Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Up-Regulation of Mcl-1 and Bak by Coronavirus Infection of Human, Avian and Animal Cells Modulates Apoptosis and Viral Replication

Virus-induced apoptosis and viral mechanisms that regulate this cell death program are key issues in understanding virus-host interactions and viral pathogenesis. Like many other human and animal viruses, coronavirus infection of mammalian cells induces apoptosis. In this study, the global gene expression profiles are first determined in IBV-infected Vero cells at 24 hours post-infection by Affymetrix array, using avian coronavirus infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) as a model system. It reveals an up-regulation at the transcriptional level of both pro-apoptotic Bak and pro-survival myeloid cell leukemia-1 (Mcl-1). These results were further confirmed both in vivo and in vitro, in IBV-infected embryonated chicken eggs, chicken fibroblast cells and mammalian cells at transcriptional and translational levels, respectively. Interestingly, the onset of apoptosis occurred earlier in IBV-infected mammalian cells silenced with short interfering RNA targeting Mcl-1 (siMcl-1), and was delayed in cells silenced with siBak. IBV progeny production and release were increased in infected Mcl-1 knockdown cells compared to similarly infected control cells, while the contrary was observed in infected Bak knockdown cells. Furthermore, IBV infection-induced up-regulation of GADD153 regulated the expression of Mcl-1. Inhibition of the mitogen-activated protein/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (MEK/ERK) and phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K/Akt) signaling pathways by chemical inhibitors and knockdown of GADD153 by siRNA demonstrated the involvement of ER-stress response in regulation of IBV-induced Mcl-1 expression. These results illustrate the sophisticated regulatory strategies evolved by a coronavirus to modulate both virus-induced apoptosis and viral replication during its replication cycle.
MACH 1 FOR NONUNIFORM TIME-SCALE MODIFICATION OF SPEECH : THEORY , TECHNIQUE , AND COMPARISONS

We propose a new approach to nonuniform time compression, called Mach1, designed to mimic the natural timing of fast speech. At identical overall compression rates, listener comprehension for Mach1-compressed speech increased between 5 and 31 percentage points 2 over that for linearly compressed speech, and response times dropped by 15%. For rates between 2.5 and 4.2 times real time, there was no significant comprehension loss with increasing Mach1 compression rates. In A–B preference tests, Mach1-compressed speech was chosen 95% of the time. This paper describes the Mach1 technique and our listener-test results. Audio examples can be found on http://www.interval. com/papers/ 1997-061/. The research described in this paper is the basis for our submission to the 1998 International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing. The description provided here is a longer and more complete description of our approach and our results than we could fit into the ICASSP paper format. However, since our ICASSP submission is effectively a subset of that description, we have included the IEEE copyright notice below. Interval Research Corporation Technical Report # 1997-061 Copyright 1998 IEEE. Published in the Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, May 12-15, 1998. Seattle, Washington. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works, must be obtained from the IEEE. Contact: Manager, Copyrights and Permissions / IEEE Service Center / 445 Hoes Lane / P.O. Box 1331 / Piscataway, NJ 08855-1331, USA. Telephone: + Intl. 908-562-3966.
Narrow-Band Interference Suppression for SAR Based on Independent Component Analysis

The narrow-band interference (NBI) is a common jamming signal against synthetic aperture radar (SAR), which can degrade the imaging quality severely. This paper proposes a new method for NBI suppression in the data domain based on the independent component analysis (ICA). In this method, echoes contaminated by the NBI are identified in the frequency domain. Next, time filtering and whitening are performed to the identified echoes. Then, the ICA is carried out to decompose the echoes into a series of basis signals, and the jamming components are selected by thresholding. Finally, the NBI is reconstructed and subtracted from the echoes, and the well-focused SAR imagery is obtained by conventional imaging methods. The proposed method copes well with the time-varying NBI with little signal loss. Results of simulated and measured data have proved the validity of the proposed method.
Statistical Signal Transmission Technology: A Novel Perspective for 5G Enabled Vehicular Networking

Vehicular networking has become a major pillar of the coming 5G ecosystem. In this article, we provide a novel perspective for 5G enabled vehicular networking: statistical signal transmission technology (SSTT). SSTT is a technique that exploits statistical features of ordinary signals to carry extra information data. It works parasitically inside the underlying transmission technologies without supplementary bandwidth cost. Depending on its inherent property (statistical form), SSTT can sustain strong robustness under various communication environments. Particularly, due to the Doppler tolerance, SSTT possesses reliable performance under high-mobility communication scenarios. Based on the traits of embedded transmission and mobile adaptability, SSTT can support additional functionalities in corresponding scenarios without too many amendments or too much overhead, which facilitates the evolution of vehicular networking. In this article, we present the basic workflow and detection principle of SSTT. We also provide numerical evaluations thereafter, which confirm SSTT's ability in vehicular communication scenarios. Based on the works above, discussions and analyses are drawn to reveal several promising directions for SSTT toward 5G vehicular networking.
Exercise-Induced Bone Formation Is Poorly Linked to Local Strain Magnitude in the Sheep Tibia

Functional interpretations of limb bone structure frequently assume that diaphyses adjust their shape by adding bone primarily across the plane in which they are habitually loaded in order to minimize loading-induced strains. Here, to test this hypothesis, we characterize the in vivo strain environment of the sheep tibial midshaft during treadmill exercise and examine whether this activity promotes bone formation disproportionately in the direction of loading in diaphyseal regions that experience the highest strains. It is shown that during treadmill exercise, sheep tibiae were bent in an anteroposterior direction, generating maximal tensile and compressive strains on the anterior and posterior shaft surfaces, respectively. Exercise led to significantly increased periosteal bone formation; however, rather than being biased toward areas of maximal strains across the anteroposterior axis, exercise-related osteogenesis occurred primarily around the medial half of the shaft circumference, in both high and low strain regions. Overall, the results of this study demonstrate that loading-induced bone growth is not closely linked to local strain magnitude in every instance. Therefore, caution is necessary when bone shaft shape is used to infer functional loading history in the absence of in vivo data on how bones are loaded and how they actually respond to loading.
Are Australian lakes different? — Chironomid and chaoborid exuviae from Lake McKenzie, a coastal temperate dune lake

The Australian lake benthos is reported to have fewer chironomid species than comparable Holarctic lakes (TIMMS 1985) and the lakes do nor conform to trophic lake dassification (TIMMS 1978). As a first contribution to a study of the latter premise, we reexamine the former hypothesis with a spatial and seasonal investigation in a small dune lake in southeastern Australia. For the first time in Ausrralian lacustrine systems, a pupal exuvial method, wellknown in lotic and northern temperate studies, is assessed. We observe seasonal effects, and compare our results with earlier studies of larvae in the same lake (NORRIS et al. 1993) and with other Australian, Holarctic and Mrican lakes. Limnologists have encountered difficulties in making an accurate inventory of aquatic chironomid species in any system due to identification difficulties with larvae. Most routine larval sampling methods assess only a sub-set of micro-habitats, and unusual habitats such as immersed wood, the hyporheic zone, and commensal associations, may escape attention. Given that al! aquatic chironomid species emerge at the water surface leaving their pupal exuviae floating on the surface, theoretically the complete range of taxa that survive to emergence can be sampled with an exuvial technique. Additional benefits are the ease of sampling in suitable numbers using non-destructive methods (COFFMAN 1995) and the easily seen and distinctive taxonomic features of exuviae enable accurate delimitation and aid in identification. The use of chironomid exuviae in ecology and taxonomy was advocated by THIENEMANN (1910) early this century. Although used by THIENEMANN's "school" of students and colleagues induding HuMPHRIES (1938), it was probably the study of BRUNDIN (1966) that revived the technique. Popular acceptance began when researchers linked exuvial studies wirh ecosystem studies (COFFMAN 1973) and lotic water pollution (e.g. WILSON & BRIGHT 1973, WILSON & McGILL 1977). These studies predominantly concerned running waters, in which fixed drift nets intercept downstream floating exuviae. Lentic studies are fewer and reports on the effectiveness of sampling methods are scarce. Two methods have been described for lentic water bodies: towing a net from a boat (e.g. HUMPHRIES 1938, FRANQUET & PoNT 1996) or netting exuviae from areas of accumulation on lee shores (PINDER & MoRLEY 1995, KUIJIPERS er al. 1992)
Use of lidar-derived landscape parameters to characterize alternative harvest system options in the Inland Northwest

ABSTRACT As innovative harvest systems are developed, the extent to which they can be utilized on the landscape based on machine capabilities is often unclear to forest managers. Spatial decision support models may aid contractors and forest planners in choosing appropriate logging systems based on topography and stand characteristics. Lidar and inventory data from 91 sample plots were used to model site characteristics for 2627 stands in the Slate Creek drainage on the Nez Perce Clearwater National Forest in north-central Idaho, USA, and were integrated into a decision support model to compare harvest system selection using five harvest systems and three scenarios. In two of the scenarios, shovel harvester-based logging systems, which are not common in the area, were included to determine potential sites where integration of these systems is possible based on landscape and stand conditions. Lidar-derived predictions for volume and trees per hectare were determined with model accuracies of 76.4% and 70.3%, and together with topographic characteristics it was determined that shovel harvester-based options were feasible across a significant portion of the study area (31% and 34% in the two scenarios). Additionally, increasing operable slope for ground-based systems by 10% increased the area in harvestable classification by 21%. Harvest system classification using lidar-derived products and known system capabilities allows contractors and managers to better evaluate alternative harvest system options on landscape scales and may encourage the utilization of innovative machinery not currently integrated into most logging operations.
Applying POMDPs to Dialog Systems in the Troubleshooting Domain

This paper reports on progress applying partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) to a commercial dialog domain: troubleshooting. In the troubleshooting domain, a spoken dialog system helps a user to fix a product such as a failed DSL connection. Past work has argued that a POMDP is a principled approach to building spoken dialog systems in the simpler slot-filling domain; this paper explains how the POMDPs formulation can be extended to the more complex troubleshooting domain. Results from dialog simulation verify that a POMDP outperforms a handcrafted baseline.
Fusing high- and low-level features for speaker recognition

The area of automatic speaker recognition has been dominated by systems using only short-term, low-level acoustic information, such as cepstral features. While these systems have produced low error rates, they ignore higher levels of information beyond low-level acoustics that convey speaker information. Recently published works have demonstrated that such high-level information can be used successfully in automatic speaker recognition systems by improving accuracy and potentially increasing robustness. Wide ranging high-levelfeature-based approaches using pronunciation models, prosodic dynamics, pitch gestures, phone streams, and conversational interactions were explored and developed under the SuperSID project at the 2002 JHU CLSP Summer Workshop (WS2002): http://www.clsp. jhu.edu/ws2002/groups/supersid/. In this paper, we show how these novel features and classifiers provide complementary information and can be fused together to drive down the equal error rate on the 2001 NIST Extended Data Task to 0.2%—a 71% relative reduction in error over the previous state of the art.
Virtual Reality Rehearsals for Acting with Visual Effects

This paper presents the use of Virtual Reality (VR) for movie actors rehearsal of VFX-enhanced scenes. The impediment behind VFX scenes is that actors must be filmed in front of monochromatic green or blue screens with hardly any cue to the digital scenery that is supposed to surround them. The problem is worsens when the scene includes interaction with digital partners. The actors must pretend they are sharing the set with imaginary creatures when they are, in fact, on their own on an empty set. To support actors in this complicated task, we introduce the use of VR for acting rehearsals not only to immerse actors in the digital scenery but to provide them with advanced features for rehearsing their play. Indeed, our approach combines a fully interactive environment with a dynamic scenario feature to allow actors to become familiar with the virtual elements while rehearsing dialogue and action at their own speed. The interactive and creative rehearsals enabled by the system can be either single-user or multi-user. Moreover, thanks to the wide range of supported platforms, VR rehearsals can take place either on-set or off-set. We conducted a preliminary study to assess whether VR training can replace classical training. The results show that VR-trained actors deliver a performance just as good as ordinarily trained actors. Moreover, all the subjects in our experiment preferred VR training to classic training.
Endocrine adaptations of periparturient swine to alteration of dietary energy source.

Lipid compared with carbohydrate calories in the diet of peripartal sows was examined for specific metabolic effects. Blood samples from second-parity Yorkshire sows fed isocaloric-isonitrogenous diets that differed by either glucose or corn oil supplying 20% of the daily metabolizable energy intake were assayed for growth hormone (GH), insulin and prolactin (PRL) concentrations. On d 97 to 103 of gestation, serum GH levels were reduced following feed intake; the reduction was greater (P less than .05) in glucose-fed sows during the postprandial period. Insulin concentration was increased following consumption of either diet, but to a greater (P less than .05) extent in glucose-fed sows corresponding to the greater (P less than .05) blood glucose response. Basal, fasting concentrations of PRL were not affected by dietary energy source; however, thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) infusion resulted in a greater (P less than .05) PRL response of fat-fed sows. Samples obtained on d 8 to 11 of lactation revealed that TRH stimulated (P less than .05) GH secretion and the response was greater (P less than .05) in fat-fed sows. Plasma insulin concentration was increased (P less than .05) following feeding, and the increase was greater (P less than .05) in glucose-fed sows. Similar to the response measured in gestating sows, TRH-induced increases in PRL was greater in fat-fed, lactating sows. Sham-nursing did not influence maternal PRL concentration compared with the immediate increase noted following natural nursing. No effect of dietary energy source on reproductive performance characteristics was noted. Results of this study have shown that dietary lipid, compared with carbohydrate, selectively increased the sensitivity of the pituitary gland to a GH and PRL secretagogue such as TRH. The beneficial effects of lipid in the diet of peripartal swine may be attributable, in part, to the effect of dietary lipid on maternal pituitary PRL synthesis and(or) release.
Estimates of the Prevalence of Acute Stroke Impairments and Disability in a Multiethnic Population

Background and Purpose— The goals of the present study were to estimate the prevalence of acute impairments and disability in a multiethnic population of first-ever stroke and to identify differences in impairment and early disability between pathological and Bamford subtypes. Associations between impairments and death and disability at 3 months were identifed. Methods— Impairments that occur at the time of maximum neurological deficit were recorded, and disability according to the Barthel Index (BI) was assessed 1 week and 3 months after stroke in patients in the South London Stroke Register. Results— Of 1259 registered patients, 6% had 1 or 2, 31.1% had 3 to 5, 50.6% had 6 to 10, and 10.6% had >10 impairments. Common impairments were weakness (upper limb, 77.4%), urinary incontinence (48.2%), impaired consciousness (44.7%), dysphagia (44.7%), and impaired cognition (43.9%). Patients with total anterior circulation infarcts had the highest age-adjusted prevalence of weakness, dysphagia, urinary incontinence, cognitive impairment, and disability. Patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage had the highest rates of coma. Patients with lacunar stroke had the high prevalence of weakness but were least affected by disability, incontinence, and cognitive dysfunction. Blacks had higher age- and sex-adjusted rates of disability in ischemic stroke (BI <20, odds ratio 2.76, 95% CI 1.47 to 5.21, P =0.002; BI <15, odds ratio 1.8, 95% CI 1.45 to 2.81, P =0.01) but impairment rates similar to those of whites. On multivariable analysis, incontinence, coma, dysphagia, cognitive impairment, and gaze paresis were independently associated with severe disability (BI <10) and death at 3 months. Conclusions— The extent of these findings indicates that an acute assessment of impairments and disability is necessary to determine the appropriate nursing and rehabilitation needs of patients with stroke.
Drawing the Line Between Constituent Structure and Coherence Relations in Visual Narratives

Theories of visual narrative understanding have often focused on the changes in meaning across a sequence, like shifts in characters, spatial location, and causation, as cues for breaks in the structure of a discourse. In contrast, the theory of visual narrative grammar posits that hierarchic “grammatical” structures operate at the discourse level using categorical roles for images, which may or may not co-occur with shifts in coherence. We therefore examined the relationship between narrative structure and coherence shifts in the segmentation of visual narrative sequences using a “segmentation task” where participants drew lines between images in order to divide them into subepisodes. We used regressions to analyze the influence of the expected constituent structure boundary, narrative categories, and semantic coherence relationships on the segmentation of visual narrative sequences. Narrative categories were a stronger predictor of segmentation than linear coherence relationships between panels, though both influenced participants’ divisions. Altogether, these results support the theory that meaningful sequential images use a narrative grammar that extends above and beyond linear semantic shifts between discourse units.
Improved EGT-Based Robustness Analysis of Negotiation Strategies in Multiagent Systems via Model Checking

Automated negotiations play an important role in various domains modeled as multiagent systems, where agents represent human users and adopt different negotiation strategies. Generally, given a multiagent system, a negotiation strategy should be robust in the sense that most agents in the system have the incentive to choose it rather than other strategies. Empirical game-theoretic (EGT) analysis is a game-theoretic analysis approach to investigate the robustness of different strategies based on a set of empirical results. In this study, we propose that model-checking techniques can be adopted to improve EGT analysis for negotiation strategies. The dynamics of strategy profiles can be modeled as a labeled transition system using the counter abstraction technique. We define single-agent best deviation to represent the strategy deviations during negotiation, which focuses on each agent's best deviation benefit and is different from best single-agent deviation used in previous work. Two interesting properties in EGT analysis, i.e., empirical pure strategy Nash equilibrium and best reply cycle, are automatically verified to investigate the robustness of different strategies. For demonstration, the top-six strategies from the automated negotiating agents competition 2010-2012 are studied in terms of their robustness performance. In addition to identifying the most robust strategies, we supply complete rankings among them in different settings. We show that model checking is applicable and efficient to perform robustness analysis of negotiation strategies.
Tropical countries may be willing to pay more to protect their forests

Significance Tropical forests, especially the primary tropical forests that are globally important for biodiversity conservation and carbon storage, are increasingly concentrated in relatively wealthier developing countries. This creates an opportunity for domestic funding by these countries to play a larger role in (i) closing the funding gap for tropical forest conservation, and (ii) paying for supplementary conservation actions linked to international payments for reduced greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. Inadequate funding from developed countries has hampered international efforts to conserve biodiversity in tropical forests. We present two complementary research approaches that reveal a significant increase in public demand for conservation within tropical developing countries as those countries reach upper-middle-income (UMI) status. We highlight UMI tropical countries because they contain nearly four-fifths of tropical primary forests, which are rich in biodiversity and stored carbon. The first approach is a set of statistical analyses of various cross-country conservation indicators, which suggests that protective government policies have lagged behind the increase in public demand in these countries. The second approach is a case study from Malaysia, which reveals in a more integrated fashion the linkages from rising household income to increased household willingness to pay for conservation, nongovernmental organization activity, and delayed government action. Our findings suggest that domestic funding in UMI tropical countries can play a larger role in (i) closing the funding gap for tropical forest conservation, and (ii) paying for supplementary conservation actions linked to international payments for reduced greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in tropical countries.