Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Traffic Oscillation using Stochastic Lagrangian Dynamics: Simulation and Mitigation via Control of Autonomous Vehicles

The phenomenon of stop-and-go waves is frequently observed in congested traffic. With the development of connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) technologies, it is possible to reduce traffic oscillation via control of CAVs in a mixed traffic flow with both human drivers and autonomous vehicles (AVs). This paper introduces a stochastic Lagrangian model which is capable of simulating stop-and-go traffic considering the heterogeneity of drivers. The sample paths of the stochastic process are smooth without aggressive oscillation. The model is further extended to the mixed traffic flow condition, considering stochastic human driving behavior and deterministic behavior of AVs. With the proposed model, the variation of performance of AV control strategies can be quantified in addition to the average performance. A numerical example with a single lane circular road is used to investigate the impact of the AV control strategy on mitigating stop-and-go waves. Both qualitative and quantitative results show that the phenomenon of stop-and-go waves can be reduced significantly with only one AV, while the increase of AVs from 10% (two AVs) to 50% (10 AVs) offers just marginal improvement in relation to the ensemble-averaged performance and 95% confidence interval of the ensemble-averaged performance. The proposed simulation approach based on the stochastic Lagrangian model can effectively investigate the impact of AV control strategies on traffic oscillation, considering in particular the uncertainty of human driver behavior.
A Graph Approach to Observability in Physical Sparse Linear Systems

A sparse linear system constitutes a valid model for a broad range of physical systems, such as electric power networks, industrial processes, control systems or traffic models. The physical magnitudes in those systems may be directly measured by means of sensor networks that, in conjunction with data obtained from contextual and boundary constraints, allow the estimation of the state of the systems. The term observability refers to the capability of estimating the state variables of a system based on the available information. In the case of linear systems, diffierent graphical approaches were developed to address this issue. In this paper a new unified graph based technique is proposed in order to determine the observability of a sparse linear physical system or, at least, a system that can be linearized after a first order derivative, using a given sensor set. A network associated to a linear equation system is introduced, which allows addressing and solving three related problems: the characterization of those cases for which algebraic and topological observability analysis return contradictory results; the characterization of a necessary and sufficient condition for topological observability; the determination of the maximum observable subsystem in case of unobservability. Two examples illustrate the developed techniques.
Sympathetic Neurotransmitters Modulate Osteoclastogenesis and Osteoclast Activity in the Context of Collagen-Induced Arthritis

Excessive synovial osteoclastogenesis is a hallmark of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Concomitantly, local synovial changes comprise neuronal components of the peripheral sympathetic nervous system. Here, we wanted to analyze if collagen-induced arthritis (CIA) alters bone marrow-derived macrophage (BMM) osteoclastogenesis and osteoclast activity, and how sympathetic neurotransmitters participate in this process. Therefore, BMMs from Dark Agouti rats at different CIA stages were differentiated into osteoclasts in vitro and osteoclast number, cathepsin K activity, matrix resorption and apoptosis were analyzed in the presence of acetylcholine (ACh), noradrenaline (NA) vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) and assay-dependent, adenylyl cyclase activator NKH477. We observed modulation of neurotransmitter receptor mRNA expression in CIA osteoclasts without affecting protein level. CIA stage-dependently altered marker gene expression associated with osteoclast differentiation and activity without affecting osteoclast number or activity. Neurotransmitter stimulation modulated osteoclast differentiation, apoptosis and activity. VIP, NA and adenylyl cyclase activator NKH477 inhibited cathepsin K activity and osteoclastogenesis (NKH477, 10-6M NA) whereas ACh mostly acted pro-osteoclastogenic. We conclude that CIA alone does not affect metabolism of in vitro generated osteoclasts whereas stimulation with NA, VIP plus specific activation of adenylyl cyclase induced anti-resorptive effects probably mediated via cAMP signaling. Contrary, we suggest pro-osteoclastogenic and pro-resorptive properties of ACh mediated via muscarinic receptors.
Nerve growth factor and diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome (IBS-D): a potential therapeutic target?

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a common functional gastrointestinal disorder characterized by recurrent abdominal pain or discomfort associated with abnormal bowel habits. Diarrhea-predominant IBS (IBS-D) is a major subtype of IBS, the predominant manifestations of which are abdominal pain and diarrhea. The pathogenesis of IBS-D remained unknown until recently. The effects of psychosocial stress, central hypervigilance, neuroendocrine abnormality, disturbed gastrointestinal motility, mucosal immune activation, intestinal barrier dysfunction, visceral hypersensitivity (VH), altered gut flora, and genetic susceptibility may be involved in its development. Recently, increased attention has been placed on the neural-immune-endocrine network mechanism in IBS-D, especially the role of various neuroendocrine mediators. As a member of the neurotrophin family, nerve growth factor (NGF) has diverse biological effects, and participates in the pathogenesis of many diseases. Basic studies have demonstrated that NGF is associated with inflammatory- and stress-related VH, as well as stress-related intestinal barrier dysfunction. The aim of this study is to summarize recent literature and discuss the role of NGF in the pathophysiology of IBS-D, especially in VH and intestinal barrier dysfunction, as well as its potential as a therapeutic target in IBS-D. 中文概要目 的回顾国内外研究进展,针对神经生长因子(NGF)在腹泻型肠易激综合征(IBS-D)病理生理学,尤其在内脏高敏感和肠屏障功能受损中的作用作一综述。 创新点总结了国内外有关NGF 参与IBS-D 病理生理学的基础及临床研究证据,提出了NGF 介导IBS-D内脏高敏感和肠屏障功能受损的可能机制,并首次构建了NGF-肥大细胞-神经纤维三者在IBS-D发病中的作用网络。 方 法在PubMed、EMBASE、Web of Science、CNKI、维普和万方等数据库检索有关NGF 参与IBS-D病理生理学的中英文文献,时间设定为各数据库建库至2015 年5 月。 剔除重复及不相关文献后,对纳入文献进行综述。 结 论NGF 作为重要的神经内分泌介质,可能参与介导了IBS-D 患者内脏高敏感和肠屏障功能受损,其在IBS-D 病理生理学中的作用值得深入研究,并有望成为治疗靶点。
Effects of sparseness and randomness of pairwise distance matrix on t-SNE results

We apply ideas from random graph theory to sparse pairwise distance matrices in dimension reduction. We use matrices with some short and some randomly chosen distances, and study effects of matrix sparseness and randomness on trustworthiness and continuity of t-SNE visualizations. The existing works have either concentrated on matrices with only short distances, or implemented heuristics with mixed distances without explaining the effects. We find that trustworthiness generally in- creases with randomness, but not without limit. Continuity is less affected, but drops if matrices become too random. Sparseness has little effect on continuity, but decreases trustworthiness. Decrease in quality appears sub- linear, which suggests that sparse t-SNE could be made subquadratic in complexity without too much effect on quality.
Studying dialects to understand human language

This thesis investigates the study of dialect variations as a way to understand how humans might process speech. It evaluates some of the important research in dialect identification and draws conclusions about how their results can give insights into human speech processing. A study clustering dialects using k-means clustering is done. Self-organizing maps are proposed as a tool for dialect research, and a self-organizing map is implemented for the purposes of testing this. Several areas for further research are identified, including how dialects are stored in the brain, more detailed descriptions of how dialects vary, including contextual effects, and more sophisticated visualization tools.
Preserving Privacy Using Data Perturbation in Data Stream

Data stream can be conceived as a continuous and changing sequence of data that continuously arrive at a system to store or process. Examples of data streams include computer network traffic, phone conversations, web searches and sensor data etc. The data owners or publishers may not be willing to exactly reveal the true values of their data due to various reasons, most notably privacy considerations. To preserve data privacy during data mining, the issue of privacy preserving data mining has been widely studied and many techniques have been proposed. However, existing techniques for privacy preserving data mining is designed for traditional static data sets and are not suitable for data streams. So the privacy preservation issue of data streams mining is need for the time. This paper focused on describing a method that extends the process of data perturbation on data sets to achieve privacy preservation. The technique mainly exploits a combination of isometric transformations i.e. translation and rotation transformations used with a secure random function in order to provide secrecy of user-specified attributes without losing accuracy in results.
Unsupervised preprocessing for Tactile Data

Tactile information is important for gripping, stable grasp, and in-hand manipulation, yet the complexity of tactile data prevents widespread use of such sensors. We make use of an unsupervised learning algorithm that transforms the complex tactile data into a compact, latent representation without the need to record ground truth reference data. These compact representations can either be used directly in a reinforcement learning based controller or can be used to calibrate the tactile sensor to physical quantities with only a few datapoints. We show the quality of our latent representation by predicting important features and with a simple control task.
Adaptation of the Objectified Body Consciousness Scale to Turkish and Analysis of its Psychometric Characteristics

The aim of this study is to adapt the Objectified Body Consciousness Scale (OBCS) to Turkish and to evaluate the psychometric qualities of the scale in a Turkish sample. To this aim, we applied Objectified Body Consciousness Scale, Self-Objectification Questionnaire, Contingencies of Self-Worth Scale, Self-Consciousness Scale, Body Image Scale, and TwoDimensional Social Desirability Scale to 337 participants (171 women, 166 men). Explanatory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed on OBCS data, and the results revealed that the scale had a three-factor structure (body shame, control belief, and body surveillance), in accordance with the original one. In order to test the criterion-related, discriminant and convergent validity, we examined the relationships between the subscales of the OBCS and various other scales. Analyses indicated that the validity was at acceptable levels. Findings have revealed that the reliability for body shame and control belief factors is particularly adequate, and consistent with the literature findings.
An Overlay Network Transport Service for Teleoperation Systems

In real-time Internet based teleoperation systems, the Internet is the communication medium through which the operator sends control commands to the robot and receives feedback. Teleoperation systems support robotic control commands, video, audio, haptic feedback, and other sensory information, which are called supermedia. Traditional transport services of the Internet may not be able to meet the timely transmission requirements and dynamic priorities of supermedia streams. This paper aims to design an efficient and reliable transport service for teleoperation applications. Built upon multiple disjoint paths in overlay networks, Supermedia TRansport for teleoperations over Overlay Networks (STRON) uses forward error correction encodings to reduce end-to-end latency for the transmission of supermedia streams. Network routes and encoding redundancy may be adjusted dynamically to meet the QoS requirements of the supermedia streams in the face of networking performance degradation. At the cost of minimal encoding computation, the system achieves better performance in transporting supermedia streams than available transport services and at the same time remains friendly to other Internet traffic. Evaluations using PlanetLab available bandwidth traces show that STRON can significantly reduce latency.
Experimental Study of the Behavior of an EBG-Based Patch Antenna Subjected to Mechanical Deformations

This work deals with the behavior of a patch antenna equipped with squared electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) structures and subjected to various mechanical deformations (twisting and bending deformations). The EBG structures have a stop band frequency (rejection) feature, allowing the coupling and the undesired electromagnetic interferences to be reduced. The in∞uences of the deformations on the mutual coupling and radiation patterns of an antenna equipped of those EBG elements are experimentally studied.
Diabetes impairs the vascular effects of aldosterone mediated by G protein-coupled estrogen receptor activation

Aldosterone promotes non-genomic effects in endothelial and vascular smooth muscle cells via activation of mineralocorticoid receptors (MR) and G protein-coupled estrogen receptors (GPER). GPER activation is associated with beneficial/protective effects in the vasculature. Considering that vascular dysfunction plays a major role in diabetes-associated complications, we hypothesized that the beneficial effects mediated by vascular GPER activation, in response to aldosterone, are decreased in diabetes. Mesenteric resistance arteries from female, 14–16 weeks-old, control and diabetic (db/db) mice were used. Phenylephrine (PhE)-induced contractions were greater in arteries from db/db vs. control mice. Aldosterone (10 nM) increased maximal contractile responses to PhE in arteries from control mice, an effect elicited via activation of GPER. Although aldosterone did not increase PhE responses in arteries from db/db mice, blockade of GPER, and MR decreased PhE-induced contractile responses in db/db mesenteric arteries. Aldosterone also reduced the potency of acetylcholine (ACh)-induced relaxation in arteries from both control and db/db mice via MR-dependent mechanisms. GPER antagonism further decreased ACh-induced relaxation in the control group, but did not affect ACh responses in the diabetic group. Aldosterone increased extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 phosphorylation in arteries from control and db/db mice by a GPER-dependent mechanism. GPER, but not MR, gene, and protein expression, determined by RT-PCR and immunoblotting/immunofluorescence assays, respectively, were increased in arteries from db/db mice vs. control arteries. These findings indicate that aldosterone activates both vascular MR and GPER and that the beneficial effects of GPER activation are decreased in arteries from diabetic animals. Our results further elucidate the mechanisms by which aldosterone influences vascular function and contributes to vascular dysfunction in diabetes. Financial Support: FAPESP, CNPq, and CAPES, Brazil.
Toxin–antitoxin loci are highly abundant in free-living but lost from host-associated prokaryotes

Prokaryotic chromosomes code for toxin–antitoxin (TA) loci, often in multiple copies. In E.coli, experimental evidence indicates that TA loci are stress-response elements that help cells survive unfavorable growth conditions. The first gene in a TA operon codes for an antitoxin that combines with and neutralizes a regulatory ‘toxin’, encoded by the second gene. RelE and MazF toxins are regulators of translation that cleave mRNA and function, in interplay with tmRNA, in quality control of gene expression. Here, we present the results from an exhaustive search for TA loci in 126 completely sequenced prokaryotic genomes (16 archaea and 110 bacteria). We identified 671 TA loci belonging to the seven known TA gene families. Surprisingly, obligate intracellular organisms were devoid of TA loci, whereas free-living slowly growing prokaryotes had particularly many (38 in Mycobacterium tuberculosis and 43 in Nitrosomonas europaea). In many cases, TA loci were clustered and closely linked to mobile genetic elements. In the most extreme of these cases, all 13 TA loci of Vibrio cholerae were bona fide integron elements located in the V.cholerae mega-integron. These observations strongly suggest that TA loci are mobile cassettes that move frequently within and between chromosomes and also lend support to the hypothesis that TA loci function as stress-response elements beneficial to free-living prokaryotes.
Risk factors for nursing home placement in Alzheimer's disease: a longitudinal study of cognition, ADL, service utilization, and cholinesterase inhibitor treatment.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY To identify risk factors for early nursing home placement (NHP) in Alzheimer's disease (AD), focusing on the impact of longitudinal change in cognition, activities of daily living (ADL), service utilization, and cholinesterase inhibitor treatment (ChEI). DESIGN AND METHODS In an open, 3-year, prospective, multicenter study in a routine clinical setting, 880 AD patients were treated with either donepezil, rivastigmine, or galantamine. At baseline and every 6 months, they were assessed with several rating scales including Mini-Mental State Examination, Instrumental Activities of Daily Living scale (IADL), and Physical Self-Maintenance scale. Moreover, the dose of ChEI, the amount of weekly assistance (home help service and adult day care), and the date of NHP were recorded. Cox regression models were constructed to predict the risk of NHP. RESULTS During the study, 206 patients (23%) were admitted to nursing homes. Factors that precipitated institutionalization were lower cognitive and functional abilities at baseline, faster rate of decline in IADLs, female gender, solitary living, and a lower mean dose of ChEI. The men living alone and patients with a substantial increase in adult day care also demonstrated shorter time to NHP. IMPLICATIONS The rate of functional but not cognitive decline was a strong risk factor for NHP. The results could be used to identify the care recipients that might risk early NHP to ensure that these individuals receive a sufficient level of assistance. Furthermore, higher doses of ChEI might postpone institutionalization in AD.
Evaluating classification methods applied to multi-label tasks in different domains

In traditional classification problems (single-label), patterns are associated with a single label from the set of disjoint labels (classes). When an example can simultaneously belong to more than one label, this classification problem is known as multi-label classification problem. Multi-label classification methods have been increasingly used in modern application, such as music categorization, functional genomics and semantic annotation of images. This paper presents a comparative analysis of some existing multi-label classification methods applied to different domains. The main aim of this analysis is to evaluate the performance of such methods in different tasks and using different evaluation metrics.
The Components of Drosophila Histone Chaperone dCAF-1 Are Required for the Cell Death Phenotype Associated with rbf1 Mutation

A Polycomb group protein, Posterior sex combs (Psc), was identified in a genetic screen designed to find factors that can specifically induce morphological defects in rbf1 mutant eyes. We discovered that rbf1 mutations enhance developmental phenotypes caused by Psc overexpression such as ectopic cell death and disorganized ommatidia. Our genetic analysis revealed that Psc-induced developmental defects are strongly influenced by CAF1p55, which is a shared component of several chromatin-associated complexes including a histone chaperone complex, chromatin assembly factor-1 (dCAF-1). Interestingly, the expression levels of dCAF-1 components, CAF1p105 and CAF1p180, are increased in rbf1 mutants, whereas the expression level of CAF1p55 itself remains relatively unchanged. We demonstrated that the increased levels of CAF1p105 and CAF1p180 are required for the hypersensitivity of rbf1 mutant cells to Psc-induced cell death and for the developmentally regulated cell death normally observed in rbf1 mutant eyes. We propose that Caf1p105 and Caf1p180 are important determinants of cell death sensitivity in rbf1 mutant cells and contribute to the genetic interaction between Psc and rbf1.
Indirect pushing based automated micromanipulation of biological cells using optical tweezers

In this paper, we introduce an indirect pushing based technique for automated micromanipulation of biological cells. In indirect pushing, an optically trapped glass bead pushes a freely diffusing intermediate bead that in turn pushes a freely diffusing target cell towards a desired goal. Some cells can undergo significant changes in their behaviors as a result of direct exposure to a laser beam. Indirect pushing eliminates this problem by minimizing the exposure of the cell to the laser beam. We report an automated feedback planning algorithm that combines three motion maneuvers, namely, push, align, and backup for micromanipulation of cells. We have developed a dynamics based simulation model of indirect pushing dynamics and also identified parameters of measurement noise using physical experiments. We present an optimization-based approach for automated tuning of planner parameters to enhance its robustness. Finally, we have tested the developed planner using our optical tweezers physical setup and carried out a detailed analysis of the experimental results. The developed approach can be utilized in biological experiments for studying collective cell migration by accurately arranging the cells in arrays without exposing them to a laser beam.
Cognitive interference modeling with applications in power and admission control

One of the key design challenges in a cognitive radio network is controlling the interference generated at coexisting primary receivers. In order to design efficient cognitive radio systems and to minimize their unwanted consequences, it is therefore necessary to effectively control the secondary interference at the primary receivers. In this paper, a generalized framework for the interference analysis of a cognitive radio network where the different secondary transmitters may transmit with different powers and transmission probabilities, is presented and various applications of this interference model are demonstrated. The findings of the analytical performance analyses are confirmed through selected computer-based Monte-Carlo simulations.