, have been shown to be useful. However, these empirical estimate may not be optimal. In this paper, we approach the problem from two directions, 1) use a more robust MFCC-based features that is less sensitive to additive and channel noise and 2) propose a maximum likelihood (ML) based approach to compensate the noise effect. In addition, we proposed the use of multi-class normalization in which different normalization factors can be applied to different phonetic units. The combination of the robust features and ML normalization is particularly useful for highly mis-matched condition in the Aurora 3 corpus resulting in a 15.8% relative improvement in the highly mis-matched case and a 10.4% relative improvement on average over the three conditions.
A Novel Fairness Mechanism Based on the Number of Effective Nodes for Efficient Bandwidth Allocation in the Resilient Packet Ring

Metro networks are based on SONET/SDH which uses the circuit switching technology. Circuit switching is inappropriate for the Internet traffic which is very bursty nature. Therefore, metro networks can become a bottleneck. In order to resolve this problem, the IEEE 802.17 working group has proposed the Resilient Packet Ring (RPR) technology. In order to provide fairness among stations in the RPR network, two types of RPR fairness mechanisms have been defined. However, the IEEE 802.17 RPR fairness mechanisms have the problem of inefficient use of the available bandwidth after the congestion at a node has been resolved. In'this paper, we propose an improved bandwidth allocation in which, after the congestion resolution at a node, the node estimates the number of effective nodes transmitting traffic, measures the remaining bandwidth and fairly allocates the available bandwidth to effective nodes. To show the performance of our proposed mechanism, we have performed simulation and show that the proposed mechanism gives higher bandwidth utilization than the existing RPR fairness mechanisms.
Deskilling HPL Using an Evolutionary Algorithm to Automate Cluster Benchmarking

The High-Performance Linpack (HPL) benchmark is the accepted standard for measuring the capacity of the world’s most powerful computers, which are ranked twice yearly in the Top 500 List. Since just a small deficit in performance can cost a computer several places, it is important to tune the benchmark to obtain the best possible result. However, the adjustment of HPL’s seventeen configuration parameters to obtain maximum performance is a time-consuming task that must be performed by hand. In a previous paper, we provided a preliminary study that proposed the tuning of HPL parameters by means of an Evolutionary Algorithm. The approach was validated on a small cluster. In this article, we extend this initial work by describing Acbea, a fullyautomatic benchmark tuning tool that performs both the configuration and installation of HPL followed by an automatic search for optimized parameters that will lead to the best benchmark results. Experiments have been conducted to validate this tool on several clusters, exploiting in particular the Grid’5000 infrastructure.
Evolution of Virulence in a Plant Host-Pathogen Metapopulation

In a wild plant–pathogen system, host resistance and pathogen virulence varied markedly among local populations. Broadly virulent pathogens occurred more frequently in highly resistant host populations, whereas avirulent pathogens dominated susceptible populations. Experimental inoculations indicated a negative trade-off between spore production and virulence. The nonrandom spatial distribution of pathogens, maintained through time despite high pathogen mobility, implies that selection favors virulent strains ofMelampsora lini in resistant Linum marginalepopulations and avirulent strains in susceptible populations. These results are consistent with gene-for-gene models of host-pathogen coevolution that require trade-offs to prevent pathogen virulence increasing until host resistance becomes selectively neutral.
Assessment and Instruction of Phonics for Young Children: A Model for Collaborative Teaching and Learning.

This chapter is part of a book that recounts the year's work at the Early Childhood Development Center (ECDC) at Texas A & M UniversityCorpus Christi. Rather than an "elitist" laboratory school for the children of university faculty, the dual-language ECDC is a collaboration between the Corpus Christi Independent School District and the university, with an enrollment representative of Corpus Christi's population. The chapter describes and evaluates an ECDC pedagogy renewal project on phonics instruction, involving interactions between graduate students, university faculty, and children entering first and second grades. The project entailed three components: (1) a subject area focus, which provided an in-depth examination of phonics; (2) a professional growth component, which promoted the habit of teacher reflection on literacy teaching and learning, and awareness of the many perspectives directly and indirectly affecting public school teaching and learning; and (3) an organizational component, which developed positive learning environments without the normal constraints of public school rules and regulations, and created collaborative learning experiences for students of all levels. Program evaluation showed positive results for adult learners, although effects on children's phonics learning were inconclusive. (Contains 20 references.) (EV) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.
Chapter 2 Microbial Production of Extracellular Polysaccharides from Biomass

The interest in polysaccharides has increased considerably in recent years, as they are candidates for many commercial applications in different industrial sectors like food, petroleum, and pharmaceuticals. Because of their costly production processes, industrial microbial polysaccharides like xanthan, dextran, curdlan, gellan, and pullulan constitute only a minor fraction of the current polymer market. Therefore, much effort has been devoted to the development of cost-effective and environmentally friendly production processes by switching to cheaper fermentation substrates. In this chapter, various microbial polysaccharide production processes utilizing cheap biomass resources like syrups and molasses, olive mill wastewater, cheese whey, various vegetable and fruit pomace, pulp and kernels as well as carbon dioxide and lignocellulosic biomass like rice hull and bran, sawdust, and fibers are discussed with a special focus on the employed pretreatment methods.
Connections with torsion, parallel spinors and geometry of Spin(7) manifolds

We show that on every Spin(7)-manifoldthere always exists a unique linear connection with totally skew-symmetric torsion preserving a nontrivial spinor andthe Spin(7) structure. We express its torsion andthe Riemannian scalar cur- vature in terms of the fundamental 4-form. We present an explicit formula for the Riemannian covariant derivative of the fundamental 4-form in terms of its exterior differential. We show the vanishing of the ˆ A-genus andobtain a linear relation between Betti numbers of a compact Spin(7) manifoldwhich is locally but not globally conformally equivalent to a space with closedfund amental 4-form. A general solution to the Killing spinor equations is presented.
Processing proximity queries in sensor networks

Sensor networks are often used to perform monitoring tasks, such as in animal or vehicle tracking and in surveillance of enemy forces in military applications. In this paper we introduce the concept of proximity queries that allow us to report interesting events that are observed by nodes in the network that are within certain distance of each other. An event is triggered when a user-programmable predicate is satisfied on a sensor node. We study the problem of computing proximity queries in sensor networks using existing communication protocols and then propose an efficient algorithm that can process multiple proximity queries, involving several different event types. Our solution utilizes a distributed routing index, maintained by the nodes in the network that is dynamically updated as new observations are obtained by the nodes. We present an extensive experimental study to show the benefits of our techniques under different scenarios. Our results demonstrate that our algorithms scale better and require orders of magnitude fewer messages compared to a straightforward computation of the queries.
Essential Hypertension : Part I : Definition and Etiology

Essential hypertension remains a major modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) despite important advances in our understanding of its pathophysiology and the availability of effective treatment strategies. High blood pressure (BP) increases the risk of CVD for millions of people worldwide, and there is evidence that the problem is only getting worse. In the past decade, age-adjusted rates of stroke incidence have risen, and the slope of the age-adjusted rate of decline in coronary disease has leveled off. The incidence of end-stage renal disease and the prevalence of heart failure have also increased. A major contributor to these trends is inadequate control of BP in the hypertensive population. This review of current concepts regarding the definition, etiology, and treatment of essential hypertension is intended to aid the clinician in identifying those individuals at high risk who need to undergo evaluation and treatment, as well as in selecting optimal treatment strategies for hypertensive patients with comorbid conditions and/or target organ damage. The part of the review that deals with the genetic basis of hypertension and the gene/environment interaction that may lead to elevated BP is still a work in progress. Information gained from the Human Genome Project and from ongoing studies of the genetic basis of hypertension both in animal models and human populations may revolutionize the treatment of hypertension by replacing current empirical therapy with more effective, targeted treatments based on the genotype of the patient. Concepts introduced in this review form the basis for such “pharmacogenomic” approaches to antihypertensive therapy.
Tourism as a Factor in Development Implications for Gender and Work in Barbados

This report used observational data and interviews with 53 men and 80 women tourism workers in Barbados, West Indies, to examine the implications of employment in tourism for gender arrangements in the workplace and the home. The authors found that women tend to be in less stable, lower-paid, and lower-level jobs in the industry and often must balance domestic and market work. Consequently, women tourism workers often rely more on additional sources of financial and network support than men do, especially from their families. The authors suggest that women's autonomy could be enhanced with industry and government programs such as flexible hours, increased formal training, and support for women managers and entrepreneurs
Performance comparison of STBC and SFBC in turbo coded OFDM systems

Two transmitter diversity techniques for turbo coded orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) are presented: space-time block coding (STBC) and space-frequency block coding (SFBC). With different channel environment and block size, STBC and SFBC have different performance. Also, with the increase of interleaver size (equal to block size for BPSK), turbo has better performance. So the performance of STBC and SFBC with different transmission environment and block size is simulated and discussed. Some important conclusions about the transmitter diversity for turbo coded OFDM systems are achieved.
Improving Localization Accuracy for an Underwater Robot With a Slow-Sampling Sonar Through Graph Optimization

This paper proposes a novel localization algorithm for an autonomous underwater vehicle equipped with a mechanical scanning sonar that has a slow frequency of data sampling. The proposed approach incrementally constructs a pose graph and conducts graph optimization to correct the robot poses. The construction of a pose graph has three stages: 1) scan generation which incorporates an extended Kalman filter-based dead reckoning algorithm that takes the robot motion into account while eliminating the sonar scan distortion caused by the motion; 2) data association which is based on Mahanalobis distance and shape matching for determining loop closures; and 3) scan matching which calculates constraints constructs pose graph. The constructed pose graph is then fed into a graph optimizer to find the optimal poses corresponding to each scan. A trajectory correction module uses these optimized poses to correct intermediate poses during the process of scan generation. Both simulation and practical experiments are conducted to verify the viability and accuracy of the proposed algorithm.
Constructing belt-barrier providing β-quality of monitoring with minimum camera sensors

A wireless sensor network is said to form a belt-barrier for a region if it is able to detect any object moving from outside the region to inside. Recently, Cheng and Tsai found if camera sensors are used to form a belt-barrier, the breadth of the barrier becomes an important quality factor to ensure high quality of monitoring (QoM). Then, they proposed the minimum β-breadth belt-barrier construction problem ((β, 1)-B3CP) whose goal is to select a minimum number of camera sensors to form a β-breadth belt-barrier, which ensures the width of the picture of any object which moves through the barrier is at least β. In this paper, we perform more thorough investigation of the problem and introduce a new polynomial time exact algorithm for the problem under the assumption that the angle of each camera is fixed. Our simulation result shows our algorithm outperforms Cheng and Tsai's algorithm. We also introduce a variation of (β, 1)-B3CP, namely (β, k)-B3CP, which aims to construct k node-disjoint β-breadth belt-barrier for fault-tolerance purpose, propose a new heuristic algorithm for it, and conduct simulations to evaluate its performance.
Multiscale modeling of electron-ion interactions for engineering novel electronic devices and materials

In this work, we present a multiscale simulation platform as a viable tool to engineer novel electron devices. The tool connects the specific material properties (as atomic defects, interfaces, material morphology) to the electrical behavior of the device, representing a virtual space for the design of novel electrons device purposely exploiting atom-electron interactions. This simulation platform is based on the modeling the microscopic interactions and chemical reactions (e.g. bond breaking) between electrons and atomic species (ions, vacancies, dangling bonds). In this work, we show how this tool can be used to design resistive memory devices based on binary oxides. The fundamental importance of the complex interplay between charge carriers and atomic species is highlighted by showing how these interactions determine many electrical characteristics of the device, including charge transport, structural modifications associated with resistive switching, variability, and noise fluctuations.