Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Galanin stimulates neurite outgrowth from sensory neurons by inhibition of Cdc42 and Rho GTPases and activation of cofilin

We and others have previously shown that the neuropeptide galanin modulates neurite outgrowth from adult sensory neurons via activation of the second galanin receptor; however, the intracellular signalling pathways that mediate this neuritogenic effect have yet to be elucidated. Here, we demonstrate that galanin decreases the activation state in adult sensory neurons and PC12 cells of Rho and Cdc42 GTPases, both known regulators of filopodial and growth cone motility. Consistent with this, activated levels of Rho and Cdc42 levels are increased in the dorsal root ganglion of adult galanin knockout animals compared with wildtype controls. Furthermore, galanin markedly increases the activation state of cofilin, a downstream effector of many of the small GTPases, in the cell bodies and growth cones of sensory neurons and in PC12 cells. We also demonstrate a reduction in the activation of cofilin, and alteration in growth cone motility, in cultured galanin knockout neurons compared with wildtype controls. These data provide the first evidence that galanin regulates the Rho family of GTPases and cofilin to stimulate growth cone dynamics and neurite outgrowth in sensory neurons. These findings have important therapeutic implications for the treatment of peripheral sensory neuropathies.
A robust adaptive control of mecanum wheel mobile robot: simulation and experimental validation

Omnidirectional mobile robots with four Mecanum wheels are used in various homes, military, nuclear power plant, industrial, hospital and space applications. A lot of research has been done using three universal wheels but trajectory control for four Mecanum wheeled mobile robot (FMWMR) in presence of uncertainties still needs attention. Thus, to obtain smooth motion of mobile robots, with chattering free control input, in presence of uncertainties and external force disturbances, a robust and adaptive control is necessary. In view of these aspects, this paper extends the use of adaptive sliding mode controller for trajectory tracking of FMWMR. The effectiveness of proposed controller is verified using two case problems. Simulation results are presented for the verification of proposed controller for FMWMR. Further, experiments are conducted using position and orientation sensor to show the performance of the controller in real world environment. Simulation and experimental results revealed that FMWMR is capable of tracking any type of trajectories.
Connectivity Analysis of Electroencephalograms in Epilepsy

OF THE DISSERTATION CONNECTIVITY ANALYSIS OF ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAMS IN EPILEPSY by Panuwat Janwattanapong Florida International University, 2018 Miami, Florida Professor Mercedes Cabrerizo, Major Professor This dissertation introduces a novel approach at gauging patterns of information flow using brain connectivity analysis and partial directed coherence (PDC) in epilepsy. The main objective of this dissertation is to assess the key characteristics that delineate neural activities obtained from patients with epilepsy, considering both focal and generalized seizures. The use of PDC analysis is noteworthy as it estimates the intensity and direction of propagation from neural activities generated in the cerebral cortex, and it ascertains the coefficients as weighted measures in formulating the multivariate autoregressive model (MVAR). The PDC is used here as a feature extraction method for recorded scalp electroencephalograms (EEG) as means to examine the interictal epileptiform discharges (IEDs) and reflect the physiological changes of brain activity during interictal periods. Two experiments were set up to investigate the epileptic data by using the PDC concept. For the investigation of IEDs data (interictal spike (IS), spike and slow wave complex (SSC), and repetitive spikes and slow wave complex (RSS)), the PDC analysis estimates the intensity and direction of propagation from neural activities generated in the cerebral cortex, and analyzes the coefficients obtained from employing MVAR. Features extracted by using PDC were transformed into adjacency matrices using surrogate data analysis and were classified by using the multilayer Percep-
Web Services Composition Based on Weighted Planning Graph

For the sake of fulfilling a more complex and more powerful service function, a method of web service composition (WSC-WPG), which is based on weighted planning graph is proposed. The method using AI Graph-plan consists of two phases. The first one is to construct the planning graph, which can find a service composition in a polynomial time in distributed and heterogeneous web services. The second one uses reserved iterative method to search the optimal composition solution in planning graph. Experiments show that, WSC-WPG has greatly improved the efficiency of combination.
Advances in Cooperative Single-Carrier FDMA Communications: Beyond LTE-Advanced

In this paper, we focus our attention on the cooperative uplink transmissions of systems beyond the LTE-Advanced initiative. We commence a unified treatment of the principle of single-carrier frequency-division multiple-access (FDMA) and the similarities and dissimilarities, advantages, and weakness of the localized FDMA, the interleaved FDMA, and the orthogonal FDMA systems are compared. Furthermore, the philosophy of both user cooperation and cooperative single-carrier FDMA is reviewed. They are investigated in the context of diverse topologies, transmission modes, resource allocation, and signal processing techniques applied at the relays. Benefits of relaying in LTE-Advanced are also reviewed. Our discussions demonstrate that these advanced techniques optimally exploit the resources in the context of cooperative single-carrier FDMA system, which is a promising enabler for various uplink transmission scenarios.
Storage organization and management in TENEX

In early 1969, BBN began an effort aimed at developing a new time-shared operating system. It was felt at the time that none of the commercially available systems could meet the needs of the research planned and in progress at BBN. The foremost requirement of the desired operating system was that it support a directly addressed process memory in which large list-processing computations could be performed. The cost of core storage prohibited the acquisition of sufficient memory for even one such process, and the problems of swapping such very large processes in a time-sharing environment made that solution technically infeasible as well.
Audio Compression Codec Using a Dynamic Gammachirp Psychoacoustic Model And a D.W.T Multiresolution Analysis

—Audio compression algorithms are used to obtain compact digital representations of high-fidelity audio signals for the purpose of efficient transmission over larger distances and storage. This paper presents an audio coder for real-time mutimedia applications. This coder applies a discrete wavelet transform to decompose audio test files into subbands to eliminate redundant data using spectral and temporal masking properties. This architecture is combined with a psychoacoustic model characterised by an external and middle ear model as a first part and a dynamic Gammachirp filter as a second part whose connections are selected in order to come close to the critical bands of the ear. Experimental results show the best performance of this architecture
Possible Utility Functions for Predator-prey Game

A mathematical model is proposed to describe the interacting behaviour of predator and prey. This model is based on the utility functions of the competing individuals. Such functions depend on various parameters that suitably describe animal instincts, considering both physical and environmental conditions. Two possible strategies have been considered for each individual: to race or to be quiet. Our results show that the most significant joint strategies (i.e. both animals run or stay quiet) can be interpreted as solutions of Nash equilibrium of a suitably defined game.
Towards jointly extracting aspects and aspect-specific sentiment knowledge

In this paper, we aim to jointly extract aspects and aspect-specific sentiment knowledge from online reviews, where the sentiment knowledge refers to the aspect-specific opinion words along with their aspect-aware sentiment polarities. To this end, we propose a Joint Aspect/Sentiment model (JAS). JAS detects aspect-specific opinion words by integrating opinion word lexicon knowledge to explicitly separate opinion words from factual words. More importantly, JAS exploits sentiment prior and aspect-contextual sentence-level co-occurrences of opinion words in reviews to further identify aspect-aware sentiment polarities for the opinion words. We apply the learned aspect-specific sentiment knowledge to practical aspect-level sentiment analysis tasks. Experimental results show the effectiveness of JAS in learning aspect-specific sentiment knowledge and the practical value of this knowledge when applied to aspect-level sentiment classification.
Localization of sequences in wheat endosperm protein genes which confer tissue‐specific expression in tobacco

The developing cereal grain accumulates large quantities of proteins which are unique to the endosperm tissue. The DNA sequences which determine their endosperm‐specific expression have not yet been identified. In the absence of a suitable transformation‐regeneration system for cereals, we have investigated whether chimaeric genes consisting of low mol. wt (LMW) and high mol. wt (HMW) glutenin gene upstream sequences coupled to the coding region of the bacterial chloramphenicol acetyl transferase (CAT) gene could be specifically expressed in transgenic tobacco. The fusions, made in a Ti‐derived binary vector, were introduced into tobacco via Agrobacterium tumefaciens‐mediated transformation and their activity assayed. Both the LMW and HMW glutenin chimaeric genes exhibited endosperm‐specific CAT activity in the transformed plants. In addition, a deletion series of the LMW glutenin sequence indicated that sequences present between 326 bp and 160 bp upstream of the transcription start point are necessary to confer endosperm‐specific CAT activity.
SQUARE-determining reliable regions in sequence alignments

The Server for Quick Alignment Reliability Evaluation (SQUARE) is a Web-based version of the method we developed to predict regions of reliably aligned residues in sequence alignments. Given an alignment between a query sequence and a sequence of known structure, SQUARE is able to predict which residues are reliably aligned. The server accesses a database of profiles of sequences of known three-dimensional structures in order to calculate the scores for each residue in the alignment. SQUARE produces a graphical output of the residue profile-derived alignment scores along with an indication of the reliability of the alignment. In addition, the scores can be compared against template secondary structure, conserved residues and important sites.
The Impacts of Some Distrustable Factors on Software Quality

Abstract— Since the software running and development environment become open and dynamic, and the demands of software functions increase, software quality is hard to fulfill customer’s expectation and usually be untrustworthy. Exploring and analyzing the original causes of software distrust are beneficial to software quality improvement. In this paper, the effects resulting from five kinds of distrustable factors are analyzed. The results indicated that staff experience and customer/stakeholder involvement were significant impetuses to software quality. During software development process, providing effective way and chance for experience sharing and self-learning and creating favorable environment to encourage customer/stakeholder’s participation were worthy to be advocated.
Conserved features of Y RNAs: a comparison of experimentally derived secondary structures.

In this study, phylogenetically conserved structural features of the Ro RNP associated Y RNAs were investigated. The human, iguana, and frog Y3 and Y4 RNA sequences have been determined previously and the respective RNAs were subjected to enzymatic and chemical probing to obtain structural information. For all of the analyzed RNAs, the probing data were used to compose secondary structures, which partly deviate from previously predicted structures. Our results confirm the existence of two stem structures, which are also found at similar positions in hY1 and hY5 RNA. For the remaining parts of hY3 and hY4 RNA the secondary structures differ from those previously proposed based upon computer predictions. What might be more important is that certain parts of the RNAs appear to be flexible, i.e., to adopt several conformations. Another striking feature is that a characteristic pyrimidine-rich region, present in every Y RNA known, is single-stranded in all secondary structures. This may suggest that this region is readily available for base pairing inter-actions with other cellular nucleic acids, which might be important for the as yet unknown function of the RNAs.
Leather as a material for crafting interactive and physical artifacts

Leather is a material used for the making of artifacts ever since early human history, and which can be used also in contemporary design for various types of interactive and electronic products. In this paper, we present a series of small scale explorations of leather, first as skin close interfaces for physical engagement, and secondly in terms of crafting using hand tools and a laser cutter. We reflect on our experiences along these two strands and discuss future possibilities of leather as a rich material for providing new types of interactive experiences. By discussing emerging topics related to traditional crafting processes and contemporary rapid fabrication with this material, we find a great potential of merging such processes and tools for future interaction design settings.
Temporal scaling of leg motion for music feedback system of a dancing humanoid robot

In this paper, we propose a method to achieve temporal scaling of leg motions as a fundamental technique for a music feedback system of a dancing humanoid robot. We asked dancers to perform dance motion at normal musical tempo and faster musical tempos and observed how dancers modified performance for given musical tempos. The obtained insights from the observation are 1) a dancer needs to preserve leg postures that are important to emphasize dance expression, 2) there is a priority to determine what features of leg motion can be adjusted, and 3) stylistic leg motion resembles normal step motion if dancers cannot follow fast musical tempo completely. Based on these insights, we generate leg motion appropriately adjusted for changing musical tempo while maintaining balance. We validated our method via simulation experiments with a humanoid robot HRP-2.
Estimation of the TOA performance of Loran-C

Loran-C is a navigational aid that relies on the ability to make correct estimates of the Times of Arrival (TOAs) of signals received over a noisy radio channel. How good is the performance of Loran-C in this respect? Is it close to optimal? Are there perhaps better estimation techniques available than we currently employ? In this paper we use Estimation Theory to find the optimal limit of the accuracy of TOA estimates, for a given signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Specifically, we compute the Cramer-Rao Lower Bound (CRLB) which specifies the absolute minimum error variance that can be achieved by an unbiased estimator. From the CRLB we can estimate the best repeatable accuracy that can be attained using a set of TOAs. We compute here the CRLBs for the TOA of a Loran-C signal with both Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) and Additive Coloured Gaussian Noise (ACGN). We then employ the Maximum Likelihood Estimator (MLE) and compare its results with that of CRLB. Simulation results show that the MLE approaches the minimum variance obtained by CRLB for SNR values of practical and reliable Loran-C operation.
iVisher: Real‐Time Detection of Caller ID Spoofing

Voice phishing (vishing) uses social engineering, based on people's trust in telephone services, to trick people into divulging financial data or transferring money to a scammer. In a vishing attack, a scammer often modifies the telephone number that appears on the victim's phone to mislead the victim into believing that the phone call is coming from a trusted source, since people typically judge a caller's legitimacy by the displayed phone number. We propose a system named iVisher for detecting a concealed incoming number (that is, caller ID) in Session Initiation Protocol–based Voice‐over‐Internet Protocol initiated phone calls. Our results demonstrate that iVisher is capable of detecting a concealed caller ID without significantly impacting upon the overall call setup time.
A Survey of the State-of-the-Art in Simulated Training Partners

Simulation in virtual environments has become an integral part in highly technical training programs such as flight simulators for pilot training. Although very complex, these simulators are based on a set of well-defined tasks requiring deterministic solutions. However, constructing systems that include simulated training partners is much harder. Oftentimes, the tasks in these domains are not well-defined, there could be many probabilistic events, and the number of combinations of different actions can be huge. In order to be effective, the training partners need to show (1) varying levels of autonomy and (2) a broad range of complex, believable behavior, so that the human trainee can be engaged and can learn to cope with different kinds of situations. Thus, autonomy and complex, believable behavior are the two main issues for simulated training partners. In this report, we will review dif1 ferent types of simulated training partners, followed by an in-depth discussion on autonomy and complex, believable behavior generation, and recommendations on optimal combination of the surveyed methods for increased training effectiveness.
The learnability of Auditory Center-embedded Recursion

A growing body of research investigates how humans learn complex hierarchical structures with center-embedded recursion (Bahlmann, Schubotz, & Friderici, 2008; Poletiek & Lai, 2012). Increasing evidence indicates that properties of the learning input have an impact on learning this type of recursion. For instance, recent studies found that staged input, fewer unique exemplars and unequal repetition facilitate learning (e.g. Lai, Krahmer, & Sprenger, 2014; Lai & Poletiek, 2011, 2013). Most of these studies investigated learning center-embedded recursion through visual input, whereas few studies examined the processing of auditory input. In the current study, we test: 1) whether participants are able to learn center-embedded recursive structure from exclusively auditory input; 2) whether the facilitative cues (ordering and frequency distribution) are attuned to the auditory modality. Our results successfully demonstrate the learning of auditory sequences with center-embedded recursion, and replicated the effect with visual input in the previous study (Lai et al., 2014).
Expressiveness and Complexity of Order Dependencies

Dependencies play an important role in databases. We study order dependencies (ODs)--and unidirectional order dependencies (UODs), a proper sub-class of ODs--which describe the relationships among lexicographical orderings of sets of tuples. We consider lexicographical ordering, as by the order-by operator in SQL, because this is the notion of order used in SQL and within query optimization. Our main goal is to investigate the inference problem for ODs, both in theory and in practice. We show the usefulness of ODs in query optimization. We establish the following theoretical results: (i) a hierarchy of order dependency classes; (ii) a proof of co-NP-completeness of the inference problem for the subclass of UODs (and ODs); (iii) a proof of co-NP-completeness of the inference problem of functional dependencies (FDs) from ODs in general, but demonstrate linear time complexity for the inference of FDs from UODs; (iv) a sound and complete elimination procedure for inference over ODs; and (v) a sound and complete polynomial inference algorithm for sets of UODs over restricted domains.
Major Determinants of Career Development: Employees’ Perception

Dr. Basheer Ahmad Samim is Professor of Statistics/Mathematics in department of Management Sciences at Iqra University Islamabad, drbasheer@iqraisb.edu. pk The pursuit of success and self-satisfaction has evolved greatly among employees today. People are getting more conscious and are striving hard to excel their career. Good career has become a symbol of status and glory, and individuals designated at higher ranks receive more eminence and esteem in our society. Career development is the “total constellation of psychological, sociological, educational, physical, economic, and changing factors that combine to influence the nature and significance of work in the total lifespan of any given individual”(NCDA, 2008). Therefore, as to shape one’s professional path, the prime objective is to align the academic knowledge with real-world experiences. It is a constant thrift for employees to learn more about the hidden factors, which would catalyse success in their career life. ABSTRACT
SF-Tree: An Ecient and Flexible Structure for Selectivity Estimation

Estimating the selectivity of a simple path expression (SPE ) is essential for selecting the most ecient evaluation plans for XML queries. To estimate selectivity, we need an ecient and exible structure to store a summary of the path expressions that are present in an XML document collection. In this paper we propose a new structure called SF-Tree to address the selectivity estimation problem. SF-Tree provides a exible way for the users to choose among accuracy, space requirement and selectivity retrieval speed. It makes use of signature les to store the SPEs in a tree form to increase the selectivity retrieval speed and the accuracy of the retrieved selectivity. Our analysis shows that the probability that a selectivity estimation error occurs decreases exponentially with respect to the error size.
A Code Partitioning Tool for Simulink Models to Implement on FPGA-Based Network-on-Chip Architecture

In this paper, we propose a code partitioning tool to implement application C codes generated from a Simulink model into FPGA-based network-on-chip (NoC) architecture. First, we propose our FPGA-based NoC architecture with communication functions for sending and receiving data on the NoC. Our code partitioning tool accepts application C codes generated from a Simulink model, communication functions, and the task scheduling and allocation result for the Simulink model as inputs. Then, our proposed code partitioning tool generates C codes for each processing core on the NoC by copying the application C codes, generating a behavior function, inserting the communication functions, and removing unnecessary code based on the task scheduling and allocation result. In the experiments, we evaluate the execution time and the code size when we implement three Simulink models on our NoCs using our code partitioning tool.