Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Abnormal Modulatory Influence of Diffuse Noxious Inhibitory Controls in Migraine and Chronic Tension-Type Headache Patients

The aim of this study was to evaluate the function of pain modulating systems subserving diffuse noxious inhibitory controls (DNICs) in primary headaches. DNICs were examined in 24 migraineurs, 17 patients with chronic tension-type headache (CTTH) and 20 healthy subjects by means of nociceptive flexion RIII reflex and the cold pressor test (CPT) as heterotopic noxious conditioning stimulation (HNCS). The subjective pain thresholds (Tp) and the RIII reflex threshold (Tr) were significantly lower in CTTH vs. controls. In controls a significant inhibition of the RIII reflex was observed during the CPT (-30±, P < 0.05). Conversely, migraine and CTTH patients showed facilitation (+31±, P < 0.05 and +40±, P < 0.01, respectively) of the RIII reflex during the HNCS. This study demonstrates a dysfunction in systems subserving DNICs in both migraine and CTTH. Impairment of endogenous supraspinal pain modulation systems may contribute to the development and/or maintenance of central sensitization in primary headaches.
Factors related to medication adherence in memory disorder clinic patients

Medication adherence is a substantial problem in the elderly. It may be even more important among elderly persons with memory problems, since other factors that lead to non-adherence may be compounded with the memory problems themselves. The objective was to determine whether a model that integrates research on medication adherence from several research domains is useful in understanding adherence in elderly patients. The methodology involved a cross-sectional observational study using a convenience sample of 63 patients drawn from a university-affiliated outpatient memory disorders clinic. The primary measure of medication adherence was caregivers’ reports of patients’ medication adherence. Patients and their caregivers were asked questions assessing their beliefs about the seriousness of each condition for which a medication was prescribed and the likely outcome of that condition without treatment. Additional data collected included presence of side effects, total number of medications taken, and patients’ mood and cognitive status. Multilevel path analysis confirmed several model-based predictions. Caregivers’ reports of adherence were predicted by estimates of disease outcome, the presence of side effects, and patients’ relying on themselves to remember to take medications. Results partially confirm the integrative model in understanding medication adherence in these patients. Patients’ beliefs about the likely effect of medication treatment for their condition and the presence of side effects influence reported medication adherence. Results thus suggest that efforts to educate patients about the likely response of their medical condition to treatment and to assess and deal with medication side effects might improve patient adherence.
Defect tolerance in VLSI circuits: techniques and yield analysis

Current very-large-scale-integration (VLSI) technology allows the manufacture of large-area integrated circuits with submicrometer feature sizes, enabling designs with several millions of devices. However, imperfections in the fabrication process result in yield-reducing manufacturing defects, whose severity grows proportionally with the size and density of the chip. Consequently, the development and use of yield-enhancement techniques at the design stage, to complement existing efforts at the manufacturing stage, is economically justifiable. Design-stage yield-enhancement techniques are aimed at making the integrated circuit "defect tolerant", i.e., less sensitive to manufacturing defects. They include incorporating redundancy into the design, modifying the circuit floorplan, and modifying its layout. Successful designs of defect-tolerant chips must rely on accurate yield projections. This paper reviews the currently used statistical yield-prediction models and their application to defect-tolerant designs. We then provide a detailed survey of various yield-enhancement techniques and illustrate their use by describing the design of several representative defect-tolerant VLSI circuits.
The impact of out-of-order commit in coarse-grain, fine-grain and simultaneous multithreaded architectures

Multithreaded processors in their different organizations (simultaneous, coarse grain and fine grain) have been shown as effective architectures to reduce the issue waste. On the other hand, retiring instructions from the pipeline in an out-of-order fashion helps to unclog the ROB when a long latency instruction reaches its head. This further contributes to maintain a higher utilization of the available issue bandwidth. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of retiring instructions out of order on different multithreaded architectures and different instruction fetch policies, using the recently proposed Validation Buffer microarchitecture as baseline out-of-order commit technique. Experimental results show that, for the same performance, out-of-order commit permits to reduce multithread hardware complexity (e.g., fine grain multithreading with a lower number of supported threads).
Type A GABA-Receptor-Dependent Synaptic Transmission Sculpts Dendritic Arbor Structure in Xenopus Tadpoles In Vivo

The emergence of dendritic arbor structure in vivo depends on synaptic inputs. We tested whether inhibitory GABAergic synaptic transmission regulates Xenopus optic tectal cell dendritic arbor development in vivo by expressing a peptide corresponding to an intracellular loop (ICL) of the γ2 subunit of type A GABA receptors (GABAAR), which is required to anchor GABAA receptors to the postsynaptic scaffold. Enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP)-tagged ICL (EGFP-ICL) was distributed in a punctate pattern at putative inhibitory synapses, identified by vesicular GABA transporter immunoreactive puncta. ICL expression completely blocked GABAAR-mediated transmission in 36% of transfected neurons and significantly reduced GABAAR-mediated synaptic currents relative to AMPA receptor-mediated synaptic currents in the remaining transfected neurons without altering release probability or neuronal excitability. Further analysis of ICL-expressing neurons with residual GABAAR-mediated inputs showed that the capacity of benzodiazepine to enhance GABAergic synaptic responses was reduced in ICL-expressing neurons, indicating that they were likely depleted of γ2 subunit-containing GABAAR. Neurons expressing a mutant form of ICL were comparable to controls. In vivo time-lapse images showed that ICL-expressing neurons have more sparsely branched dendritic arbors, which expand over larger neuropil areas than EGFP-expressing control neurons. Analysis of branch dynamics indicated that ICL expression affected arbor growth by reducing rates of branch addition. Furthermore, we found that decreasing GABAergic synaptic transmission with ICL expression blocked visual experience dependent dendritic arbor structural plasticity. Our findings establish an essential role for inhibitory GABAergic synaptic transmission in the regulation of dendritic structural plasticity in Xenopus in vivo.
PADS/ML: a functional data description language

Massive amounts of useful data are stored and processed in ad hoc formats for which common tools like parsers, printers, query engines and format converters are not readily available. In this paper, we explain the design and implementation of PADS/ML , a new language and system that facilitates the generation of data processing tools for ad hoc formats. The PADS/ML design includes features such as dependent, polymorphic and recursive datatypes, which allow programmers to describe the syntax and semantics of ad hoc data in a concise, easy-to-read notation. The PADS/ML implementation compiles these descriptions into ml structures and functors that include types for parsed data, functions for parsing and printing, and auxiliary support for user-specified, format-dependent and format-independent tool generation.
The role of visual stability in representations of pre- and post-saccadic objects

Recommended Citation Tas, Ayse Caglar. "The role of visual stability in representations of pre-and post-saccadic objects. " PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) thesis, v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like thank my advisor Andrew Hollingworth for his invaluable comments and guidance throughout my long journey. I would not be where I am right now without your training. I would also like to thank Cathleen Moore for her guidance, support, and confidence in me. Your encouragement helped me to get through my hardest times. I also thank Toby Mordkoff for his time and immense knowledge. The complicated analyses I ran for the dissertation would not be possible without your help. I would also like to thank all my friends in Iowa for all the fun. Grad school would not be this valuable without all you guys. Special thanks go to Aaron Buss who made me tea every time I needed. I know I can do anything with your encouragement and support. Finally, I would like to thank my family in Turkey, especially my dad Turan Tas, my mom Suzan Tas, and my sister Sahnaz Bicer. I cannot express how grateful I am for having such a great family. For all these years, you taught me that there is no such a thing as distance. It is a great comfort to know that you are always with me whenever I need you. I love you! vi ABSTRACT During everyday scene viewing, the information received by the visual system is frequently disrupted: Objects are often occluded by other objects, and sensory processing is interrupted by eye, head, or body movements. The visual system is extremely efficient at correcting for these interruptions and in establishing object correspondence and perceptual continuity. At the end of this correspondence process, the visual system is left with two representations of an object: The initial representation and the one acquired after the disruption. In the present dissertation, I investigated the mechanisms by which the visual system reconciles these discontinuous inputs to give us a perception of a smooth and stable visual world. To achieve this, I ran four experiments in which participants were presented with a colored saccade target, and instructed to remember its color before executing the saccade. On some trials, the color of the saccade target was changed to a new value during the saccade. Participants were asked to report either the pre-or post-saccadic color value in a continuous report task. …
A programming model for composing data-flow collaborative applications

Distributed systems are essential for many real world applications. The paper presents an experimental programming model that enables visual configuration, deployment and control of data flow based collaborative systems, a class of distributed applications (DA). The programming model solves the problem of interoperability among DA functional components through the introduction of a fast middleware network software layer and by implementing a transparent message based communication between processes executing on machines connected by a local area network. At the next higher level, the programming model allows deployment and interconnection of encapsulated modules by logical composition of the entire collaborative application. The project differs widely from the existing systems in the network communication overhead, and the user interface design.
Characteristic determination for solid state devices with evolutionary computation: a case study

In this paper, we develop a new optimization framework that consists of the extended compact genetic algorithm (ECGA) and split-on-demand (SoD), an adaptive discretization technique, to tackle the characteristic determination problem for solid state devices. As most decision variables of characteristic determination problems are real numbers due to the modeling of physical phenomena, and ECGA is designed for handling discrete-type problems, a specific mechanism to transform the variable types of the two ends is in order. In the proposed framework, ECGA is used as a back-end optimization engine, and SoD is adopted as the interface between the engine and the problem. Moreover, instead of one mathematical model with various parameters, characteristic determination is in fact a set of problems of which the mathematical formulations may be very different. Therefore, in this study, we employ the proposed framework on three study cases to demonstrate that the technique proposed in the domain of evolutionary computation can provide not only the high quality optimization results but also the flexibility to handle problems of different formulations.
Hypoglycemic Effect of Combination of Azadirachta indica A. Juss. and Gynura procumbens (Lour.) Merr. Ethanolic Extracts Standardized by Rutin and Quercetin in Alloxan-induced Hyperglycemic Rats.

PURPOSE Exploration of plant combinations could be an alternative approach for diabetes treatment. The aim of this study is to evaluate the hypoglycemic effect of combination of A. indica and G. procumbens ethanolic extracts in alloxan-induced diabetic rats. METHODS Powder of A. indica and G. procumbens leaves were macerated with ethanol 70%. Determination of rutin in A. indica and quercetin in G. procumbens were performed by TLC-densitometry. Hyperglycemia in rats was induced by an intraperitoneal injection of alloxan monohydrate at a single dose of 150 mg/kgBW. The rats were treated with 3 dosage variation of combinations for 15 days. Hypoglycemic effect was evaluated by estimating the blood glucose levels and the rats pancreas histological study. RESULTS A. indica contained 2.90±0.15% of rutin and G. procumbens contained 18.86±0.86% of quercetin. Combination at the ratio of 50mg/kgBW A. indica:112.5mg/kgBW G. procumbens showed the highest hypoglycemic effect: 68.74±4.83% (preprandial) and 73.91±3.18% (postprandial). Histological studies indicated that this combination improved the morphology of the islets of Langerhans and β cells. It also increased insulin expression and decreased the elevated-glucose concentrations. CONCLUSION This study showed that combination of both extracts has better hypoglycemic effect than the single treatment of A. indica or G. procumbens. Combination of both extracts was potential to develop as a blood glucose-lowering agent for diabetic patients.
Angular resolution limit for deterministic correlated sources

This paper is devoted to the analysis of the angular resolution limit (ARL), an important performance measure in the directions-of-arrival estimation theory. The main fruit of our endeavor takes the form of an explicit, analytical expression of this resolution limit, w.r. t. the angular parameters of interest between two closely spaced point sources in the far-field region. As by-products, closed-form expressions of the Cramér-Rao bound have been derived. Finally, with the aid of numerical tools, we confirm the validity of our derivation and provide a detailed discussion on several enlightening properties of the ARL revealed by our expression, with an emphasis on the impact of the signal correlation.
The Redemptive Self: Stories Americans Live By

A LIFE STORY MADE IN AMERICA Chapter 1 Redemption and the American Soul Chapter 2 The Generative Adult Chapter 3 Life Stories Chapter 4 The Chosen People Chapter 5 My Good Inner Self: From Emerson to Oprah Chapter 6 God Bless America Chapter 7 Black (and White) Chapter 8 Contaminated Plots, Vicious Circles Chapter 9 When Redemption Fails Chapter 10 Culture, Narrative, and the Self Epilogue - An Americans Confessions and Final Thoughts
Even Trolls Are Useful: Efficient Link Classification in Signed Networks

We address the problem of classifying the links of signed social networks given their full structural topology. Motivated by a binary user behaviour assumption, which is supported by decades of research in psychology, we develop an efficient and surprisingly simple approach to solve this classification problem. Our methods operate both within the active and batch settings. We demonstrate that the algorithms we developed are extremely fast in both theoretical and practical terms. Within the active setting, we provide a new complexity measure and a rigorous analysis of our methods that hold for arbitrary signed networks. We validate our theoretical claims carrying out a set of experiments on three well known real-world datasets, showing that our methods outperform the competitors while being much faster.
The High Yield Expansion and Megakaryocytic Differentiation of Human Umbilical Cord Blood CD133+ Cells

Objective: Despite of many benefits, umbilical cord blood (UCB) hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplantation is associated with low number of stem cells and slow engraftment; in particular of platelets. So, expanded HSCs and co-transfusion of megakaryocyte (MK) progenitor cells can shorten this period. In this study, we evaluated the cytokine conditions for maximum expansion and MK differentiation of CD133+ HSCs. Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, The CD133+ cells were separated from three cord blood samples by magnetic activated cell sorting (MACS) method, expanded in different cytokine combinations for a week and differentiated in thrombopoietin (TPO) for the second week. Differentiation was followed by the flow cytometry detection of CD41 and CD61 surface markers. Colony forming unit (CFU) assay and DNA analysis were done for colonogenic capacity and ploidy assay. Results: CD133+ cells showed maximum expansion in the stem span medium with stem cell factor (SCF) + FMS-like tyrosine kinase 3-ligand (Flt3-L) + TPO but the maximum differentiation was seen when CD133+ cells were expanded in stem span medium with SCF + Interleukin 3 (IL-3) + TPO for the first and in TPO for the second week. Colony Forming Unit-MK (CFU-MK) was formed in three sizes of colonies in the mega-cult medium. In the DNA analysis; 25.2 ± 6.7% of the cells had more than 2n DNA mass. Conclusion: Distinct differences in the MK progenitor cell count were observed when the cells were cultured in stem span medium with TPO, SCF, IL-3 and then the TPO in the second week. Such strategy could be applied for optimization of CD133+ cells expansion followed by MK differentiation.
Intravenously administered histamine increases choroidal but not retinal blood flow.

PURPOSE To determine the effect of intravenously administered histamine on both retinal and choroidal blood flow in humans. METHODS A randomized, double-masked, two-way crossover study was performed in 14 healthy volunteers. Placebo or histamine was administered intravenously in stepwise increasing doses (0.08 microg/kg/min, 0.16 microg/kg/min, and 0.32 microg/kg/min). Retinal vessel diameters were measured with a retinal vessel analyzer, and retinal venous blood speed was assessed by bi-directional laser Doppler velocimetry. Using these parameters retinal blood flow was calculated. Subfoveal and pulsatile choroidal blood flow were measured with laser Doppler flowmetry and laser interferometry, respectively. RESULTS After infusion of histamine pulsatile choroidal blood flow increased by 5 +/- 3%, 9 +/- 8%, and 14 +/- 7% (P = 0.001, ANOVA) and subfoveolar choroidal blood flow by 8 +/- 11%, 13 +/- 11%, and 13 +/- 12% (P = 0.003, ANOVA). Retinal arterial and venous vessel diameter significantly increased by 3 +/- 4%, 2 +/- 4%, and 3 +/- 5% (P = 0.047, ANOVA) and 1 +/- 2%, 3 +/- 2%, and 3 +/- 2% (P = 0.015, ANOVA), respectively. Red blood cell velocity in major retinal veins tended to decrease by -9 +/- 12%, -9 +/- 20%, and -13 +/- 12%, but this effect did not reach levels of significance. Calculated retinal blood flow was not changed by administration of histamine (-7 +/- 14%, -4 +/- 20%, and -8 +/- 12%, P = 0.28, ANOVA). CONCLUSIONS Intravenous histamine in the selected doses increased choroidal blood flow. Retinal vessels showed a small diameter increase, whereas red blood cell speed decreased, resulting in an unchanged total retinal blood flow. This may result from local differences in the receptor distribution in the posterior part of the eye.
Signaling gender diversity through annual report pictures

This research examines the differences in presentation of boards of directors in annual reports. Our sample consists of 472 corporations from the Fortune 500; 130 (342) of these corporations included (did not include) pictures of their boards of directors. The proportion of female directors was 11.0 percent for firms that did not include pictures of their boards and 14.5 percent for firms that included pictures of their boards in their annual reports. The difference in the gender mix of these two groups is significant (p = 0.0002). This indicates that firms with a higher percentage of women on their boards signal this fact to stockholders, investors, and other constituents by including pictures of their boards in their annual reports.
Patients with Tuberculosis Disease Have Mycobacterium tuberculosis-Specific CD8 T Cells with a Pro-Apoptotic Phenotype and Impaired Proliferative Capacity, Which Is Not Restored following Treatment

CD8 T cells play a critical role in control of chronic viral infections; however, the role of these cells in containing persistent bacterial infections, such as those caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), is less clear. We assessed the phenotype and functional capacity of CD8 T cells specific for the immunodominant Mtb antigens CFP-10 and ESAT-6, in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) disease, before and after treatment, and in healthy persons with latent Mtb infection (LTBI). In patients with TB disease, CFP-10/ESAT-6-specific IFN-γ+ CD8 T cells had an activated, pro-apoptotic phenotype, with lower Bcl-2 and CD127 expression, and higher Ki67, CD57, and CD95 expression, than in LTBI. When CFP-10/ESAT-6-specific IFN-γ+ CD8 T cells were detectable, expression of distinct combinations of these markers was highly sensitive and specific for differentiating TB disease from LTBI. Successful treatment of disease resulted in changes of these markers, but not in restoration of CFP-10/ESAT-6-specific CD8 or CD4 memory T cell proliferative capacity. These data suggest that high mycobacterial load in active TB disease is associated with activated, short-lived CFP-10/ESAT-6-specific CD8 T cells with impaired functional capacity that is not restored following treatment. By contrast, LTBI is associated with preservation of long-lived CFP-10/ESAT-6-specific memory CD8 T cells that maintain high Bcl-2 expression and which may readily proliferate.
Non-Deterministic Kleene Coalgebras

In this paper, we present a systematic way of deriving (1) languages of (gener- alised) regular expressions, and (2) sound and complete axiomatizations thereof, for a wide variety of systems. This generalizes both the results of Kleene (on regular languages and de- terministic finite automata) and Milner (on regular behaviours and finite labelled transition systems), and includes many other systems such as Mealy and Moore machines.