Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Nonlinear Relationship between Cerebral Serotonin Transporter and 5-HT2A Receptor Binding: An In Vivo Molecular Imaging Study in Humans

Serotonergic neurotransmission is involved in the regulation of physiological functions such as mood, sleep, memory, and appetite. Within the serotonin transmitter system, both the postsynaptically located serotonin 2A (5-HT2A) receptor and the presynaptic serotonin transporter (SERT) are sensitive to chronic changes in cerebral 5-HT levels. Additionally, experimental studies suggest that alterations in either the 5-HT2A receptor or SERT level can affect the protein level of the counterpart. The aim of this study was to explore the covariation between cerebral 5-HT2A receptor and SERT in vivo in the same healthy human subjects. Fifty-six healthy human subjects with a mean age of 36 ± 19 years were investigated. The SERT binding was imaged with [11C]3-amino-4-(2-dimethylaminomethyl-phenylsulfanyl)-benzonitrile (DASB) and 5-HT2A receptor binding with [18F]altanserin using positron emission tomography. Within each individual, a regional intercorrelation for the various brain regions was seen with both markers, most notably for 5-HT2A receptor binding. An inverted U-shaped relationship between the 5-HT2A receptor and the SERT binding was identified. The observed regional intercorrelation for both the 5-HT2A receptor and the SERT cerebral binding suggests that, within the single individual, each marker has a set point adjusted through a common regulator. A quadratic relationship between the two markers is consistent with data from experimental studies of the effect on SERT and 5-HT2A receptor binding of chronic changes in 5-HT levels. That is, the observed association between the 5-HT2A receptor and SERT binding could be driven by the projection output from the raphe nuclei, but other explanations are also at hand.
Information-theoretic Model of ADSL Traffics with Hybrid CDMA/FDMA Microcellular-Fed Fiber System

pertinent analyses pursued in evaluating a subchannel allocation metric (SAM) refer to the following: Hybrid CDMA/FDMA microcellular-fed fiber with a specified BER as the incoming trunk on an ADSL system and FEXT-infested copper lines customer loop access lines. The resultant performance of downs-stream ADSL traffic on subchannels is ascertained by the metric, SAM. Simulated results are presented and discussed. Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) is a high-speed broadband Internet service that is best suited for residential use. In this paper, an analytically tractable information-theoretic model is proposed to determine optimal subchannel allocation in an ADSL system whose down-stream modem has wireline and/or wireless trunks at its input. The relevant (downstream) ADSL modem at the central office is assumed to receive packets from different types of trunks, such as optical lines, copper cables and/or wireless links, or their concatenated version. In information-theoretic point of view, this ADSL modem is modeled as a “demultiplexer” in the sense that it selects out a specific set of bits and assigns it to an appropriate subchannel consistent with the Hartley-Shannon law specified SNR-level of the subchannels. The
Japan and the UN peace operations in the post-Cold War era: Their challenges and choices.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the ways in which Japan can contribute to UN peace operations. In particular, it looks into the political history of Japan as well as its foreign policies in order to understand how Japan's contributions were implemented and why they are characteristically distinct from other countries. During the 1990s, Japan encountered heavy criticism for the way it responded to the Gulf War crisis. This prompted many discussions on the willingness and ability of Japan to contribute to the resolution of international crises. The main criticism was its unwillingness to send personnel to locations in need and instead, only offered financial assistance. The reasons for Japan's behaviour were deeply rooted in the interpretation of its constitution which was established right after the end of World War II. Despite the constraints on Japan's initial offer, the way Japan was subsequently able to contribute was highly effective. This started a new way in which to take part in peace related activities that was distinct from the traditional approaches to peace operations. In order to substantiate this argument, this thesis will look at analyses Japan's involvement in the UN missions in Cambodia and East Timor and draws on this analysis of those operations in order to identify future opportunities.
Broadband band-pass FSS using patch-wire-patch coupled structures

In this letter, a new sort of second-order band-pass frequency selective surface (FSS) with patch-wire-patch elements arranged in triangular grid is proposed. The compact FSS has the merits of broadband response. The -0.5dB bandwidth reaches up to 40.3% and the -3dB bandwidth reaches up to 66%. Moreover, the proposed FSS owns its advantages of miniaturization and excellent insensitivity to incident angles within 45° for both TE and TM polarizations. A prototype is fabricated and measured at X-band. Good agreement between the measured and simulated results is achieved.
Purification and characterization of the Fas-ligand that induces apoptosis

Fas is a 45-kD cell surface protein belonging to the tumor necrosis factor/nerve growth factor receptor family, and transduces the signal for apoptosis. The cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) hybridoma, PC60-d10S requires the presence of Fas on target cells to induce cytolysis in target cells. This CTL cell line was weakly but specifically stained by a chimeric protein that consisted of the extracellular domain of mouse Fas and the Fc portion of human immunoglobulin G1 (mFas-Fc). Moreover, mFas-Fc inhibited the cytotoxic activity of PC60-d10S. Sublines of d10S that were stained intensively by mFas-Fc were isolated by repetitive fluorescence-activated cell sorter sorting. A cell-surface protein of about 40 kD was specifically precipitated by mFas-Fc from the lysates of these sublines. This protein was homogeneously purified by sequential affinity chromatographies using mFas-Fc and concanavalin A beads. The purified protein exhibited cytotoxic activity against cells expressing Fas but not to the cells which do not express Fas. These results indicated that the 40-kD membrane glycoprotein expressed on PC60-d10S cells is the Fas-ligand that induces the apoptotic signal by binding to Fas.
Marker assisted accelerated introgression of null allele of kunitz trypsin inhibitor in soybean

Development of kunitz trypsin inhibitor (KTI)-free soybean is crucial for soy-food industry as the heat inactivation employed to inactivate the anti-nutritional factor in regular soybean incurs extra cost and affects protein solubility. In the presented work, a null allele of KTI from PI542044 was introgressed into cultivar ‘JS97-52’ (recurrent parent) through marker assisted backcrossing. Foreground selection in BC1F2, BC2F2 and BC3F2 was carried out using the null allele-specific marker in tandem with SSR marker Satt228, tightly linked with a trypsin inhibitor Ti locus. Background selection in null allele-carrying plants through 106 polymorphic SSR markers across the genome led to the identification of 9 KTI-free lines exhibiting 98.6% average recurrent parent genome content (RPGC) after three backcrosses, which otherwise had required 5–6 backcrosses through conventional method. Introgressed lines (ILs) were free from KTI and yielded at par with recurrent parent. Reduction of 68.8–83.5% in trypsin inhibitor content (TIC) in ILs compared to the recurrent parent (‘JS97-52’) was attributed to the elimination of KTI.
Human factor considerations of motorist navigation and information systems

A number of important considerations are identified, and information on how they are being addressed by the Administration is presented. Seven basic human factors-related questions are used as a conceptual framework for identifying these considerations, and for describing how they might be addressed. These are: (1) Why do drivers need navigation information? (2) What information do they need? (3) When do they need it? (4) Where should it be located? (5) How should it be displayed and accessed? (6) Who are the users and what are their characteristics? (7) Can they use the systems effectively? It is concluded that it is important that government, private industry, electronics engineers, and human factors specialists work together to produce optimum systems configurations for the motoring public. <<ETX>>
A Statistical Model for Discourse Act Recognition in Dialogue Interactions

This paper discusses a statistical model for recognizing discourse intentions of utterances during dialogue interactions. We argue that this recognition process should be based on features of the current utterance as well as on discourse history, and show that taking into account utterance features such as speaker information and syntactic forms of utterances dramatically improves the system’s performance as compared with a simple trigram model of discourse acts. In addition, we propose that taking into account information about discourse structure may allow the system to construct a more accurate discourse act model and thus improve recognition results. Experiments show this proposal to be promising.
Automated Planning for Situated Natural Language Generation

We present a natural language generation approach which models, exploits, and manipulates the non-linguistic context in situated communication, using techniques from AI planning. We show how to generate instructions which deliberately guide the hearer to a location that is convenient for the generation of simple referring expressions, and how to generate referring expressions with context-dependent adjectives. We implement and evaluate our approach in the framework of the Challenge on Generating Instructions in Virtual Environments, finding that it performs well even under the constraints of realtime generation.
Different effects of inhaled amiloride and frusemide on airway responsiveness to dry air challenge in asthmatic subjects.

Amiloride, a Na+ channel blocker, and frusemide, an inhibitor of the Na+/K+/2Cl- co-transporter on the basolateral surface of airway epithelial cells, have the potential to affect water transport across the airway epithelium. As isocapnic hyperventilation challenge (ISH) with dry air may provoke airway narrowing in asthmatic subjects by dehydrating the airways, inhaled amiloride and frusemide may reduce airway responsiveness by effecting airway hydration. Fifteen asthmatic subjects (6 females, 9 males), who had a fall in forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) of 20% after ISH, inhaled amiloride (11 mg), or its vehicle, from a Fisoneb ultrasonic nebulizer, within 10 min before ISH. On a separate day, eight of these subjects inhaled frusemide (38 mg), from the same Fisoneb, 10 min before ISH. After breathing, 30 l at resting ventilation, subjects breathed at 30% of their maximum voluntary ventilation (MVV i.e. predicted FEV1x35), then at 60% MVV, and finally at MVV for 3 or 4 min. FEV1 was measured 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 min after each period, or until it was stable. Airway sensitivity was expressed as the ventilation (l-min-1) which provoked a 10, 15, 20 or 30% fall in FEV1, (PVE10, PVE15, PVE20 and PVE30, respectively). There was no significant difference in the PVE10,15,20,30 between the vehicle and amiloride treatment day; however, in the 8 subjects who inhaled frusemide, frusemide caused a significant increase in the PVE20 when compared to amiloride. In conclusion, inhaled amiloride failed to protect against ISH, whereas frusemide was effective at reducing airway responsiveness. Further studies are needed to explain the mechanism of action of frusemide.
Common Visual Pattern Recognition Using Hierarchical Clustering Methods with Asymmetric Networks

In this paper we propose a new method for common visual pattern identication via Directed Graphs. For this we match common feature points between two images and then apply hierarchical clustering methods to one of them to discriminate between dierent visual patterns. In order to achieve this last task we introduce a technique to obtain an asymmetric dissimilarity function AX(x;x 0 ) between the nodes X of the network N = (X;AX). For each node, the method weighs the distance between each node and the distance with all the other neighbours. A dendrogram is later obtained as the output of the hierarchical clustering method. Finally we show a criteria to select one of the multiple partitions that conform the dendrogram.
High Level Anatomy for Energy Conversations schemes in Wireless Sensor Networks

In the past years; wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have gained increasing attention from both the research community and actual users. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are used in variety of fields which includes environmental, healthcare, military, biological and other commercial applications. The critical aspects to face concern “how to reduce the energy consumption of nodes” and sensor nodes are generally battery-powered devices so that the network lifetime can be extended to reasonable times. However, we conducted that first break down the energy consumption for the components of a typical sensor node i.e. discussion of the main directions to energy conservation in WSNs. We present a systematic and comprehensive taxonomy of the energy conservation schemes that are subsequently discussed in depth. A technique for energy efficient data acquisition special attention has been devoted to promising solutions that have not yet obtained a wide attention in the literature.
Carry Trades and Tail Risk of Exchange Rates

Historically, Carry trades have been a success story for most investors and a major source of funds for emerging economies maintaining higher interest rates. Therefore it is a timely topic to investigate the risk embedded in such transactions and to what extent the carry trade returns explain the tail risk. Initially, this research estimates the tail index of all the currencies and formulates a unique inverse function for all the currencies in relation to Power laws, with the idea of estimating the respective Value-at-Risk. This research considers twenty five currencies and replicates them in to five portfolios based on the annualised daily return of a weekly forward contract. Trade was executed assuming a U.S. investor, who goes long in the high return portfolio and short in the low return portfolio. Further, this research examines the impact of carry trade returns on the overall tail risk within the context of foreign exchange and interest rate gain in long and short positions of the trade. The results indicate that tail risk cannot be explained effectively by its returns because of its exponential nature. However, this paper finds that, the tail risk is mostly influenced by the long position of the carry trade. Furthermore, the return of the foreign exchange component appears to have a better explanation on the tail risk compared to the interest rate return. The Value-at-Risk analysis also suggests that the tail risk of overall strategy is influenced by the tail risk of foreign exchange component embedded in the long position of the trade.
Pricing and Welfare Impacts of New Crop Traits: The Role of IPRs and Coase's Conjecture Revisited

Crop traits are durable when embedded in varieties, and thus they may be subject to Coase’s conjecture that monopolists who sell durables may be unable to earn normal monopoly rents, or in the extreme case, not any rents at all. To determine the potential relevance of this conjecture for the crop traits market, we analyze the theoretical time path of trait prices under three systems of intellectual property rights (utility patents, plant breeders’ rights, and none), alternative assumptions about sellers’ ability to commit to future action, and alternative assumptions that buyers are either myopic or far-sighted with respect to expectations about the future price of the durable. Under only one of these stylized circumstances does the Coase conjecture have traction, but it is a plausible circumstance in much of the world—owners with plant breeders’ rights, buyers with foresight, sellers unable to commit to future price paths. In this circumstance, this theory suggests that sellers holding only plant breeders rights would realize only 11% of potential social welfare benefits from the trait, while farmers and/or downstream consumers would realize about 85%. On the other hand, with myopic buyers under any system of intellectual property rights, temporal price discrimination is feasible, resulting in above-normal monopolist welfare (about 70% of maximum social welfare benefits) and little damage to consumers relative to normal monopoly pricing.
Are Alcoholics in Bad Jobs?

Alcohol abuse has important implications for the productivity of the US workforce. The lost earnings of workers suffering from alcohol problems have been estimated at $36.6 billion in 1990. After completing schooling, young workers face critical labor market choices with long-ranging consequences for future jobs and lifetime earnings, while many of them also drink alcohol to excess. In this paper, we provide evidence on whether the drinking choices of young adults also have long-ranging consequences for future jobs and lifetime earnings. In doing so we extend previous research on the productivity effects of alcohol to include non-wage job attributes as part of total employee compensation. The goal of this research is to establish benchmark empirical patterns describing relationships between alcoholism and job choice. Our empirical results based on the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) data show that male alcoholics are less likely to receive a variety of fringe benefits, are more likely to be injured on the job, and work for smaller firms. When the conventional methodology is extended to include non-wage job attributes, of an estimated total loss of $2,380 per alcoholic, about $450, or almost 20% or the total, is the value of the lost fringe benefits. The data also show that male alcoholics are less likely to be in a white collar occupation but conditional upon being in a white collar occupation their earnings are similar to their non-alcoholic peers. While alcoholics are more likely to be in a blue collar occupation, conditional upon being in such an occupation they are estimated to earn 15% less than their non-alcoholic peers. These findings help evaluate the potential effects of alcohol, education and income policies and health policy.
An ACO algorithm for image compression

This paper is an application of Ant Colony Metaheuristic (ACO) to the problem of image fractal compression using IFS. An ACO hybrid algorithm is proposed for image fractal compression and the results obtained are shown. According to the tests carried out, the proposed algorithm ofiers images with similar quality to that obtained with a deterministic method, in about 34% less time.
Cell-intrinsic mechanisms of temperature compensation in a grasshopper sensory receptor neuron

Changes in temperature affect biochemical reaction rates and, consequently, neural processing. The nervous systems of poikilothermic animals must have evolved mechanisms enabling them to retain their functionality under varying temperatures. Auditory receptor neurons of grasshoppers respond to sound in a surprisingly temperature-compensated manner: firing rates depend moderately on temperature, with average Q10 values around 1.5. Analysis of conductance-based neuron models reveals that temperature compensation of spike generation can be achieved solely relying on cell-intrinsic processes and despite a strong dependence of ion conductances on temperature. Remarkably, this type of temperature compensation need not come at an additional metabolic cost of spike generation. Firing rate-based information transfer is likely to increase with temperature and we derive predictions for an optimal temperature dependence of the tympanal transduction process fostering temperature compensation. The example of auditory receptor neurons demonstrates how neurons may exploit single-cell mechanisms to cope with multiple constraints in parallel. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.02078. 001
Optimization of resilient weight systems for shortest-path routing in IP networks

In the paper we address traffic engineering problems related to optimization of routing in IP networks applying destination-based shortest path routing (SPR) of the OSPF type. An SPR routing pattern is determined by a system of (administrative) weights defined over the set of IP links: the routes for IP forwarding are determined as the shortest paths computed locally at the nodes using the current link weights. When the shortest path from a certain node (node v, say) to a particular destination (destination t, say) is not unique, the traffic routed from node v to destination t is split equally among all links outgoing from v that belong to the shortest paths to destination t, i.e., according to the Equal Cost Multiple-Paths (ECMP) rule. The basic problem considered in this paper consists in finding a resilient link weight system generating a routing scheme that satisfies given traffic demands and does not lead to link overloads both in the normal network state of operation and in all considered failure states when certain IP links are failed. We assume that if a failure occurs then the weight system is modified by assigning infinite weights to the failed links, and not altering the weights of the remaining, operating links. We consider the traffic engineering goal related to minimization, over all failure states, of the maximal link overload. We formulate the considered problem as a mixed integer programme (MIP) and propose a heuristic algorithm based on the tabu search metaheuristic. The efficiency of the proposed weight optimization method is illustrated by means of a numerical study.
Using backlight intensity for device identification

This paper presents a method for identifying handheld devices (e.g. smart phones and pocket PCs) to facilitate the use of these devices as tangible interfaces for desktop augmented reality systems. The proposed system leverages the ability of these handheld devices to programmatically control their backlight intensity to display a binary code. The codes produced are non-intrusive, require no specialized hardware, and can be generated with most handheld devices. This technique is shown to accurately and robustly identify up to 16 different devices in under 500 msec and is easily expandable to 256 or more devices.