Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Integrative Neuroscience Review Article Vestibular Pathways Involved in Cognition

Recent discoveries have emphasized the role of the vestibular system in cognitive processes such as memory, spatial navigation and bodily self-consciousness. A precise understanding of the vestibular pathways involved is essential to understand the consequences of vestibular diseases for cognition, as well as develop therapeutic strategies to facilitate recovery. The knowledge of the " vestibular cortical projection areas " , defined as the cortical areas activated by vestibular stimulation, has dramatically increased over the last several years from both anatomical and functional points of view. Four major pathways have been hypothesized to transmit vestibular information to the vestibular cortex: (1) the vestibulo-thalamo-cortical pathway, which probably transmits spatial information about the environment via the parietal, entorhinal and perirhinal cortices to the hippocampus and is associated with spatial representation and self-versus object motion distinctions; (2) the pathway from the dorsal tegmental nucleus via the lateral mammillary nucleus, the anterodorsal nucleus of the thalamus to the entorhinal cortex, which transmits information for estimations of head direction; (3) the pathway via the nucleus reticularis pontis oralis, the supramammillary nucleus and the medial septum to the hippocampus, which transmits information supporting hippocampal theta rhythm and memory; and (4) a possible pathway via the cerebellum, and the ventral lateral nucleus of the thalamus (perhaps to the parietal cortex), which transmits information for spatial learning. Finally a new pathway is hypothesized via the basal ganglia, potentially involved in spatial learning and spatial memory. From these pathways, progressively emerges the anatomical network of vestibular cognition.
Caractérisation de la distribution verticale des gaz à effet de serre CO2 et CH4 par mesures sous ballons. Application à la validation d'observations satellites

Suivre et comprendre l'evolution des deux principaux gaz a effet de serre anthropogeniques (CO2 et CH4) sont des enjeux majeurs pour les sciences du climat. L'augmentation du nombre et de la diversite des observations (en surface, mesures aeroportees, satellitaires) ainsi que l'amelioration des modeles de chimie-transports atmospheriques ont contribue a developper notre comprehension des cycles biogeochimiques associes a ces gaz. Neanmoins, les observations precises le long de la verticale sont encore tres limitees. Elles deviennent pourtant indispensables, d'une part, pour approfondir nos connaissances dans le transport de CO2et CH4, d'autre part, pour evaluer les colonnes totales ou partielles mesurees par satellites. Dans cette these, nous presentons un instrument innovant appele "AirCore" permettant d'echantillonner l'air en continu le long d'une colonne atmospherique lors d'une descente depuis haute altitude. Differents AirCores donnant acces a differentes resolutions verticales ont ete developpes au LMD et deployes avec succes lors des campagnes ballons Strato-Sciences 2014, 2015 et 2016 du CNES. Les profils verticaux de AirCores ont permis de valider les estimations de colonnes partielles de CH4 realisees avec l'instrument IASI/Metop. Des comparaisons ont ete menees avec des profils tropospheriques obtenus lors de campagnes aeroportees (HIPPO), ou avec des profils issus de modeles de transports (LMDz, TM5) ou de previsions (CAMS). Les resultats ont demontre l'importance d'une bonne caracterisation de la stratosphere pour les activites de calibration/validation des mesures satellites et, plus generalement, l'etude des gaz a effet de serre.
Towards accurate accounting of cellular data for TCP retransmission

The current architecture supporting data services to mobile devices is built below the network layer (IP) and users receive the payload at the application layer. Between them is the transport layer that can cause data consumption inflation due to the retransmission mechanism that provides reliable delivery. In this paper, we examine the accounting policies of five large cellular ISPs in the U.S. and South Korea. We look at their policies regarding the transport layer reliability mechanism with TCP's retransmission and show that the current implementation of accounting policies either fails to meet the billing fairness or is vulnerable to charge evasions. Three of the ISPs surveyed charge for all IP packets regardless of retransmission, allowing attackers to inflate a victim's bill by intentionally retransmitting packets. The other two ISPs deduct the retransmitted amount from the user's bill thus allowing tunneling through TCP retransmissions. We show that a "free-riding" attack is viable with these ISPs and discuss some of the mitigation techniques.
Bandwidth-efficient Hardware-Based Volume Rendering for Large Unstructured Meshes

Recent advances in graphics processor architecture and capabilities have made the development of fast and efficient unstructured volume rendering methods possible. These techniques can be classified into two roughly delimited categories: cell projection based methods and GPU raycasting algorithms. However, both approaches are subject to limitations, respectively due to the main memory-to-GPU bandwidth for the former and due to the GPU per-fragment computation speed and memory size for the latter. These potential bottlenecks can be particularly limiting for large-size datasets, such as the ones produced by large-scale numerical simulation. In this work, we describe an enhancement to the cell-projection rendering method, allowing us to specify each tetrahedron with only 4 vertices and their associated data. By using a point sprite primitive, instead of a set of 4 triangles, we significantly reduce the amount of data transferred from the main memory through the graphics port for each frame rendered. We evaluate the impact of the different rendering stages of our method on the overall frame rate.
Labeling Dynamic XML Documents: An Order-Centric Approach

Dynamic XML labeling schemes have important applications in XML Database Management Systems. In this paper, we explore dynamic XML labeling schemes from a novel order-centric perspective. We compare the various labeling schemes proposed in the literature with a special focus on their orders of labels. We show that the order of labels fundamentally impacts the update performance of a labeling scheme and develop an order-based framework to classify and characterize XML labeling schemes. Although there are dynamic XML labeling schemes that can completely avoid relabeling, the gain in update performance all come with considerable costs such as larger label size and lower query performance, even if the XML documents are hardly updated. We introduce vector order which is the foundation of the dynamic labeling schemes we propose. Compared with previous solutions that are based on natural order or lexicographical order, vector order is a simple, yet most effective solution to process updates in XML DBMS. We show that vector order can be gracefully applied to both range-based and prefix-based labeling schemes with little overhead introduced. Moreover, vector order-based labeling schemes are not only efficient to process, but also resilient to skewed insertions. Qualitative and experimental evaluations confirm the benefits of our approach compared to previous solutions.
Effects of temperature and diet on development and interspecies competition in Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus

We asked whether climate change might affect the geographic distributions of Aedes aegypti (L.) and Aedes albopictus (Skuse) (Diptera: Culicidae). We tested the effects of temperature, diet and the presence of congeneric species on the performance of immature stages of these two aedine species in the laboratory. Mosquitoes in three different species‐density combinations were reared at four constant temperatures (20 °C, 25 °C, 30 °C, 35 °C) on low‐ or high‐level diets. Of the four temperatures tested, mortality increased only at 35 °C in both species. Mortality was higher on the high‐level diet than on the low‐level diet at 35 °C, but not at other temperatures. The presence of congeneric species had a significant positive effect on mortality in Ae. albopictus, but not in Ae. aegypti. Both species developed more quickly at higher temperatures within the range of 20–30 °C; development was not enhanced at 35 °C. Population growth of Ae. albopictus was more stable, regardless of diet and temperature; that of Ae. aegypti varied more according to these two factors. These species‐specific attributes may help to explain the latitudinal distribution of the mosquitoes and degree of species dominance where they are sympatric.
Uncovering hidden duplicated content in public transcriptomics data

As part of the development of the database Bgee (a dataBase for Gene Expression Evolution), we annotate and analyse expression data from different types and different sources, notably Affymetrix data from GEO and ArrayExpress, and RNA-Seq data from SRA. During our quality control procedure, we have identified duplicated content in GEO and ArrayExpress, affecting ∼14% of our data: fully or partially duplicated experiments from independent data submissions, Affymetrix chips reused in several experiments, or reused within an experiment. We present here the procedure that we have established to filter such duplicates from Affymetrix data, and our procedure to identify future potential duplicates in RNA-Seq data. Database URL: http://bgee.unil. ch/
IMPROVEMENT OF CHORD OVERLAY FOR P2PSIP-BASED COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

Chord has been suggested by IETF P2PSIP working group as mandatory overlay technology in the future P2PSIP-based communication systems. Chord allows for the available peer/resource lookup in no more than log N hops, where N is the total number of the peers in the overlay network. However, as a protocol originally designed for background downloading applications, Chord has a few drawbacks when supporting P2PSIP real-time communication systems. These drawbacks are related to ID assignment, the relation between ID and physical location, the routing styles and lack of cache, etc. In this paper, we investigate several approaches that can improve the efficiency of the peer/resource lookup algorithm. After that, we first use the formal verification to check the correctness of the proposed BiChord and Recursive routing approaches, and then implement two systems with 512 P2PSIP peers (Chord-based and improved Chord based P2PSIP communication systems) for evaluation. The evaluation includes number of hops, message flows, and practicality from theoretical point of view, and the comparison of the delay in two systems according to the measurement. We get the conclusion that the combination of Bi-Chord, Cache entry record, and Semi-Recursive routing is most suitable for P2PSIPbased communication systems. Finally, we include the conclusions and future work.
Outer mitochondrial membrane localization of apoptosis-inducing factor: mechanistic implications for release

Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1-dependent cell death (known as parthanatos) plays a pivotal role in many clinically important events including ischaemia/reperfusion injury and glutamate excitotoxicity. A recent study by us has shown that uncleaved AIF (apoptosis-inducing factor), but not calpain-hydrolysed truncated-AIF, was rapidly released from the mitochondria during parthanatos, implicating a second pool of AIF that might be present in brain mitochondria contributing to the rapid release. In the present study, a novel AIF pool is revealed in brain mitochondria by multiple biochemical analyses. Approx. 30% of AIF loosely associates with the outer mitochondrial membrane on the cytosolic side, in addition to its main localization in the mitochondrial intermembrane space attached to the inner membrane. Immunogold electron microscopic analysis of mouse brain further supports AIF association with the outer, as well as the inner, mitochondrial membrane in vivo. In line with these observations, approx. 20% of uncleaved AIF rapidly translocates to the nucleus and functionally causes neuronal death upon NMDA (N-methyl-d-aspartate) treatment. In the present study we show for the first time a second pool of AIF in brain mitochondria and demonstrate that this pool does not require cleavage and that it contributes to the rapid release of AIF. Moreover, these results suggest that this outer mitochondrial pool of AIF is sufficient to cause cell death during parthanatos. Interfering with the release of this outer mitochondrial pool of AIF during cell injury paradigms that use parthanatos hold particular promise for novel therapies to treat neurological disorders.
Power-Law Scaling in the Brain Surface Electric Potential

Recent studies have identified broadband phenomena in the electric potentials produced by the brain. We report the finding of power-law scaling in these signals using subdural electrocorticographic recordings from the surface of human cortex. The power spectral density (PSD) of the electric potential has the power-law form from 80 to 500 Hz. This scaling index, , is conserved across subjects, area in the cortex, and local neural activity levels. The shape of the PSD does not change with increases in local cortical activity, but the amplitude, , increases. We observe a “knee” in the spectra at , implying the existence of a characteristic time scale . Below , we explore two-power-law forms of the PSD, and demonstrate that there are activity-related fluctuations in the amplitude of a power-law process lying beneath the rhythms. Finally, we illustrate through simulation how, small-scale, simplified neuronal models could lead to these power-law observations. This suggests a new paradigm of non-oscillatory “asynchronous,” scale-free, changes in cortical potentials, corresponding to changes in mean population-averaged firing rate, to complement the prevalent “synchronous” rhythm-based paradigm.
Impact of Vitamin K Antagonists on Quality of Life in a Prospective Cohort of 807 Atrial Fibrillation Patients

Background—Vitamin K antagonists (VKA) use is challenging because of frequent blood monitoring and complex dosing. Therefore, many patients and physicians are reluctant to start VKA. However, it is unclear whether VKA use actually lowers quality of life. We aimed to determine the impact of VKA initiation on quality of life and to analyze the correlation between patient and treatment characteristics and VKA perception in atrial fibrillation patients. Methods and Results—In a prospective cohort of 240 new and 567 long-term VKA users, general quality of life and VKA perception (satisfaction and convenience) were measured at inclusion and at 3 months by the validated Study Short-Form 36 and Perception of Anticoagulant Treatment Questionnaire. Scores were converted to a 0 to 100 scale. Higher scores are more favorable. In the new patients, Medical Outcomes Study Short-Form 36 scores improved during the initial 3 months to a level comparable with the general population. At 3 months, the median convenience score was 95 (Q1–Q3, 88–98) and was higher in older patients (regression coefficient, 0.47 per year; 95% confidence interval, 0.25–0.69) and lower after bleeding (regression coefficient, −12; 95% confidence interval, −20 to −4.7). The median satisfaction score was 64. For the long-term patients, VKA perception scores were highly comparable with the new patients. The convenience score mildly improved in patients with increased individual time in therapeutic range (regression coefficient, 0.03; 95% confidence interval, 0.01–0.05; r2=0.01), and satisfaction scores decreased in patients with new comedication (regression coefficient, −7.0; 95% confidence interval, −12 to −1.9; r2=0.02). Conclusions—VKA were well tolerated in real-life, and the influences of patient and treatment related factors on VKA perception were very limited.
A Pilot Study on Cord Blood Levels of Erythropoietin and Its Relationship to Periventricular Leukomalacia in Preterm Infants

This article reports the results of a study on the relationship between cord blood levels of erythropoietin and periventricular leukomalacia. Cord blood was obtained from 19 infants with gestational age between 27 and 32 weeks. Cystic periventricular leukomalacia was seen in 4 of them. Erythropoietin levels were not different between those with and those without periventricular leukomalacia.
Decidability of Downward XPath

We investigate the satisfiability problem for downward-XPath, the fragment of XPath that includes the child and descendant axes, and tests for (in)equality of attributes’ values. We prove that this problem is decidable, EXPTIME-complete. These bounds also hold when path expressions allow closure under the Kleene star operator. To obtain these results, we introduce a Downward Data automata model (DD automata) over trees with data, which has a decidable emptiness problem. Satisfiability of downward-XPath can be reduced to the emptiness problem of DD automata and hence its decidability follows. Although downward-XPath does not include any horizontal axis, DD automata are more expressive and can perform some horizontal tests. Thus, we show that the satisfiability remains in EXPTIME even in the presence of the regular constraints expressible by DD automata. However, the same problem in the presence of any regular constraint is known to have a nonprimitive recursive complexity. Finally, we give the exact complexity of the satisfiability problem for several fragments of downward-XPath.
Protein Phylogenetic Analysis of Ca2+/cation Antiporters and Insights into their Evolution in Plants

Cation transport is a critical process in all organisms and is essential for mineral nutrition, ion stress tolerance, and signal transduction. Transporters that are members of the Ca2+/cation antiporter (CaCA) superfamily are involved in the transport of Ca2+ and/or other cations using the counter exchange of another ion such as H+ or Na+. The CaCA superfamily has been previously divided into five transporter families: the YRBG, Na+/Ca2+ exchanger (NCX), Na+/Ca2+, K+ exchanger (NCKX), H+/cation exchanger (CAX), and cation/Ca2+ exchanger (CCX) families, which include the well-characterized NCX and CAX transporters. To examine the evolution of CaCA transporters within higher plants and the green plant lineage, CaCA genes were identified from the genomes of sequenced flowering plants, a bryophyte, lycophyte, and freshwater and marine algae, and compared with those from non-plant species. We found evidence of the expansion and increased diversity of flowering plant genes within the CAX and CCX families. Genes related to the NCX family are present in land plant though they encode distinct MHX homologs which probably have an altered transport function. In contrast, the NCX and NCKX genes which are absent in land plants have been retained in many species of algae, especially the marine algae, indicating that these organisms may share “animal-like” characteristics of Ca2+ homeostasis and signaling. A group of genes encoding novel CAX-like proteins containing an EF-hand domain were identified from plants and selected algae but appeared to be lacking in any other species. Lack of functional data for most of the CaCA proteins make it impossible to reliably predict substrate specificity and function for many of the groups or individual proteins. The abundance and diversity of CaCA genes throughout all branches of life indicates the importance of this class of cation transporter, and that many transporters with novel functions are waiting to be discovered.
Compensation crisis related to the onsite adequacy evaluation during FNA procedures-Urgent proactive input from cytopathology community is critical to establish appropriate reimbursement for CPT code 88172 (or its new counterpart if introduced in the future)

The confusion centered around appropriate use of the CPT billing code 88172 is addressed in the commentary from the Economic and Government Affairs Committee of the American Society of Cytopathology (ASC) who have written a timely commentary in this issue of Cytojournal, “Adequate Reimbursement is Crucial to Support Cost-Effective Rapid Onsite Cytopathology Evaluations”. Currently, lack of standardized use within and between pathology departments is stirring unhealthy practices of denying reimbursements for this critical and legitimate cytopathology service. This editorial discusses the important concerns raised in this commentary and recommends immediate corrective action. (See also Al-Abbadi MA, et al. Adequate reimbursement is crucial to support cost-effective rapid on-site cytopathology evaluations. CytoJournal 2010;7:22)
Reconstitution of clathrin-coated pit budding from plasma membranes

Receptor-mediated endocytosis begins with the binding of ligand to receptors in clathrin-coated pits followed by the budding of the pits away from the membrane. We have successfully reconstituted this sequence in vitro. Highly purified plasma membranes labeled with gold were obtained by incubating cells in the presence of anti-LDL receptor IgG-gold at 4 degrees C, attaching the labeled cells to a poly-L-lysine- coated substratum at 4 degrees C and then gently sonicating them to remove everything except the adherent membrane. Initially the gold label was clustered over flat, clathrin-coated pits. After these membranes were warmed to 37 degrees C for 5-10 min in the presence of buffer that contained cytosol extract, Ca2+, and ATP, the coated pits rounded up and budded from the membrane, leaving behind a membrane that was devoid of LDL gold. Simultaneous with the loss of the ligand, the clathrin triskelion and the AP-2 subunits of the coated pit were also lost. These results suggest that the budding of a coated pit to form a coated vesicle occurs in two steps: (a) the spontaneous rounding of the flat lattice into a highly invaginated coated pit at 37 degrees C; (b) the ATP, 150 microM Ca2+, and cytosolic factors(s) dependent fusion of the adjoining membrane segments at the neck of the invaginated pit.
Trading-off simulation fidelity and optimization accuracy in air-traffic experiments using differential evolution

In many engineering applications, black-box optimization relies on the use of a simulation to obtain a numeric evaluation or a score for a proposed solution. The cost of optimization is mostly a reflection of the cost of running this simulation environment. On the one hand, the higher the fidelity of the simulation environment, the longer it is likely to take to evaluate a single solution. Consequently, less solutions are allowed to be evaluated given a time constraint on the running time of the optimization algorithm. On the other hand, the lesser the fidelity of the simulation environment, the more likely more solutions could be evaluated within the same time constraint. However, understanding the relationship between fidelity and the quality of the final solution obtained by the optimization method is largely an unexplored area of research. In this paper, we present an approach for adjusting taskload of Air traffic controllers (ATC) in real time by using three different shadow simulators of increasing fidelity and Differential Evolution (DE) as the evolutionary optimization algorithm. According to air traffic conditions, DE optimizes a goal programming model to steer the taskload up or down towards a predefined taskload target by generating two ATC requests every 10 minutes. The results demonstrate how a high fidelity simulator can help DE to achieve better solution quality in the absence of any time constraint on running the experiments. However, when there is a tight time constraint imposed, lower fidelity simulators allow DE to explore more solutions in the search space by cutting down on the extra time needed when higher fidelity simulators are used.