Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimal In-Place Self-Organization for Cortical Development : Limited Cells , Sparse Coding and Cortical Topography

Cortical self-organization during open-ended development is a core issue for perceptual development. Traditionally, unsupervised learning and supervised learning are two different types of learning conducted by different networks. However, there is no evidence that the biological nervous system treats them in a disintegrated way. The computational model presented here integrates both types of learning using a new biologically inspired network whose learning is in-place. By in-place learning, we mean that each neuron in the network learns on its own while interacting with other neurons. There is no need for a separate learning network. We present in this paper the Multi-layer In-place Learning Network (MILN) for regression and classification. This work concentrates on its two-layer version for global pattern detection (without incorporating an attention selection mechanism). It reports properties about limited cells, sparse coding and cortical topography. The network enables both unsupervised and supervised learning to occur concurrently. Within each layer, the adaptation of each neuron is nearly-optimal in the sense of the least possible estimation error given the observations. Experimental results are presented to show the effects of the properties investigated.
Character string predicate based automatic software test data generation

A character string is an important element in programming. A problem that needs further research is how to automatically generate software test data for character strings. This paper presents a novel approach for automatic test data generation of program paths including character string predicates, and the effectiveness of this approach is examined on a number of programs. Each element of input variable of a character string is determined by using the gradient descent technique to perform function minimization so that the test data of character string can be dynamically generated. The experimental results illustrate that this approach is effective.
Complications of carotid sinus massage--a prospective series of older patients.

BACKGROUND there is a causal association between carotid sinus hypersensitivity, falls and syncope in elderly subjects. Neurological complications during carotid sinus massage have been reported in case studies and two retrospective series. Our aim was prospectively to ascertain the incidence of complications occurring after carotid sinus massage performed for diagnostic purposes in a consecutive series of patients. METHODS 1000 consecutive subjects aged 50 years or over who attended the accident and emergency department with syncope or 'unexplained' falls had carotid sinus massage. Carotid sinus massage was performed for 5 s on the right and then left sides both supine and upright (70 degrees head-up tilt) with continuous heart rate and phasic blood pressure recording. Contraindications to carotid sinus massage were the presence of a carotid bruit, recent history of stroke or myocardial infarction or previous ventricular tachyarrhythmia. RESULTS complications occurred in nine patients immediately after cessation of carotid sinus massage. Eight had transient neurological complications possibly attributable to carotid sinus massage: visual disturbance, 'pins and needles' and sensation of finger numbness in two cases each, leg weakness in one and sensation of 'being drunk' in one. All transient complications resolved within 24 h. In one patient mild weakness of the right hand persisted. CONCLUSIONS no subjects had cardiac complications and 1% had possible neurological symptoms, which resolved in most cases. Persistent neurological complications are uncommon, occurring in 1:1000 patients (0.1%) or 1: 3805 episodes of carotid sinus massage (0.03%).
Retargeting Human-Object Interaction to Virtual Avatars

In augmented reality (AR) applications, a virtual avatar serves as a useful medium to represent a human in a different place. This paper deals with the problem of retargeting a human motion to an avatar. In particular, we present a novel method that retargets a human motion with respect to an object to that of an avatar with respect to a different object of a similar shape. To achieve this, we developed a spatial map that defines the correspondences between any points in the 3D spaces around the respective objects. The key advantage of the spatial map is that it identifies the desired locations of the avatar's body parts for any input motion of a human. Once the spatial map is created offline, the motion retargeting can be performed in real-time. The retargeted motion preserves important features of the original motion such as the human pose and the spatial relation with the object. We report the results of a number of experiments that demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Split-Capacitor Dual-Active-Bridge Converter

In this article, a split-capacitor (SC) dual-active-bridge (DAB) converter is proposed. In the proposed converter, dc-link capacitors in both the input and output are split, and primary and secondary windings of the transformer are connected to midpoints of the input and output dc links, respectively. Although the switch current stress of the proposed converter is twice that of conventional DAB converter, its switch voltage stress is reduced to half. Therefore, the proposed converter has higher conduction loss than the conventional DAB converter, however, the switching loss can be reduced, which implies that the proposed converter is beneficial and can achieve higher efficiency than the conventional DAB converter as switching frequency increases. In addition, owing to the SC structure, no dc-blocking capacitors are required and the proposed converter can be readily connected to neutral-point-clamped or half-bridge-type converters without increasing the number of dc-link capacitors. To verify the performances of the proposed converter, 3-kW prototypes are built, tested, and compared.
Multimodal interfaces

Multimodal systems process two or more combined user input modes— such as speech, pen, touch, manual gestures, gaze, and head and body movements— in a coordinated manner with multimedia system output. This class of systems represents a new direction for computing, and a paradigm shift away from conventional WIMP interfaces. Since the appearance of Bolt’s (1980) “Put That There” demonstration system, which processed speech in parallel with touch-pad pointing, a variety of new multimodal systems has emerged. This new class of interfaces aims to recognize naturally occurring forms of human language and behavior, which incorporate at least one recognitionbased technology (e.g., speech, pen, vision). The development of novel multimodal systems has been enabled by the myriad input and output technologies currently becoming available, including new devices and improvements in recognition-based technologies. This chapter will review the main types of multimodal interfaces, their advantages and cognitive science underpinnings, primary features and architectural characteristics, and general research in the field of multimodal interaction and interface design.
Substrate Binding Mode and Its Implication on Drug Design for Botulinum Neurotoxin A

The seven antigenically distinct serotypes of Clostridium botulinum neurotoxins, the causative agents of botulism, block the neurotransmitter release by specifically cleaving one of the three SNARE proteins and induce flaccid paralysis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has declared them as Category A biowarfare agents. The most potent among them, botulinum neurotoxin type A (BoNT/A), cleaves its substrate synaptosome-associated protein of 25 kDa (SNAP-25). An efficient drug for botulism can be developed only with the knowledge of interactions between the substrate and enzyme at the active site. Here, we report the crystal structures of the catalytic domain of BoNT/A with its uncleavable SNAP-25 peptide 197QRATKM202 and its variant 197RRATKM202 to 1.5 Å and 1.6 Å, respectively. This is the first time the structure of an uncleavable substrate bound to an active botulinum neurotoxin is reported and it has helped in unequivocally defining S1 to S5′ sites. These substrate peptides make interactions with the enzyme predominantly by the residues from 160, 200, 250 and 370 loops. Most notably, the amino nitrogen and carbonyl oxygen of P1 residue (Gln197) chelate the zinc ion and replace the nucleophilic water. The P1′-Arg198, occupies the S1′ site formed by Arg363, Thr220, Asp370, Thr215, Ile161, Phe163 and Phe194. The S2′ subsite is formed by Arg363, Asn368 and Asp370, while S3′ subsite is formed by Tyr251, Leu256, Val258, Tyr366, Phe369 and Asn388. P4′-Lys201 makes hydrogen bond with Gln162. P5′-Met202 binds in the hydrophobic pocket formed by the residues from the 250 and 200 loop. Knowledge of interactions between the enzyme and substrate peptide from these complex structures should form the basis for design of potent inhibitors for this neurotoxin.
Unified Loop Filter for Video Compression

This letter proposes a unified loop filter for video coding, which suppresses the quantization noise optimally and improves the objective and subjective qualities of the reconstructed picture simultaneously. The proposed filter unifies nonlinear enhancement filter and linear restoration filter within the classical optimization framework of least mean square error. To adapt to locally diverse quantization error characteristics, classification-based strategy is employed to design unified loop filters with different characteristics, which further improves the capability of picture restoration. Experimental results show that the proposed filter achieves superior objective coding gain and better visual quality improvement around edges and textures, compared with H.264/AVC high profile.
Effect of Density and Resistivity Measurement for Foam Flooding Propagation in Static Condition

Foam flooding is one of the method that is currently used to optimize the amount of oil in sub surface. Foam flooding is used to overcome the weakness of water injection, gas injection, and water alternating gas injection. Foam is the mixture of gas, water and surfactant. Foam propagation plays an important part in porous medium, foam propagation is related to intrinsic properties of the fluids such as density and viscosity. Resistivity of the fluids should be taken also because in the end of the experiment, method that is used to track foam propagation in porous medium is resistivity measurement. The objectives of this experiment are to obtain fluid characterization and to understand the phenomena that is possibly occurred during foam injection in porous medium, specifically, to obtain the correlation between density and resistivity measurement. Foam is generated with several concentration of solutions which are various concentration of brine, various concentration of MFOMAX, oil, and distilled water. Several tests should be taken to observe the intrinsic properties of the fluids such as density test, viscosity test, resistivity and conductivity test. Based on the experiment, correlation between density of brine and brine concentration towards resistivity is inversely proportional. Correlation between density of fluid mix with MFOMAX and MFOMAX concentration towards resistivity is proportional.
Approximate Bayesian Estimation of Varying Binomial Process

Bayesian methods are often applied for estimating the event rate from a series of event occurrences. However, the Bayesian posterior distribution requires the computation of the marginal likelihood which generally involves an analytically intractable integration. As an event rate is defined in a very high dimensional space, it is computationally demanding to obtain the Bayesian posterior distribution for the rate. We estimate the rate underlying a sequence of event counts by deriving an approximate Bayesian inference algorithm for the time-varying binomial process. This enables us to calculate the posterior distribution analytically. We also provide a method for estimating the prior hyperparameter, which determines the smoothness of the estimated event rate. Moreover, we provide an efficient method to compute the upper and lower bounds of the marginal likelihood, which evaluate the approximation accuracy. Numerical experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in terms of the estimation accuracy.
Life After Bootstrap: Residual Randomization Inference in Regression Models

We develop a randomization-based method for inference in regression models. The basis of inference is an invariance assumption on the regression errors, such as invariance to permutations or random signs. To test significance, the randomization method repeatedly calculates a suitable test statistic over transformations of the regression residuals according to the invariant. Inversion of the test can produce confidence intervals. We prove general conditions for asymptotic validity of this residual randomization test and illustrate in many models, including clustered errors with one-way or two-way clustering structure. We also show that finite-sample validity is possible under a suitable construction, and illustrate with an exact test for a case of the Behrens-Fisher problem. The proposed method offers four main advantages over the bootstrap: (1) it addresses the inference problem in a unified way, while bootstrap typically needs to be adapted to the task; (2) it can be more powerful by exploiting a richer and more flexible set of invariances than exchangeability; (3) it does not rely on asymptotic normality; and (4) it can be valid in finite samples. In extensive empirical evaluations, including high dimensional regression and autocorrelated errors, the proposed method performs favorably against many alternatives, including bootstrap variants and asymptotic robust error methods.
Current strategies of mitral valve repair.

BACKGROUND During the last decade new surgical techniques for mitral valve repair were developed. We have been using those techniques in order to widen the spectrum of patients eligible for MV repair. OBJECTIVES To assess the operative and mid-term results a wide variety of surgical techniques. METHODS From January 2004 through December 2006, 213 patients underwent MV repair in our institution. Valve pathology was degenerative in 123 patients (58%), ischemic in 37 (17%), showed annular dilatation in 25 (12%), endocarditis in 16 (8%), was rheumatic in 13 (6%), and due to other causes in 14 (7%). Preoperative New York Heart Association score was 2.35 +/- 0.85 and ejection fraction 53 +/- 12%. Isolated MV repair was performed in 90 patients (42%) and 158 concomitant procedures were done in 123 patients (58%). A wide variety of surgical techniques was used in order to increase the number of repairs compared to valve replacement. RESULTS There were 7 in-hospital deaths (3.3%). NYHA class improved from 2.19 +/- 0.85 to 1.4 +/- 0.6, and freedom from reoperation was 100%. Echocardiography follow-up of patients with degenerative MV revealed that 93% of the patients (115/123) were free of mitral regurgitation greater than 2+ grade. In patients operated by a minimal invasive approach there were no conversions to stemotomy, no late deaths, none required reoperation, and 96% were free of MR greater than 2+ grade. The use of multiple surgical techniques enabled the repair of more than 80% of pure MR cases. CONCLUSIONS MV repair provides good perioperative and mid-term results, and supports the preference for MV repair over replacement, when feasible. Multiple valve repair techniques tailored to different pathologies increases the feasibility of mitral repair.
ANTIBODY PRODUCTION IN VITRO I . SINGLE CELL STUDIES OF THE SECONDARY RESPONSE TO SHEEP ERYTHROCYTES

The in vivo injection of antigen stimulates the proliferation of lymphoid cells and the appearance of specific antibody-producing cells (1-3), this cellular reaction being more marked during secondary responses than after primary immunization. Antibody production in vitro has been described by many investigators and has been well reviewed (4, 5), but direct correlation between cellular proliferation and the appearance of cells producing specific antibody is lacking, although studies of in vivo situations have been reported 1 (6, 7) indicating that antibodyproducing cells arose from DNA-synthesizing cells in response to antigen. The present experiments investigated the relationship between DNA synthesis and the production of antibodies to sheep erythrocytes (SRC's) in vitro by single cells from the spleens of rabbits killed after a boost injection of antigen 2 days previously. I t was shown that the rate of DNA synthesis, as measured by the incorporation of radioactive thymidine, was stimulated in spleen cell suspensions from such rabbits by the presence of SRC's (8). The results of the studies reported here indicate that the major proportion of antibody-producing cells in these cell suspensions arose from the DNA-synthesizing population which was stimulated to divide by the presence of antigen, but that only a very small proportion of these proliferating cells was occupied in the production of specific hemolytic antibodies.
Lactoferrin Stimulates Osteoblast Differentiation Through PKA and p38 Pathways Independent of Lactoferrin's Receptor LRP1

Lactoferrin (LF) has been established as a potent anabolic factor for bone health both in vivo and in vitro. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying LF's action are still largely unknown. Here, we explore the signaling pathways that mediate LF's beneficial effect on osteoblast differentiation. In primary osteoblast and preosteoblast MC3T3‐E1, LF promoted alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity, osteocalcin (OCN) secretion, and mineralization. Along with this enhanced osteogenic differentiation, activation of p38 mitogen‐activated protein kinase (MAPK) was detected in LF‐treated MC3T3‐E1 cells. Downregulating p38 with selective inhibitor SB203580 or p38α small interfering RNA (siRNA) attenuated the effect of LF on osteogenesis. Furthermore, knockdown of p38α significantly decreased LF‐induced Runt‐related transcription factor 2 (Runx2) phosphorylation. According to previous studies and our results, we speculated that LF‐induced osteoblast proliferation and differentiation were two relatively separate processes controlled by extracellular signal‐regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) and p38 pathways, respectively. Besides p38 MAPK activation, protein kinase A (PKA) was also activated in MC3T3‐E1 cells. PKA inhibitor H89 significantly inhibited LF‐induced p38 activation, ALP activity, and OCN secretion, indicating that PKA possibly acted as an upstream kinase of p38. In order to further identify the role of LF's receptor low‐density lipoprotein receptor‐related protein 1 (LRP1), we constructed LRP1 stable‐knockdown MC3T3‐E1 cells. Neither LRP1 antagonist receptor associated protein (RAP), nor LRP1 knockdown approach could attenuate the LF‐induced osteogenesis, implying that LF stimulated osteoblast differentiation via an LRP1‐independent pathway. Taken together, the present work indicated that LF stimulated MC3T3‐E1 preosteoblast differentiation mainly through LRP1‐independent PKA and p38 signaling pathways. These results provided the first evidence of the signaling mechanisms of LF's effect on osteoblast differentiation. © 2014 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.
Toward site-specific and self-sufficient robotic fabrication on architectural scales

An on-site mobile robotic platform autonomously constructed an open dome with complex curvature and variable wall thickness. Contemporary construction techniques are slow, labor-intensive, dangerous, expensive, and constrained to primarily rectilinear forms, often resulting in homogenous structures built using materials sourced from centralized factories. To begin to address these issues, we present the Digital Construction Platform (DCP), an automated construction system capable of customized on-site fabrication of architectural-scale structures using real-time environmental data for process control. The system consists of a compound arm system composed of hydraulic and electric robotic arms carried on a tracked mobile platform. An additive manufacturing technique for constructing insulated formwork with gradient properties from dynamic mixing was developed and implemented with the DCP. As a case study, a 14.6-m-diameter, 3.7-m-tall open dome formwork structure was successfully additively manufactured on site with a fabrication time under 13.5 hours. The DCP system was characterized and evaluated in comparison with traditional construction techniques and existing large-scale digital construction research projects. Benefits in safety, quality, customization, speed, cost, and functionality were identified and reported upon. Early exploratory steps toward self-sufficiency—including photovoltaic charging and the sourcing and use of local materials—are discussed along with proposed future applications for autonomous construction.
An MILP-Based Cross-Layer Optimization for a Multi-Reader Arbitration in the UHF RFID System

In RFID systems, the performance of each reader such as interrogation range and tag recognition rate may suffer from interferences from other readers. Since the reader interference can be mitigated by output signal power control, spectral and/or temporal separation among readers, the system performance depends on how to adapt the various reader arbitration metrics such as time, frequency, and output power to the system environment. However, complexity and difficulty of the optimization problem increase with respect to the variety of the arbitration metrics. Thus, most proposals in previous study have been suggested to primarily prevent the reader collision with consideration of one or two arbitration metrics. In this paper, we propose a novel cross-layer optimization design based on the concept of combining time division, frequency division, and power control not only to solve the reader interference problem, but also to achieve the multiple objectives such as minimum interrogation delay, maximum reader utilization, and energy efficiency. Based on the priority of the multiple objectives, our cross-layer design optimizes the system sequentially by means of the mixed-integer linear programming. In spite of the multi-stage optimization, the optimization design is formulated as a concise single mathematical form by properly assigning a weight to each objective. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed optimization design.
Uncovering news-Twitter reciprocity via interaction patterns

In recent years, the amount of information shared (both implicit and explicit) between traditional news media and social media sources like Twitter has grown at a prolific rate. Traditional news media is dependent on social media to help identify emerging developments; social media is dependent on news media to supply information in certain categories. In this paper, we present a principled framework for understanding their symbiotic relationship, with the goal of (1) understanding the type of information flow between news articles and the Twitterverse by classifying it into four states; (2) chaining similar news articles together to form story chains and extracting interaction patterns for each story chain in terms of interaction states of news articles in the story chain, and (3) identifying major interaction patterns by clustering story chains and understanding their differences by identifying main topics of interest within such clusters.