Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cross-linguistic interaction between two voiced fricatives in Mandarin-Min simultaneous bilinguals

FRICATIVES IN MANDARIN-MIN SIMULTANEOUS BILINGUALS ! Yu-Ying Chuang, Sheng-Fu Wang, & Janice Fon ! Graduate Institute of Linguistics, National Taiwan University yychuang2012@gmail.com; sftwang0416@gmail.com; jfon@ntu.edu. tw ! ABSTRACT This study investigated cross-linguistic interaction in Mandarin-Min simultaneous bilinguals by examining how speech contexts and realizations of Min /z/, which is undergoing a /z/→[l] sound change, affected the realizations of Mandarin /ʐ/. Twenty Mandarin-Min bilinguals produced /ʐ/words in different contexts and were grouped according to their realizations of Min /z/. Results showed speakers of Min /z/→[l] dialect had fewer retroflex variants of /ʐ/. Read speech induced more retroflex variants of /ʐ/ in males, but brought about a mixed effect among females. Females of Min /z/ →[z] dialect had more [ɻ], while those of the /z/→[l] dialect had more [ʐ], implying that females used [±frication] to differentiate different speech contexts. This study thus demonstrated a dynamic contextdependent relationship between the two languages in Mandarin-Min bilinguals.
USING ATTRIBUTE EMBEDDED INVERTED INDEXING FOR THE CONTENT BASED FACE IMAGE EXTRACTION

Face image retrieval from the large scale databases is the challenging problem and is beneficial to many real world applications. In this paper I propose to develop a method where I exploit special properties of faces like local features based on hamming distance to encode discriminative global feature for each face inorder to retrieve the required image from large scale database. In this I utilize demographic information and facial marks so that it will be useful in differentiating identical twins which thereby improves face image matching and retrieval. Here automatic attribute detection based on both local features and global image representations are used. I retrieve the image based on two important concepts that is attribute enhanced sparse coding and attribute embedded inverted indexing. The results obtained from experiments show the good retrieval performance and increased efficiency up to 45%. So here my system is not only scalable but also outperforms the linear scan retrieval system. Keywords-face retrieval, attribute embedded inverted indexing, sparse coding.
IDtrace/spl minus/a tracing tool for i486 simulation

The authors describe IDtrace, a binary instrumentation tool which produces execution traces for the ix86 instruction set architecture. Long execution traces can be generated quickly and easily for input to a wide variety of performance evaluation tools. Issues involved in the construction of such a tool are listed along with illustrations of the uses of different generated traces. One example observes the behavior of a branch prediction technique and another compares the cache behavior of the i486 with that of the MIPS R3000. <<ETX>>
Induction of metallothionein as an adaptive mechanism affecting the magnitude and progression of toxicological injury.

Pretreatment of rats with low doses of Cd produces adaptive tolerance to a subsequent high dose of Cd-induced lethality, thus shifting the dose-response curve to the right. Cd pretreatment of animals also protects against the hepatotoxicity produced by high doses of Cd. This protection is attributable to the 10- to 50-fold induction of hepatic metallothionein (MT) by Cd pretreatment. As a result hepatic subcellular distribution of Cd is significantly altered, with more Cd bound to MT in the cytosol and a concomitant reduction of Cd in other critical organelles. In addition MT-transgenic animals are more resistant, whereas MT-null mice are more sensitive than controls to Cd-induced lethality and hepatotoxicity. This further demonstrates that MT is important in Cd detoxication. Induction of hepatic MT by zinc also protects mice from carbon tetrachloride (CCl4)-induced liver injury, with more 14C-CCl4 bound to MT in the cytosol. MT-null mice are more sensitive to CCl4-induced hepatotoxicity, which supports the hypothesis that induction of MT also plays a protective role for nonmetallic chemicals. These results indicate that MT is a part of cellular adaptive mechanisms affecting the magnitude and progression of toxic insults from metals such as Cd as well as from organic chemicals such as CCl4. ImagesFigure 2Figure 4Figure 5
A Survey on Routing Protocols and its Issues in VANET

Vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) offer a vast number of applications without any support from fixed infrastructure. These applications forward messages in a multi-hop fashion. Designing an efficient routing protocol for all VANET applications is very hard. Hence a survey on routing protocols based on various parameters of VANET is a necessary issue in vehicle-tovehicle (V2V) and infrastructure-tovehicle (IVC) communication. This paper gives a brief overview of different routing algorithms in VANET along with major classifications. The protocols are also compared based on their essential characteristics and tabulated.
Novel splice site mutation in GATA3 in a patient with HDR syndrome

HDR syndrome (OMIM: 146255) is an autosomal dominant disorder characterized by the triad of hypoparathyroidism, sensorineural deafness, and renal dysplasia. It is caused by haploinsufficiency of the dual zinc finger transcription factor GATA3 on chromosome 10p15 (1, 2). To date, more than 70 mutations in GATA3 have been registered in the Human Genome Mutation Database (HGMD, www. hgmd.cf.ac.uk). However, intronic mutations in GATA3 have not yet been reported, except for those affecting the first or second donor or acceptor splice sites. Herein, we report the first case of HDR syndrome caused by a novel intronic mutation in GATA3. Case Report
Does Palmitoylation Target Estrogen Receptors to Plasma Membrane Caveolae?

The human nuclear estrogen receptors (i.e., ERα and ERβ), as other transcriptional factors, regulate cellular processes inducing genomic events. In addition, the binding of 17β‐estradiol to ERs induces different membrane initiating non‐genomic signaling. The non‐genomic effects of ER are independent of transcriptional activity of the receptor and have been attributed to membrane ERs belonging to a signaling complex localized in caveolae. Here, we postulate that S‐acylation of cysteine residue(s) present in the ligand binding domain of ERα and ERβ may play a critical role in the membrane caveolar localization of the receptor and in the formation of the 'steroid signalosome'. IUBMB Life, 55: 33‐35, 2003
Endothelial dysfunction and cardiovascular risk profile in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is consistently associated with features of the metabolic syndrome, a condition carrying a high risk of cardiovascular events. We measured the vasodilatory response of the brachial artery in response to ischemia (a test of endothelial function) (FMV) as well as cardiovascular risk profile in 52 NAFLD cases and 28 age‐ and sex‐matched controls. The 10‐year risk of coronary events was calculated according to the Framingham equation and the scores derived from the PROCAM study and NCEP‐ATPIII proposals. FMV was 6.33% ± 5.93% in NAFLD versus 12.22% ± 5.05% in controls (P < .0001), and higher in pure fatty liver (9.93%) compared with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (4.94%) (P = .010). No differences were observed in flow‐independent vasodilation (response to sublingual nitroglycerin). Percent FMV was negatively associated with insulin resistance (homeostasis model assessment) in the whole population (r = −0.243; P = .030). In logistic regression analysis, NAFLD was associated with a percent FMV in the lower tertile (OR, 6.7; 95% CI, 1.26–36.1), after adjustment for age, sex, body mass index, and insulin resistance. Among NAFLD patients, low FMV was associated with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (adjusted OR, 6.8; 95% CI, 1.2–40.2). The 10‐year probability of cardiovascular events was moderately increased in NAFLD, and particularly in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis. In conclusion, our study provides evidence of endothelial dysfunction and increased risk of cardiovascular events in NAFLD. The risk of advanced liver disease is well recognized in NAFLD patients, but the large majority of cases might experience cardiovascular disease in the long term, indirectly limiting the burden of liver failure. (HEPATOLOGY 2005.)
A sub-100nW power supply unit embedding untrimmed timing and voltage references for duty-cycled μW-range load in FDSOI 28nm

The paper proposes a power supply unit to efficiently supply always-on or duty-cycled IoT loads which consumes in μW-range. This PS achieves the highest 93% and 99% current efficiencies at average output currents of 1μA and 100μA to date, respectively. This unit includes a voltage reference and oscillator to generate autonomously duty-cycled power delivery operation as low as a 30μ8 on-period. The overall power supply unit exhibits sub-100nA quiescent current and provides a regulated 0.92V power rail with less than 10% variation against temperature, process and input supply range and without trimming. Fully integrated in FDSOI 28nm, the die area is 0.036mm2 showing a compact and untrimmed solution to supply small die area IoT node in SoC context without any off-chip components.
Influence of sintering temperature on microstructure and mechanical properties of Fe–2Ni–2Cu alloy processed by metal injection moulding

Abstract The influence of the sintering temperature on microstructure and mechanical properties of Fe–2Ni–2Cu alloy processed by metal injection moulding was investigated. For this purpose, sintering treatments were performed at various temperatures ranging from 1100 to 1300°C for 1 h. The micropores of the sintered samples transformed into rounded shapes, and they appeared to be isolated with increasing sintering temperature. The average grain size of the sintered sample seemed to increase slightly as the sintering temperature increased from 1100 to 1200°C, and such a trend altered significantly when the sintering temperature increased from 1200 to 1300°C, whereas the volume fraction of the micropores in the sintered structure decreased with increasing sintering temperature. These results were mainly attributed to the increasing mobility of the grain boundary associated with the sintering temperature. The microhardness value of the sample sintered at 1200°C was higher than those at 1100 and 1300°C, which was due to the fact that two competing microstructural influences associated with the grain size and micropore were balanced at 1200°C.
food-hoarding paradigm Integrating ecology , psychology and neurobiology within a

(1427 articles) evolution (1191 articles) ecology (268 articles) cognition (1057 articles) behaviour (287 articles) neuroscience Articles on similar topics can be found in the following collections Email alerting service here right-hand corner of the article or click Receive free email alerts when new articles cite this article-sign up in the box at the top Many animals regularly hoard food for future use, which appears to be an important adaptation to a seasonally and/or unpredictably changing environment. This food-hoarding paradigm is an excellent example of a natural system that has broadly influenced both theoretical and empirical work in the field of biology. The food-hoarding paradigm has played a major role in the conceptual framework of numerous fields from ecology (e.g. plant – animal interactions) and evolution (e.g. the coevolution of caching, spatial memory and the hippocampus) to psychology (e.g. memory and cog-nition) and neurobiology (e.g. neurogenesis and the neurobiology of learning and memory). Many food-hoarding animals retrieve caches by using spatial memory. This memory-based behavioural system has the inherent advantage of being tractable for study in both the field and laboratory and has been shaped by natural selection, which produces variation with strong fitness consequences in a variety of taxa. Thus, food hoarding is an excellent model for a highly integrative approach to understanding numerous questions across a variety of disciplines. Recently, there has been a surge of interest in the complexity of animal cognition such as future planning and episodic-like-memory as well as in the relationship between memory, the environment and the brain. In addition, new breakthroughs in neurobiology have enhanced our ability to address the mechanisms underlying these behaviours. Consequently, the field is necessarily becoming more integrative by assessing behavioural questions in the context of natural ecological systems and by addressing mechanisms through neurobiology and psychology, but, importantly, within an evolutionary and ecological framework. In this issue, we aim to bring together a series of papers providing a modern synthesis of ecology, psychology, physiology and neurobiology and identifying new directions and developments in the use of food-hoarding animals as a model system. 1. INTRODUCTION Many animals experience changing environments, which may present challenges for obtaining sufficient energy reserves at some times, while food is abundant at other times. These changes can take place from a daily time scale to a seasonal one. While some animals have solved the seasonal problem by evolving either migratory behaviour or hibernation/aestivation during the …
Blood Pressure Variability: Mechanisms and Clinical Significance

Studies have shown that the circadian blood pressure profile is similar in normotensive and hypertensive subjects, and that the observed increase in blood pressure variability in hypertensive patients is proportional to the increase over the normotensive baseline blood pressure, suggesting that transient blood pressure oscillations on a percentage basis are not altered by hypertension. It has also been found that although antihypertensive therapy tends to reduce mean arterial blood pressure (MAP), the tendency to oscillate around a mean pressure is modified to a lesser extent. The significance of this observation is unknown; however, this effect should possibly be considered and studied in view of the incomplete protection against cardiovascular complications that is afforded by the current management of hypertension.
Effects of Lightweight Aggregate Size and Grading on the Residual Strength of Lightweight Geopolymer Concrete Exposed to Elevated Temperature

The lightweight aggregate geopolymer concrete (LWAGC) systems were prepared using a lightweight aggregate (LWA) of different size and grading. The diversity in the LWA size and grading led to various physical properties like oven-dry (OD) density, water absorption and total porosity characteristics for the resultant LWAGCs. These physical properties were significantly affected and controlled thermal behavior of the concretes after exposure to elevated temperature of 800 °C. The results of the mechanical and physical test conducted to the unexposed LWAGCs showed that the OD-density and compressive strength increased as the LWA maximum and minimum size decreased. In contrast, the water absorption and total porosity of the unexposed LWAGC were increased with increasing of the LWA maximum and minimum size. Thus, the lowest OD-density LWAGC possessed the highest water absorption and total porosity which resulted in lowest compressive strength, whereas, it has the minimal strength loss after exposure to the elevated temperature. The water absorption and total porosity of the unexposed LWAGCs were indirectly implies the permeability characteristics of the concretes which is controllers the thermal behavior of the LWAGC at elevated temperatures.
Vitamin D Signaling in Myogenesis: Potential for Treatment of Sarcopenia

Muscle mass and strength progressively decrease with age, which results in a condition known as sarcopenia. Sarcopenia would lead to physical disability, poor quality of life, and death. Therefore, much is expected of an effective intervention for sarcopenia. Epidemiologic, clinical, and laboratory evidence suggest an effect of vitamin D on muscle function. However, the precise molecular and cellular mechanisms remain to be elucidated. Recent studies suggest that vitamin D receptor (VDR) might be expressed in muscle fibers and vitamin D signaling via VDR plays a role in the regulation of myoblast proliferation and differentiation. Understanding how vitamin D signaling contributes to myogenesis will provide a valuable insight into an effective nutritional strategy to moderate sarcopenia. Here we will summarize the current knowledge about the effect of vitamin D on skeletal muscle and myogenic cells and discuss the potential for treatment of sarcopenia.
A Low-Noise CMOS Image Sensor With Digital Correlated Multiple Sampling

This paper presents a low noise CMOS image sensor using conventional 3T active pixel with Nwell/Psub diode as photo detector. Both fixed pattern noise (FPN) and temporal noise are suppressed by the proposed digital correlated multiple sampling (DCMS) technology. FPN and temporal noise from pixel, buffer circuit, and column-parallel ADC are analyzed in detail, and the total noise with DCMS is derived. General expression of 1/f noise with correlated multiple sampling is given, illustrating impact of delay time in DCMS. Output noise of image sensor, frame rate, power, and area are affected by order and oversampling ratio of sigma–delta ADC, which are discussed for practical design. A prototype CMOS image sensor with <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$800\times 600$ </tex-math></inline-formula> pixel array and second-order incremental sigma–delta ADCs is implemented with the 0.35-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> standard CMOS process. Measurement results of the implemented image sensor show a column FPN of 0.009%, an input referred noise of 3.5 <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{e}^{-}_{\mathrm {\mathbf {rms}}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, and a dynamic range of 84 dB with oversampling ratio of 255. This indicates that image sensor with low noise can be achieved by DCMS without the CIS process and column amplification.
Profitability-based power allocation for speculative multithreaded systems

With the shrinking of transistors continuing to follow Moore's Law and the non-scalability of conventional out-of-order processors, multi-core systems are becoming the design choice for industry. Performance extraction is thus largely alleviated from the hardware and placed on the pro-gr ammer/compiler camp, who now have to expose Thread Level Parallelism (TLP) to the underlying system in the form of explicitly parallel applications. Unfortunately, parallel programming is hard and error-prone. The programmer has to parallelize the work, perform the data placement, and deal with thread synchronization. Systems that support speculative multithreaded execution like Thread Level Speculation (TLS), offer an interesting alternative since they relieve the programmer from the burden of parallelizing applications and correctly synchronizing them. Since systems that support speculative multithreading usually treat all threads equally, they are energy-inefficient. This inefficiency stems from the fact that speculation occasionally fails and, thus, power is spent on threads that will have to be discarded. In this paper we propose a power allocation scheme for TLS systems, based on Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS), that tries to remedy this inefficiency. More specifically, we propose a profitability-based power allocation scheme, where we “steal” power fro m non-profitable threads and use it to speed up more useful ones. We evaluate our techniques for a state-of-the-art TLS system and show that, with minimal hardware support, they lead to improvements in ED of up to 39.6% with an average of 21.2%, for a subset of the SPEC 2000 Integer benchmark suite.
Towards Realistic Decentralized Modeling for Use in a Real-World Personal Assistant Agent Scenario

Many approaches have been introduced for representing and solving multiagent coordination problems. Unfortunately, these methods make assumptions that limit their usefulness when combined with human operators and reallife hardware and software. In this paper, we discuss the problem of using agents in conjunction with human operators to improve coordination as well as possible models that could be used in these problems. Our approach – Space Collaboration via an Agent Network (SCAN) – enables proxy agents to represent each of the stakeholder agencies in a space setting and shows how the SCAN agent network could facilitate collaboration by identifying opportunities and methods of collaboration. We discuss this approach as well as the challenges in extending models to 1) take advantage of human input, 2) deal with the limited and uncertain information that will be present and 3) combat the scalability issues in solution methods for a large number of decentralized agents. As a step toward dealing with limited information, we propose the shared MDP model, which allows private and shared information to be expressed separately.
Geological dates and molecular rates: fish DNA sheds light on time dependency.

Knowledge of DNA evolution is central to our understanding of biological history, but how fast does DNA change? Previously, pedigree and ancient DNA studies--focusing on evolution in the short term--have yielded molecular rate estimates substantially faster than those based on deeper phylogenies. It has recently been suggested that short-term, elevated molecular rates decay exponentially over 1-2 Myr to long-term, phylogenetic rates, termed "time dependency of molecular rates. " This transition has potential to confound molecular inferences of demographic parameters and dating of many important evolutionary events. Here, we employ a novel approach--geologically dated changes in river drainages and isolation of fish populations--to document rates of mitochondrial DNA change over a range of temporal scales. This method utilizes precise spatiotemporal disruptions of linear freshwater systems and hence avoids many of the limitations associated with typical DNA calibration methods involving fossil data or island formation. Studies of freshwater-limited fishes across the South Island of New Zealand have revealed that genetic relationships reflect past, rather than present, drainage connections. Here, we use this link between drainage geology and genetics to calibrate rates of molecular evolution across nine events ranging in age from 0.007 Myr (Holocene) to 5.0 Myr (Pliocene). Molecular rates of change in galaxiid fishes from calibration points younger than 200 kyr were faster than those based on older calibration points. This study provides conclusive evidence of time dependency in molecular rates as it is based on a robust calibration system that was applied to closely related taxa, and analyzed using a consistent and rigorous methodology. The time dependency observed here appears short-lived relative to previous suggestions (1-2 Myr), which has bearing on the accuracy of molecular inferences drawn from processes operating within the Quaternary and mechanisms invoked to explain the decay of rates with time.