Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interneurones Co-Ordinating the Ventilatory Movements of the Thoracic Spiracles in the Locust

A pair of interneurones has been identified by intracellular recording and staining which co-ordinates the movements of the thoracic spiracles in the ventilatory rhythm. An interneurone has its cell body on the left or on the right side of the metathoracic ganglion and an axon which ascends to the other thoracic ganglia in the contralateral connective. Each interneurone produces bursts of spikes in time with the inspiratory phase of ventilation. These spikes evoke inhibitory post-synaptic potentials (IPSPs) in thoracic spiracular closer motor neurones. Both interneurones synapse upon the closer motor neurones in each thoracic segment. These connexions, which may be direct, inhibit the spiking of the closer motor neurones during inspiration. The interneurones do not appear to have an innate rhythmicity but instead receive a periodic synaptic input which inhibits their spikes during expiration. The underlying cause of the spikes is less clear. Apart from brief periods at the start and end of a burst, the spikes occur at a constant frequency that is independent of the ventilatory rate. The pattern of the spiracular motor output could be altered by manipulating the frequency and number of spikes in an interneurone. When the frequency of spikes in the interneurone was raised, the motor bursts had a higher initial frequency and were of briefer duration; when the frequency was lowered, the motor bursts were of lower initial frequency and of longer overall duration. Altering the spikes in one interneurone, however, could not affect the frequency of the ventilatory rhythm, or reset the rhythm.
Analytical approximations of the firing rate of an adaptive exponential integrate-and-fire neuron in the presence of synaptic noise

Computational models offer a unique tool for understanding the network-dynamical mechanisms which mediate between physiological and biophysical properties, and behavioral function. A traditional challenge in computational neuroscience is, however, that simple neuronal models which can be studied analytically fail to reproduce the diversity of electrophysiological behaviors seen in real neurons, while detailed neuronal models which do reproduce such diversity are intractable analytically and computationally expensive. A number of intermediate models have been proposed whose aim is to capture the diversity of firing behaviors and spike times of real neurons while entailing the simplest possible mathematical description. One such model is the exponential integrate-and-fire neuron with spike rate adaptation (aEIF) which consists of two differential equations for the membrane potential (V) and an adaptation current (w). Despite its simplicity, it can reproduce a wide variety of physiologically observed spiking patterns, can be fit to physiological recordings quantitatively, and, once done so, is able to predict spike times on traces not used for model fitting. Here we compute the steady-state firing rate of aEIF in the presence of Gaussian synaptic noise, using two approaches. The first approach is based on the 2-dimensional Fokker-Planck equation that describes the (V,w)-probability distribution, which is solved using an expansion in the ratio between the time constants of the two variables. The second is based on the firing rate of the EIF model, which is averaged over the distribution of the w variable. These analytically derived closed-form expressions were tested on simulations from a large variety of model cells quantitatively fitted to in vitro electrophysiological recordings from pyramidal cells and interneurons. Theoretical predictions closely agreed with the firing rate of the simulated cells fed with in-vivo-like synaptic noise.
Temporally Coherent Clustering of Student Data

The extraction of student behavior is an important task in educational data mining. A common approach to detect similar behavior patterns is to cluster sequential data. Standard approaches identify clusters at each time step separately and typically show low performance for data that inherently suffer from noise, resulting in temporally inconsistent clusters. We propose an evolutionary clustering pipeline that can be applied to learning data, aiming at improving cluster stability over multiple training sessions in the presence of noise. Our model selection is designed such that relevant cluster evolution effects can be captured. The pipeline can be used as a black box for any intelligent tutoring system (ITS). We show that our method outperforms previous work regarding clustering performance and stability on synthetic data. Using log data from two ITS, we demonstrate that the proposed pipeline is able to detect interesting student behavior and properties of learning environments.
Distinguishing between cooperative and unimodal downhill protein folding

Conventional cooperative protein folding invokes discrete ensembles of native and denatured state structures in separate free-energy wells. Unimodal noncooperative (“downhill”) folding, however, proposes an ensemble of states occupying a single free-energy well for proteins folding at ≥4 × 104 s−1 at 298 K. It is difficult to falsify unimodal mechanisms for such fast folding proteins by standard equilibrium experiments because both cooperative and unimodal mechanisms can present the same time-averaged structural, spectroscopic, and thermodynamic properties when the time scale used for observation is longer than for equilibration. However, kinetics can provide the necessary evidence. Chevron plots with strongly sloping linear refolding arms are very difficult to explain by downhill folding and are a signature for cooperative folding via a transition state ensemble. The folding kinetics of the peripheral subunit binding domain POB and its mutants fit to strongly sloping chevrons at observed rate constants of >6 × 104 s−1 in denaturant solution, extrapolating to 2 × 105 s−1 in water. Protein A, which folds at 105 s−1 at 298 K, also has a well-defined chevron. Single-molecule fluorescence energy transfer experiments on labeled Protein A in the presence of denaturant demonstrated directly bimodal distributions of native and denatured states.
Studies in intestinal parasitic disease agents in stools of people in a rural area of Nigeria.

A summary of 300 villagers who reported at the Parasitology Laboratory of the School of Medical Laboratory Technology (S.M.L.T) Vom, Plateau State, Nigeria was carried out for the presence of parasites' cysts, eggs, or larva. Of the 300 faecal samples examined using the light microscope after formal-ether centrifugation, 127 (42.3%) harboured one or more parasites. The parasites identified and their prevalent rates were: Entamoeba coli (19.0%) Necator americanus (17.0%); Entamoeba histolytica (4.7%); Schistosoma mansoni (3.0%); Giardia lamblia (2.3%); Trichuris trichuria (1.7%); Trichomonas hominis (1.0%); Ascaris lumbricoides (0.7%); Hymenolepsis nana (0.3%) Endolimax nana o. 3%); stercoralis (0.23%), and Iodamoeba butschlii (0.3%). The overall infection was 22.7% for the males and 19.7% for the females. Incidence was highest in villagers aged between 21 and 40 years.
The Combination of Marketed Antagonists of α1b-Adrenergic and 5-HT2A Receptors Inhibits Behavioral Sensitization and Preference to Alcohol in Mice: A Promising Approach for the Treatment of Alcohol Dependence

Alcohol-dependence is a chronic disease with a dramatic and expensive social impact. Previous studies have indicated that the blockade of two monoaminergic receptors, α1b-adrenergic and 5-HT2A, could inhibit the development of behavioral sensitization to drugs of abuse, a hallmark of drug-seeking and drug-taking behaviors in rodents. Here, in order to develop a potential therapeutic treatment of alcohol dependence in humans, we have blocked these two monoaminergic receptors by a combination of antagonists already approved by Health Agencies. We show that the association of ifenprodil (1 mg/kg) and cyproheptadine (1 mg/kg) (α1-adrenergic and 5-HT2 receptor antagonists marketed as Vadilex ® and Periactine ® in France, respectively) blocks behavioral sensitization to amphetamine in C57Bl6 mice and to alcohol in DBA2 mice. Moreover, this combination of antagonists inhibits alcohol intake in mice habituated to alcohol (10% v/v) and reverses their alcohol preference. Finally, in order to verify that the effect of ifenprodil was not due to its anti-NMDA receptors property, we have shown that a combination of prazosin (0.5 mg/kg, an α1b-adrenergic antagonist, Mini-Press ® in France) and cyproheptadine (1 mg/kg) could also reverse alcohol preference. Altogether these findings strongly suggest that combined prazosin and cyproheptadine could be efficient as a therapy to treat alcoholism in humans. Finally, because α1b-adrenergic and 5-HT2A receptors blockade also inhibits behavioral sensitization to psychostimulants, opioids and tobacco, it cannot be excluded that this combination will exhibit some efficacy in the treatment of addiction to other abused drugs.
Supervised classification in high-dimensional space: geometrical, statistical, and asymptotical properties of multivariate data

The recent development of more sophisticated remote-sensing systems enables the measurement of radiation in many more spectral intervals than was previously possible. An example of this technology is the AVIRIS system, which collects image data in 220 bands. The increased dimensionality of such hyperspectral data greatly enhances the data's information content, but provides a challenge to the current techniques for analyzing such data. Human experience in 3D space tends to mislead our intuition of geometrical and statistical properties in high-dimensional space, properties which must guide our choices in the data analysis process. Using Euclidean and Cartesian geometry, high-dimensional space properties are investigated in this paper, and their implication for high-dimensional data and its analysis is studied in order to illuminate the differences between conventional spaces and hyperdimensional space.
College Student Perceptions of Leadership: Empowering and Constraining Beliefs

This study investigated college student perceptions of leadership and beliefs that both empower students towards and constrain students from involvement in leadership. Interviews were conducted with student leaders (students who held leadership positions) and disengaged students (students who had not held leadership positions). The student leaders generally regarded leadership to be an individualistic phenomenon pertaining to positions of power and influence, which require possession of particular qualities. They received more encouragement and opportunities from others, and had a background that fostered their desire to be leaders. The disengaged students demonstrated a lack of confidence, a lack of interest in leadership, a self-perceived deficiency in leadership qualities, and fewer opportunities to lead.
Hybrid Code Converters using Modified GDI Technique

gate forms an indispensable component in the design of code converters. The paramount concern in the design of code converters is power dissipation along with issues in delay and layout area. Various topologies to design code converters and several techniques for designing XOR gate are analyzed. GDI approach tends to provide the optimized conditions. The methodology then is applied to the conventional Binary code to Gray code converter and Gray code to Binary code converter. In this paper conventional code converters are analyzed and then a hybrid architecture for obtaining high speed, lower area, reduced power dissipation and lower propagation delay is presented. In addition to this an architecture of BCD to Excess-3 code conversion is also presented. The circuits are schematized using a Dsch tool. The layout and analysis is done through BSIM simulator and Microwind 3.1 tool.
TCP Compatible Greediness Control Algorithm for Wireless Multimedia Streaming

This paper proposes a TCP compatible greediness control mechanism that tunes the greediness of the multimedia streaming process based on client priority, in order to make more efficient use of the wireless network and increase the overall user perceived quality. The majority of streaming solutions use rate adaptation based on congestion avoidance mechanisms that try to obtain as much bandwidth as possible from the limited network resources. However the lack of both knowledge about the characteristics of target devices, cross-layer communication and cross-protocol interaction results in fair bandwidth distribution at the transport layer, but creates unfairness at the application layer. This unfairness mostly affects user perceived quality when streaming high quality multimedia. Therefore, there is a need to allow application layer streaming applications tune the aggressiveness of transport layer congestion control mechanisms, in order to create application layer Quality of Experience fairness between competing media streams, by taking their device characteristics into account
MiR-146 a suppresses hepatocellular carcinoma by downregulating TRAF 6

MicroRNAs have been proven to play important roles in many biological processes such as cellular growth and differentiation, apoptosis, and modulation of host response to viral infection. In the present study, we find that the expression of miR-146a was decreased in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues compared with corresponding adjacent tissues, and the expression level in HCC cell lines was lower than in a normal liver cell. Over-expression suppressed the proliferation and invasion of HCC cells. In addition, luciferase reporter assays and western blotting confirmed that miR-146a directly target TRAF6 which attenuated the effect of miR-146a on cell proliferation and invasion in HepG2 and SMMC7721 cells. Meanwhile, lentivirus-mediated increased expression of miR146a repressed tumor formation in nude mice. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that miR-146a suppresses HCC by down-regulating TRAF6. We also discovered that miR-146a may represent a novel potential candidate of the HCC carcinoma diagnostic marker in the long term.
Online Linear Regression and Its Application to Model-Based Reinforcement Learning

We provide a provably efficient algorithm for learning Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) with continuous state and action spaces in the online setting. Specifically, we take a model-based approach and show that a special type of online linear regression allows us to learn MDPs with (possibly kernalized) linearly parameterized dynamics. This result builds on Kearns and Singh's work that provides a provably efficient algorithm for finite state MDPs. Our approach is not restricted to the linear setting, and is applicable to other classes of continuous MDPs.
Iran's Changing Gender Dynamics in Light of Demographic, Political, and Technological Transformations

Iranian society is in a period of transformation connected to demographic changes, social forces, politics, economics, and advances in social media. Despite facing on-going obstacles, Iranian women continue to put great effort into gaining equal rights and privileges, a higher level of social and political inclusion, as well as a higher level of gainful employment—with the caveat that lower class women with less education and fewer resources experience more obstacles and injustices than women from the more educated middle and upper classes. However, high unemployment among men and particularly women has exacerbated inequalities in Iranian society despite the country's demographic improvements and other markers of modernization (lowered fertility and mortality, educational attainment, increase in marriage age, etc.). The challenge is: Can Iran diversify its oil-dependent economy to support its youth bulge and how might those changes impact women's status in society? The article also briefly touches on how social media, Tweeting, YouTube, and blogs, coincident with an unusually large and much more educated post-Revolution/post-Iran-Iraq baby boom generation, have contributed to a new generation that questions the status quo. However, only time can tell whether a strong presence in the virtual public space will translate into a stronger presence in the physical public space.
Modelling of Apple Fruit Growth by Application of Image Analysis

SUMMARY The possibility of RGB image processing and analysis for modelling of the development and growth of apple fruits was investigated during the two seasons under the orchards experiment in the four-years old ‘Golden Delicious’ and ‘Gala’ variety. The fruit detection depended significantly on the size and fruit’s colour of each growing stage, thus the correlation coefficients were continuously increasing from r=0.71 (2001) and r=0.73 (2002) after fruit tinning in June, up to r=0.88 (2001) and r=0.89 (2002) at harvesting in September respectively. The yield at harvest was estimated with the accuracy of 94% and 101% for ‘Golden Delicious’ and with 106% and 92% for ‘Gala’ respectively, whenever based on images captured on June 22 2001 and June 26 2002. Therefore, the image algorithm was proved to be equal or even better method for estimating the yield at harvest than the common ‘Prognosefruit’ method (accuracy 101% and 77% for ‘Golden Delicious’ and 72% and 63% for ‘Gala’ respectively)
Cytolytic granule polarization and degranulation controlled by different receptors in resting NK cells

The relative contribution to cytotoxicity of each of the multiple NK cell activation receptors has been difficult to assess. Using Drosophila insect cells, which express ligands of human NK cell receptors, we show that target cell lysis by resting NK cells is controlled by different receptor signals for cytolytic granule polarization and degranulation. Intercellular adhesion molecule (ICAM)-1 on insect cells was sufficient to induce polarization of granules, but not degranulation, in resting NK cells. Conversely, engagement of the Fc receptor CD16 by rabbit IgG on insect cells induced degranulation without specific polarization. Lysis by resting NK cells occurred when polarization and degranulation were induced by the combined presence of ICAM-1 and IgG on insect cells. Engagement of receptor 2B4 by CD48 on insect cells induced weak polarization and no degranulation. However, coengagement of 2B4 and CD16 by their respective ligands resulted in granule polarization and cytotoxicity in the absence of leukocyte functional antigen-1–mediated adhesion to target cells. These data show that cytotoxicity by resting NK cells is controlled tightly by separate or cooperative signals from different receptors for granule polarization and degranulation.
Breaking the Code of Change

Preface and Acknowledgements Introduction Resolving the Tension between Theory E and O of Change By Michael Beer and Nitin Nohria Section I: Purpose of Change: Economic Value or Organizational Capability Chapter 1 Value Maximization and the Corporate Objective Function By Michael Jensen Chapter 2 The Puzzles and Paradoxes of How Living Companies Create Wealth: Why Single-Valued Objective Functions Are Not Quite Enough By Peter M. Senge Chapter 3 Purpose of Change A Commentary on Jensen and Senge By Joseph Bower Section II: Leadership of Change: Directed From the Top or High Involvement & Participative Chapter 4 Effective Change Begins At the Top By Jay A. Conger Chapter 5 The Leadership of Change By Warren Bennis Chapter 6 Embracing Paradox: Top-Down vs. Participative Management of Organizational Change A Commentary on Conger and Bennis By Dexter Dunphy Section III: Focus of Change: Formal Structure and Systems or Culture Chapter 7 The Role of Formal Structures and Processes By Jay R. Galbraith Chapter 8 Changing Structure Is Not Enough: The Moral Meaning of Organizational Design By Larry Hirschhorn Chapter 9 Initiating Change: The Anatomy of Structure as a Starting Point A Commentary on Galbraith and Hirshhorn By Allan R. Cohen Section IV: Planning of Change: Planned or Emergent Chapter 10 Rebuilding Behavioral Context: A Blueprint for Corporate Renewal By Sumantra Ghoshal and Christopher A. Bartlett Chapter 11 Emergent Change as a Universal in Organizations By Karl E. Weick Chapter 12 Linking Change Processes to Outcomes A Commentary on Ghoshal & Bartlett and Weick By Andrew Pettigrew Section V: Motivation for Change: Financial Incentives Lead or Lag and Support Chapter 13 Compensation Systems and Organizational Change: Ideas and Evidence from Theory and Practice By Karen Wruck Chapter 14 Compensation: A Troublesome Lead System in Organizational Change By Gerald E. Ledford and Robert L. Heneman Chapter 15 Pay System Change: Lag, Lead, or Both? A Commentary on Wruck and Ledford By Edward E. Lawler, III Section VI: Consultants' Role in Change: Large Knowledge Driven or Small Process Driven Chapter 16 Human Performance That Increases Business Performance: The Growth of Change Management and Its Role in Creating New Forms of Business Value By Terry Neill Chapter 17 Assuring That Consulting Produces Benefits: Rapid Cycle Successes vs. The Titanics By Robert H. Schaffer Chapter 18 Scope and Involvement in Accelerated Organization Transformation A Commentary on Neill and Schaffer By Robert H. Miles Section VII: Research on Change: Normal Science or Action Science Chapter 19 Professional Science for A Professional School: Action Science vs. Normal Science By Andrew H. Van de Ven Chapter 20 The Relevance of Actionable Knowledge for Breaking the Code By Chris Argyris Chapter 21 Research That Will Break the Code of Change The Role of Useful Normal Science and Usable Action Science By Michael Beer Ending and Beginning Chapter 22 Breaking the Code of Change: Observations and Critique By Roger Martin Epilogue By Michael Beer and Nitin Nohria Index About the Contributors
Ethnic Differences in Time Transfers from Adult Children to Elderly Parents

This article examines differences across racial-ethnic groups in patterns of time transfers from middle-aged adult children to their elderly parents and the degree to which heterogeneity in unobserved family-level factors may explain observed differences. Using data from the 1992 Health and Retirement Study (HRS) on respondents and their siblings, the analysis supports the hypothesis that the determinants of time assistance vary across racial-ethnic groups: Controlling for socioeconomic attributes of potential donors and the recipient, there is evidence of unobserved family-level heterogeneity for Whites and Blacks but not for Hispanics.
Self-Analysis and Assessment of Entrepreneurial Potential

Selected definitions demonstrate definitional and operational ambiguity surrounding the word &dquo;entrepreneur. &dquo; &dquo;Some writers have identified entrepreneurship with the function of uncertaintybearing, others with the coordination of productive resources, others with the introduction of innovations, and still others with the provision of capital&dquo; (Hoselitz, 1952: 97). In addition, all definitions are retrospective in nature: A person is defined as an entrepreneur because of something done, rather than something they are capable of doing. Identification and encouragement of potential entrepreneurs can be of immense practical value to both individual and society. An exercise concerning the recognition of individual personality