Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Formulation and in vitro evaluation of Eudragit S-100 coated naproxen matrix tablets for colon-targeted drug delivery system

The purpose of the present investigation was to prepare matrix tablets of naproxen using a hydrophobic polymer, i.e., Eudragit RLPO, RSPO, and combination of both, by wet granulation method. The tablets were further coated with different concentrations of Eudragit S-100, a pH-sensitive polymer, by dip immerse method. In vitro drug release studies of tablets were carried out in different dissolution media, i.e., 0.1 N HCl (pH 1.2), phosphate buffers pH 6.8 and 7.4, with or without rat cecal content. The swelling studies of the optimized formulation were carried out. The physicochemical parameters of all the formulations were found to be in compliance with the pharmacopoeial standards. The effect of dissolution medium on the surface of matrix tablet was determined by using Scanning Electron Microscopy technique. The stability studies of all formulations were performed as per ICH guidelines. The results demonstrated that the tablets coated with Eudragit S-100 (2% w/v) showed a sustained release of 94.67% for 24 h, but drug release increased to about 98.60% for 24 h in the presence of rat cecal content while the uncoated tablets released the drug within 5 h. With regard to release kinetics, the data were best fitted with the Higuchi model with non-Fickian drug release kinetics mechanism. The stability studies of tablets showed less degradation during accelerated and room temperature storage conditions for 6 months. The enteric-coated Eudragit S-100 coated matrix tablets of naproxen showed promising site-specific drug delivery in the colon region.
HeTM: Transactional Memory for Heterogeneous Systems

Modern heterogeneous computing architectures, which couple multi-core CPUs with discrete many-core GPUs (or other specialized hardware accelerators), enable unprecedented peak performance and energy efficiency levels. However, developing applications that can take full advantage of the potential of heterogeneous systems is a notoriously hard task. This work takes a step towards reducing the complexity of programming heterogeneous systems by introducing the abstraction of Heterogeneous Transactional Memory (HeTM). HeTM provides programmers with the illusion of a single memory region, shared among the CPUs and the (discrete) GPU(s) of a heterogeneous system, with support for atomic transactions. Besides introducing the abstract semantics and programming model of HeTM, we present the design and evaluation of a concrete implementation of the proposed abstraction, referred herein as Speculative HeTM (SHeTM). SHeTM makes use of a novel design that leverages speculative techniques, which aims at hiding the inherently large communication latency between CPUs and discrete GPUs and at minimizing inter-device synchronization overhead. We demonstrate the efficiency of the SHeTM via an extensive quantitative study based both on synthetic benchmarks and on a popular object caching system.
Shear-invariant Sliding Contact Perception with a Soft Tactile Sensor

Manipulation tasks often require robots to be continuously in contact with an object. Therefore tactile perception systems need to handle continuous contact data. Shear deformation causes the tactile sensor to output path-dependent readings in contrast to discrete contact readings. As such, in some continuous-contact tasks, sliding can be regarded as a disturbance over the sensor signal. Here we present a shear-invariant perception method based on principal component analysis (PCA) which outputs the required information about the environment despite sliding motion. A compliant tactile sensor (the TacTip) is used to investigate continuous tactile contact. First, we evaluate the method offline using test data collected whilst the sensor slides over an edge. Then, the method is used within a contour-following task applied to 6 objects with varying curvatures; all contours are successfully traced. The method demonstrates generalisation capabilities and could underlie a more sophisticated controller for challenging manipulation or exploration tasks in unstructured environments.
Substance P Modulates NMDA Responses and Causes Long-Term Protein Synthesis-Dependent Modulation of the Lamprey Locomotor Network

Tachykinin immunoreactivity is found in a ventromedial spinal plexus in the lamprey. Neurons in this plexus project bilaterally and are thus in a position to modulate locomotor networks on both sides of the spinal cord. We have examined the effects of the tachykinin substance P on NMDA-evoked locomotor activity. Brief (10 min) application of tachykinin neuropeptides results in a prolonged concentration-dependent (>24 hr) modulation of locomotor activity, shown by the increased burst frequency and more regular burst activity. These effects are blocked by the tachykinin antagonist spantide II. There are at least two phases to the burst frequency modulation. An initial phase (∼2 hr) is associated with the protein kinase C-dependent potentiation of cellular responses to NMDA. The long-lasting phase (>2 hr) appears to be protein synthesis-dependent, with protein synthesis inhibitors causing the increased burst frequency to recover after washing for 2–3 hr. The modulation of the burst regularity is caused by a separate effect of tachykinins, because unlike the burst frequency modulation it does not require the modulation of NMDA receptors for its induction and is blocked by H8, an inhibitor of cAMP- and cGMP-dependent protein kinases. The effects of substance P were mimicked by the dopamine D2 receptor antagonist eticlopride. The effects of eticlopride were blocked by the tachykinin antagonist spantide II, suggesting that eticlopride may endogenously release tachykinins. Because locomotor activity in vitrocorresponds to that during swimming in intact animals, we suggest that endogenously released tachykinins will result in prolonged modulation of locomotor behavior.
Genome-Wide Analysis of Yield in Europe : Allelic Effects Vary with Drought and Heat Scenarios 1 [ OPEN ]

INRA, Laboratoire d’Ecophysiologie des Plantes sous Stress Environnementaux, 34060 Montpellier, France (E.J.M., C.W., A.C.-L., F.T.); Biometris — Applied Statistics, Department of Plant Science, Wageningen University, 6700AA Wageningen, Netherlands (W.K., F.V.E.); INRA, UMR 0320 / UMR 8120 Génétique Quantitative et Evolution, 91190 Gif-sur-Yvette, France (S.N, S.D.N., C.B., A.C.); INRA, SMH Maïs, Centre de recherche de Bordeaux Aquitaine, 40390 Saint-Martin-De-Hinx, France (J.L.); Centre de Recherche de Chappes, Biogemma, 63720 Chappes, France (S.P.); Syngenta France SAS, 12, Chemin de l’Hobit, BP 27, 31790, SaintSauveur, France (N.R.); KWS Saat SE, 37555 Einbeck, Germany (T.P.); Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Bologna, 40127 Bologna, Italy (R.T.); MTA ATK/ AI CAR HAS, Martonvasar 2462, Hungary (Z.B.); UCL ELIA, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium (X.D.); and Institute for Botany and Molecular Genetics, BioSC, RWTH Aachen University, 52074 Aachen, Germany (B.U.)
Practice modulates motor‐related beta oscillations differently in adolescents and adults

Magnetoencephalography data were acquired during a leg force task in pre‐/post‐practice sessions in adolescents and adults. Strong peri‐movement alpha and beta oscillations were mapped to the cortex. Following practice, performance improved and beta oscillations were altered. Beta oscillations decreased in the sensorimotor cortex in adolescents after practice, but increased in adults. No pre‐/post‐practice differences were detected for alpha oscillations.
Semi-Conditional Normalizing Flows for Semi-Supervised Learning

This paper proposes a semi-conditional normalizing flow model for semi-supervised learning. The model uses both labelled and unlabeled data to learn an explicit model of joint distribution over objects and labels. Semi-conditional architecture of the model allows us to efficiently compute a value and gradients of the marginal likelihood for unlabeled objects. The conditional part of the model is based on a proposed conditional coupling layer. We demonstrate performance of the model for semi-supervised classification problem on different datasets. The model outperforms the baseline approach based on variational auto-encoders on MNIST dataset.
The Drivers and Performance of Environmental Practices in the Chinese Construction Industry

With the global concern of environmental protection and sustainability, construction firms are required to develop and implement environmental practices (EP) to mitigate the negative impacts of project activities on the environment. This paper attempts to explore two potential drivers (i.e., government regulations and project team’s knowledge and skills) and performance outcomes (i.e., environmental performance and organizational performance) when the firm implementing EP in construction projects. A survey-based research design was developed to measure the drivers, EP implementation, and performance and to collect data in the Chinese construction industry. Structural equation modelling was used to test the hypothesized relationships. The results indicate that a project team’s knowledge and skills, rather than government regulations, are the key driving factors for the implementation of EP in construction projects. EP implementation is proved to have a positive impact on both environmental and organizational performance. This study provides empirical evidence for project environmental management research and offers managerial insights on how to promote EP in the construction industry.
Strategies for improving performance and energy efficiency on a many-core

New many-core architectures are characterized not only by the large amount of processing elements but also by the large number and heterogeneity of resources. This new environment has prompted the development of new techniques that seek finer granularity and a greater interplay in the sharing of resources. The research proposed here will provide an analysis of these new scenarios, proposing new methodologies and solutions that leverage these new challenges in order to increase the performance and energy efficiency of modern many-core architectures.
Two‐sample inference for high‐dimensional Markov networks

Markov networks are frequently used in sciences to represent conditional independence relationships underlying observed variables arising from a complex system. It is often of interest to understand how an underlying network differs between two conditions. In this paper, we develop methods for comparing a pair of high‐dimensional Markov networks where we allow the number of observed variables to increase with the sample sizes. By taking the density ratio approach, we are able to learn the network difference directly and avoid estimating the individual graphs. Our methods are thus applicable even when the individual networks are dense as long as their difference is sparse. We prove finite‐sample Gaussian approximation error bounds for the estimator we construct under significantly weaker assumptions than are typically required for model selection consistency. Furthermore, we propose bootstrap procedures for estimating quantiles of a max‐type statistics based on our estimator, and show how they can be used to test the equality of two Markov networks or construct simultaneous confidence intervals. The performance of our methods is demonstrated through extensive simulations. The scientific usefulness is illustrated with an analysis of a new fMRI data set.
Integration of Silicon with Passive Devices Yields Advantages in Wireless Design

The wireless market presents conflicting demands to the RF system developer. Multi-band and multimode operation must be provided with improved RF performance, using less power, in a highly integrated form factor and, of course, at a lower system cost. These conflicting demands may be realized through the fusion of high quality, high tolerance RF passive components configured from package interconnects as well as metalization layers in advanced silicon processes such as RF CMOS and SiGe BiCMOS. This paper presents a brief overview of a unique approach to complex RF designs, employing a passives-based design methodology aided by specialized EDA tools.
Social cognition in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

SUMMARY There is an overlap between amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia. Approximately 15% of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients suffer from frontotemporal dementia characterized by behavioral change while a further third experience subtle executive dysfunction (typically letter fluency deficits) and corresponding prefrontal changes. Behavior change appears prevalent with apathy being the most prominent feature. Reports of social and emotional cognition deficits are increasing. Deficits have been described on theory of mind tasks including interpretation of stories and cartoons, faux pas detection and in the judgment of preference based on direction of eye-gaze. Impairments in emotional face and prosody perception and emotional enhancement of memory have been reported, and decision making (with and without risk) appears affected. The role of executive dysfunction in this social cognition deficit remains unresolved and more direct evidence of oribitofrontal involvement has yet to .
Handcrafted Microwire Regenerative Peripheral Nerve Interfaces with Wireless Neural Recording and Stimulation Capabilities

A scalable microwire peripheral nerve interface was developed, which interacted with regenerated peripheral nerves in microchannel scaffolds. Neural interface technologies are envisioned to facilitate direct connections between the nervous system and external technologies such as limb prosthetics or data acquisition systems for further processing. Presented here is an animal study using a handcrafted microwire regenerative peripheral nerve interface, a novel neural interface device for communicating with peripheral nerves. The neural interface studies using animal models are crucial in the evaluation of efficacy and safety of implantable medical devices before their use in clinical studies. 16-electrode microwire microchannel scaffolds were developed for both peripheral nerve regeneration and peripheral nerve interfacing. The microchannels were used for nerve regeneration pathways as a scaffolding material and the embedded microwires were used as a recording electrode to capture neural signals from the regenerated peripheral nerves. Wireless stimulation and recording capabilities were also incorporated to the developed peripheral nerve interface which gave the freedom of the complex experimental setting of wired data acquisition systems and minimized the potential infection of the animals from the wire connections. A commercially available wireless recording system was efficiently adopted to the peripheral nerve interface. The 32-channel wireless recording system covered 16-electrode microwires in the peripheral nerve interface, two cuff electrodes, and two electromyography electrodes. The 2-channel wireless stimulation system was connected to a cuff electrode on the sciatic nerve branch and was used to make evoked signals which went through the regenerated peripheral nerves and were captured by the wireless recording system at a different location. The successful wireless communication was demonstrated in the result section and the future goals of a wireless neural interface for chronic implants and clinical trials were discussed together.
On-board real-time pose estimation for UAVs using deformable visual contour registration

We present a real time algorithm for estimating the pose of non-planar objects on which we have placed a visual marker. It is designed to overcome the limitations of small aerial robots, such as slow CPUs, low image resolution and geometric distortions produced by wide angle lenses or viewpoint changes. The method initially registers the shape of a known marker to the contours extracted in an image. For this purpose, and in contrast to state-of-the art, we do not seek to match textured patches or points of interest. Instead, we optimize a geometric alignment cost computed directly from raw polygonal representations of the observed regions using very simple and efficient clipping algorithms. Further speed is achieved by performing the optimization in the polygon representation space, avoiding the need of 2D image processing operations. Deformation modes are easily included in the optimization scheme, allowing an accurate registration of different markers attached to curved surfaces using a single deformable prototype. Once this initial registration is solved, the object pose is retrieved using a standard PnP approach. As a result, the method achieves accurate object pose estimation in real-time, which is very important for interactive UAV tasks, for example for short distance surveillance or bar assembly. We present experiments where our method yields, at about 30Hz, an average error of less than 5mm in estimating the position of a 19×19mm marker placed at 0.7m of the camera.
A Simple and EÆcient Parallel Disk Mergesort

External sorting|the process of sorting a le that is too large to t into the computer's internal memory and must be stored externally on disks|is a fundamental subroutine in database systems [Gra93, IBM90]. Of prime importance are techniques that use multiple disks in parallel in order to speed up the performance of external sorting. The simple randomized merging (SRM ) mergesort algorithm proposed by Barve et al. [BGV97] is the rst parallel disk sorting algorithm that requires a provably optimal number of passes and that is fast in practice. Knuth [Knu98, Section 5.4. 9] recently identi ed SRM (which he calls \randomized striping") as the method of choice for sorting with parallel disks. In this paper we present an eÆcient implementation of SRM, based upon novel and elegant data structures. We give a new implementation for SRM's lookahead forecasting technique for parallel prefetching and its forecast and ush technique for bu er management. Our techniques amount to a signi cant improvement in the way SRM carries out the parallel, independent disk accesses necessary to read blocks of input runs eÆciently during external merging. Our implementation is based on synchronous parallel I/O primitives provided by the TPIE programming environment [TPI99]; whenever our program issues an I/O read (write) operation, one block of data is synchronously read from (written to) each disk in parallel. We compare the performance of SRM over a wide range of input sizes with that of disk-striped mergesort (DSM), which is widely used in practice. DSM consists of a standard mergesort in conjunction with striped I/O for parallel disk access. SRM merges together signi cantly more runs at a time compared with DSM, and thus it requires fewer merge passes. We demonstrate in practical scenarios that even though the streaming speeds for merging with DSM are a little higher than those for SRM (since DSM merges fewer runs at a time), sorting using SRM is often signi cantly faster than with DSM (since SRM requires fewer passes). The techniques in this paper can be generalized to meet the load-balancing requirements of other applications using parallel disks, including distribution sort and multiway partitioning of a le into several other les. Since both parallel disk merging and multimedia processing deal with streams that get \consumed" at nonuniform and partially predictable rates, our techniques for lookahead based upon forecasting data may have relevance in video server applications.
Evaluating the benefits and feasibility of coordinated medium access in MANETS

Mobile ad hoc wireless network (MANETs) are characterized by a highly-dynamic topology where neither the duration of links between nodes nor their densities within the network can be foreseing. To better understand the effects of such issues in the medium access we provide a performance evaluation of two distinct MAC protocols. The first is our previously proposed HCT (Hybrid Contention/TDMA) Real-Time MAC protocol, which continuously adapts to topology modifications in order to provide a kind of coordinated medium access. Its performance is compared with a contention-based, non-coordinated CSMA protocol, which is the typical MAC protocol used in MANETs. We analyze both protocols with respect to their ability to deliver messages in a timely manner. More specifically, we compared the ratio of messages delivered within their deadlines and the medium utilization provided by these protocols. Such aspects where analyzed considering mobile networks with different spatial densities and speeds of nodes. This study also addresses the protocols overhead, especially for HCT-MAC. Obtained results show that HCT-MAC appears as a good solution for applications like search-and-rescue, autonomous highway driving (platooning), and multimedia, which require some kind of QoS guarantee in respect to the timely delivery of messages.
Very long-term survival and late sudden cardiac death in cardiac resynchronization therapy patients.

AIMS The very long-term outcome of patients who survive the first few years after receiving cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) has not been well described thus far. We aimed to provide long-term outcomes, especially with regard to the occurrence of sudden cardiac death (SCD), in CRT patients without (CRT-P) and with defibrillator (CRT-D). METHODS AND RESULTS A total of 1775 patients, with ischaemic or non-ischaemic dilated cardiomyopathy, who were alive 5 years after CRT implantation, were enrolled in this multicentre European observational cohort study. Overall long-term mortality rates and specific causes of death were assessed, with a focus on late SCD. Over a mean follow-up of 30 months (interquartile range 10-42 months) beyond the first 5 years, we observed 473 deaths. The annual age-standardized mortality rates of CRT-D and CRT-P patients were 40.4 [95% confidence interval (CI) 35.3-45.5] and 97.2 (95% CI 85.5-109.9) per 1000 patient-years, respectively. The adjusted hazard ratio (HR) for all-cause mortality was 0.99 (95% CI 0.79-1.22). Twenty-nine patients in total died of late SCD (14 with CRT-P, 15 with CRT-D), corresponding to 6.1% of all causes of death in both device groups. Specific annual SCD rates were 8.5 and 5.8 per 1000 patient-years in CRT-P and CRT-D patients, respectively, with no significant difference between groups (adjusted HR 1.0, 95% CI 0.45-2.44). Death due to progressive heart failure represented the principal cause of death (42.8% in CRT-P patients and 52.6% among CRT-D recipients), whereas approximately one-third of deaths in both device groups were due to non-cardiovascular death. CONCLUSION In this first description of very long-term outcomes among CRT recipients, progressive heart failure death still represented the most frequent cause of death in patients surviving the first 5 years after CRT implant. In contrast, SCD represents a very low proportion of late mortality irrespective of the presence of a defibrillator.