Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Antiemetics of the 5-Hydroxytryptamine 3A Antagonist Class Inhibit Muscle Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors

Antagonists of the serotonergic 5-hydroxytryptamine 3A receptor (5-HT3AR) and muscle nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChR) are widely used in anesthesia practice. Both 5-HT3AR and nAChR are ligand-gated ion channels with known pharmacological overlap between some of their agonists and antagonists. We studied the actions of clinically used 5-HT3AR antagonist antiemetics and nondepolarizing muscle blockers on ionic currents elicited by the activation of mammalian 5-HT3AR and muscle nAChR, expressed in Xenopus laevis oocytes. Currents were recorded using a whole-cell two-electrode voltage clamp technique. Dolasetron, ondansetron, and granisetron reversibly inhibited 5-HT3AR function at nanomolar concentrations with 50% inhibitory concentrations (IC50) of 11.8, 6.4, and 0.2 nM; the rank order of inhibition correlated well with their clinical antiemetic potencies. The principal metabolite of dolasetron, hydrodolasetron, was 40 times more potent than the parent compound on 5-HT3AR (IC50 = 0.29 nM). The potency of the nondepolarizing muscle blocker d-tubocurarine in blocking 5-HT3AR was similar to that of the antiemetics and significantly more than vecuronium and rapacuronium (IC50 = 11.4 nM, 18.9 &mgr;M, 60.5 &mgr;M). Conversely, ondansetron, dolasetron, and granisetron also reversibly inhibited nAChR currents in a dose-dependent manner with IC50s of 14.2, 7.8, and 4.4 &mgr;M for the adult nAChR and 16.0, 18.6, and 13.9 &mgr;M for the embryonic nAChR. Again, hydrodolasetron showed significantly (10 times) more inhibitory potency on the adult nAChR than the parent compound dolasetron. These results indicate that drugs that target specific ligand-gated ion channels may also affect other ion channel types.
Wronskian and Grammian Solutions to the (3+1)-Dimensional BKP Equation

In this paper, the (3+1)-dimensional BKP equation is mainly being discussed. Based on the the Wronskian technique and the Pfaan properties, Wronskian and Grammian solutions have been established. Generating functions for matrix entries satisfy linear system of partial dierential equations involving a free parameter.
Language and Cognition Integration through Modeling Field Theory : Simulations on Category Formation for Symbol Grounding

Modeling Field Theory is based on the principle of associating lower-level signals (e.g., inputs, bottom-up signals) with higher-level concept-models (e.g. internal representations, categories/concepts, top-down signals) avoiding the combinatorial complexity inherent to such a task. In this paper we present an extension of the Modeling Field Theory algorithm for the classification of objects. Simulations show that (i) the system is able to dynamically adapt when an additional feature is introduced during learning, (ii) that this algorithm can be applied to the classification of action patterns in the context of cognitive robotics and (iii) that it is able to classify multi-feature objects from complex stimulus set. The use of Modeling Field Theory for studying the integration of language and cognition in robots is discussed.
EvalSVC — An evaluation platform for scalable video coding transmission

Scalable Video Coding is the latest extension of the famous Advance Video Coding standard. The main advantage of SVC is that it can provide scalability for visual services which are serving customers with heterogeneous network conditions and terminals' capabilities. Nevertheless, the multimedia service research community and industry have not been able to fully utilize the entire potential of this video coding standard extension. One important reason is because of the lack of an evaluation tool-set and platform widely available for usage in the designing, evaluating as well as deploying processes of SVC-based visual services. EvalSVC aims to fill this gap and fosters SVC-based applications and research in multimedia services. It is capable of evaluating the enhanced features (such as spatial, temporal, SNR, and combined scalability) of SVC bit-streams transmitting over real or simulated networks. This tool-set is publicly available.
Generalizing interface design knowledge: lessons learned from developing a claims library

The experience of preparing interface design knowledge to be reusable allows reflection on the process, potential and general challenges of effectively and efficiently using this knowledge in design tasks. With an interest in crafting a catalog for design claims that would implement recent reuse theory in the human-computer interaction field, we developed and implemented a unique process of creating reusable content for notification systems - interfaces used for multitasking. This process, which we describe and illustrate, extends previous work on capturing metadata related to design claims. The data and metadata are stored in the catalog, which is intended to be accessible to other designers for reuse in other domains. The multitask nature of our catalog subject matter highlights a major challenges faced in reuse: the generalization specific and contextual information (claims). The challenge of balancing abstraction with specificity to ensure both meaningful and domain-independent data is also addressed. We believe that our approach can generalize to other reuse projects that strive for cross-domain knowledge application.
BINDER: An Extrusion-Based Break-In Detector for Personal Computers

Compromised computers have been a menace to both personal and business computing. In this paper, we tackle the problem of automated detection of break-ins of new unknown threats such as worms, spyware and adware on personal computers. We propose Break-IN DEtectoR (BINDER), a host-based break-in detection system. Our key observation is that many break-ins make extrusions, stealthy malicious outgoing network connections. BINDER exploits a unique characteristic of personal computers, that most network activities are directly or indirectly triggered by user input. Since threats tend to run as background precesses and thus do not receive any user input, the intuition behind BINDER is that only threats generate connections without user input. By correlating outgoing network connections and processing information with user activities, BINDER can capture extrusions and thus break-ins.
Treatment of polyarteritis nodosa and microscopic polyangiitis without poor-prognosis factors: A prospective randomized study of one hundred twenty-four patients.

OBJECTIVE To assess the efficacy of systemic corticosteroids alone as first-line treatment of polyarteritis nodosa (PAN) and microscopic polyangiitis (MPA) without poor-prognosis factors as defined by the Five-Factors Score (FFS), and to compare the efficacy and safety of azathioprine versus pulse cyclophosphamide as adjunctive immunosuppressive therapy for patients experiencing treatment failure or relapse. METHODS This prospective, multicenter, therapeutic trial included 124 patients with newly diagnosed PAN or MPA (FFS of 0) treated with corticosteroids alone. At the time of treatment failure or disease relapse, patients were randomized to receive 6 months of therapy with oral azathioprine or 6 pulses of cyclophosphamide. Analyses was performed according to an intent-to-treat strategy. RESULTS The mean +/- SD followup period was 62 +/- 33 months. Treatment with corticosteroids alone induced remission in 98 patients; 50 (40%) of these patients had sustained disease remission, 46 (37%) experienced a relapse, and 2 became corticosteroid dependent (daily prednisone dose > or = 20 mg). In 26 patients (21%), treatment with corticosteroids alone failed, and 49 patients (40%) required additional immunosuppression. Among the 39 patients randomized, 13 of 19 achieved remission with cyclophosphamide pulses, and 14 of 20 achieved remission with azathioprine. Among all patients, the 1-year and 5-year survival rates were 99% and 92%, respectively. Six deaths occurred in the cyclophosphamide-treated group compared with 2 deaths in the azathioprine-treated group. Disease-free survival was significantly lower for patients with MPA than for those with PAN (P = 0.046). CONCLUSION For patients with PAN or MPA with an FFS of 0, overall 5-year survival was good, but first-line corticosteroid treatment was able to achieve and maintain remission in only about half of the patients, and 40% of the patients required additional immunosuppressive therapy. Azathioprine or pulse cyclophosphamide was fairly effective for treating corticosteroid-resistant disease or major relapses.
Serum screening for Down's syndrome: experiences of obstetricians in England and Wales

Abstract Objectives: To assess the experiences of obstetricians in England and Wales of serum screening for Down's syndrome. Design: Postal questionnaire survey. Subjects: Questionnaires were sent to all practising obstetricians in England and Wales with non-academic20appointments who had not participated in an earlier (randomly sampled) survey of obstetricians' attitudes (n=555). Responses were received from 393 (71%), of which 351 were analysed. The data represent about one third of obstetric consultants in England and Wales. Main outcome measures: The extent of use of serum screening for Down's syndrome, and the problems encountered. Results: Serum screening for Down's syndrome was being offered on some basis by virtually all obstetricians in the survey. Nearly half the sample said that they did not have adequate resources for counselling all the women to whom screening was offered. Many problems were reported, which in all cases were more common than equivalent problems encountered with serum screening for neural tube defects. Over 80% (289) said that women not understanding the test was a problem. Conclusions: There is considerable confusion associated with serum screening for Down's syndrome. The precedent of serum screening for neural tube defects does not seem to have lessened the problems experienced, rather the contrary. Many obstetricians report inadequate resources for counselling, which is consistent with the high prevalence of problems associated with women not understanding the test. There is an urgent need to consider what counselling should consist of and who should undertake it and to ensure that necessary resources are available.
Implementation of an embedded dual-core processor for portable medical electronics applications

Algorithm specifications drive the computation capability requirements of processor in wearable and portable medical devices. This paper presents an embedded dual-core processor, named dual-core processor unification (IMS-DPU), in which two PKU-DSP II RISC cores are embedded for increased computation complexity and enhanced functionality as well as a snoop control unit (SCU) to maintain cache coherency and an on-chip debug (OCD) unit to support in-circuit debug. The instruction set is specifically extended for medical electronics applications, and abundant inter-core communication mechanisms are provided. The redesigned control path reduces the area and power consumption. FPGA prototyping results show the correctness of the design, and it is synthesized by CSMC 180nm CMOS technology process with a clock frequency of 100 MHz and 999.5K equivalent logic gates, including 42KB memory.
Partial Current Harmonic Compensation in Dual Three-Phase PMSMs Considering the Limited Available Voltage

Multiphase electric machines are known to have problems with stator current harmonics. The harmonics can be eliminated by various current harmonic compensation methods. However, using the active harmonic compensation can increase the required output voltage of the inverter supplying the machine. Because the maximum voltage is limited, complete elimination of the current harmonics may not always be possible. For such cases, this paper introduces a strategy for a partial compensation of the current harmonics. The aim of the proposed strategy is to provide a maximum reduction in the magnitude of the harmonics when the available voltage is limited. The strategy is verified by experimental results.
Phylogeographic concordance in the southeastern United States: the flatwoods salamander, Ambystoma cingulatum, as a test case

Well‐supported, congruent phylogeographic and biogeographic patterns permit the development of a priori phylogeographic and distributional predictions. In the southeastern Coastal Plain of the United States, the common discovery of east–west disjunctions (phylogeographic breaks and species’ distributional boundaries) suggests that similar disjunctions should occur in codistributed taxa. Despite the near ubiquity of these disjunctions, the most recent morphological analyses of the flatwoods salamander, Ambystoma cingulatum, indicate that none occur in this low‐vagility, Coastal Plain endemic. We conducted molecular and morphological analyses to test whether the flatwoods salamander is an exception to this common biogeographic pattern. Assessing geographic variation in this species is also an important management tool for this threatened, declining amphibian. We demonstrate that flatwoods salamanders, as predicted by comparisons to codistributed taxa, are polytypic with a major disjunction at the Apalachicola River. This drainage is a common site for east–west phylogeographic breaks, probably because repeated marine embayments during the Pliocene and Pleistocene interglacials generated barriers to gene flow. Based on mitochondrial DNA, morphology, and allozymes, we recognize two species of flatwoods salamanders — Ambystoma cingulatum to the east of the Apalachicola drainage and Ambystoma bishopi to the west. Given this increased diversity, the conservation status of these two taxa may warrant re‐evaluation. More generally, these results emphasize that in the absence of taxon‐specific data, established comparative patterns can provide strong expectations for designing management units for unstudied species of conservation concern.
Generating frequent itemsets incrementally: two novel approaches based on Galois lattice theory

Galois (concept) lattice theory has been successfully applied in data mining for the resolution of the association rule problem. In particular, structural results about lattices have been used in the design of efficient procedures for mining the frequent patterns (itemsets) in transaction databases. Since such databases are often dynamic, we propose a detailed study of the incremental aspects in lattice construction to support effective procedures for incremental mining of frequent closed itemsets (FCIs). Based on a set of descriptive results about lattice substructures involved in incremental updates, the paper presents a novel algorithm for lattice construction that explores only limited parts of a lattice for updating. Two new methods for incremental FCI mining are studied: the first inherits its extensive search strategy from a classical lattice method, whereas the second applies the new lattice construction strategy to the itemset mining context. Unlike batch techniques based on FCIs, both methods avoid rebuilding the FCI family from scratch whenever new transactions are added to the database and/or when the minimal support is changed.
Effect of small sided handball game on aerobic capacity and repeated sprint ability of male handball players

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of four and eight weeks small-sided handball game on aerobic capacity and repeated sprint ability of male handball players. Sixteen (16) male university handball players volunteered to act as subjects and were randomly assigned to small-sided handball game group (SSHG) and control group (CG). Small-sided handball game was administered three days in a week for eight weeks. Subjects were measured on aerobic capacity, total sprint time and fatigue index on three occasions first before administration of training as pre-test, after four weeks of training as mid test and after eight weeks of training as post-test. A two-way repeated measure ANOVA with last factor repeated revealed that aerobic capacity, total sprint time and fatigue index improved (p<0.05). Aerobic capacity showed an improvement of 4.75% after four weeks and 8.83% % after eight weeks of small-sided handball game training in male handball players. Similarly, total sprint time and fatigue index also decreased 4.19% and 34.9 % only after eight weeks of training but after four weeks no changes is observed. This study shows that small-sided handball game (4 vs. 4) is effective in improving aerobic capacity in four and eight weeks of training but total sprint time and fatigue index elicited changes only after eight weeks.
Monitoring speakers' L2 maintenance effort

This presentation investigates the possibility of regular user-friendly monitoring of L2 maintenance effort (Herdina and Jessner 2002). A questionnaire was prepared comprising questions about the amount of time participants spent on purposeful practice of their English language skills (PURP) and English language usage in their free time (FREE) thanks to their L2 friendly environment. In the questionnaire the participants were required to mark the amount of time (in minutes) they had spent working on each English language skill that day PURP and FREE as well as mark how much they “felt” they had learned English while doing so. The participants were to mark this “feeling of learning” (de Bot, personal communication) on a slidebar which translated their answers onto a 0-10 scale. The questionnaire was prepared as a user-friendly internet application. The participants were instructed to fill it in twice a week (two days of their own choice) over a period of one semester. It was hypothesized that the participants would report using English more in PURP than in FREE activities. Moreover, it was predicted that they would report feeling having learned more while doing PURP than FREE activities. The results of 19 participants, who were English language students, were analysed descriptively. The first hypothesis was proven for all skills except for the listening skill (more FREE than PURP time). The second hypothesis was proven for all the skills. Once tested, it is hoped that this questionnaire could become an instrument used in longitudinal SLA studies for the purposes of L2 (and multilingual) usage monitoring. Reference: Herdina, P. and Jessner, U. (2002). A Dynamic Model of Multilingualism: Perspectives and Change in Psycholinguistics. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
A fault tolerant architecture for supervisory control of discrete event systems

Abstract In this paper the problem of Fault Tolerant Control (FTC) in the framework of Discrete Event Systems (DES) modeled as automata is considered. The approach we follow is the so-called active approach in which the supervisor actively reacts to the detection of a malfunctioning component in order to eventually meet degraded control specifications. Starting from an appropriate model of the system, we recall the notion of safe diagnosability as a necessary step in order to achieve fault tolerant supervision of DES. We then introduce two new notions: (i) “safe controllability”, which represents the capability, after the occurrence of a fault, of steering the system away from forbidden zones and (ii) “active fault tolerant system”, which is the property of safely continuing operation after faults. We show how it is possible to define a general control architecture to deal with the FTC problem by introducing a special kind of automaton, called a “diagnosing-controller”.
Prion Remains Infectious after Passage through Digestive System of American Crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos)

Avian scavengers, such as American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos), have potential to translocate infectious agents (prions) of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) diseases including chronic wasting disease, scrapie, and bovine spongiform encephalopathy. We inoculated mice with fecal extracts obtained from 20 American crows that were force-fed material infected with RML-strain scrapie prions. These mice all evinced severe neurological dysfunction 196–231 d postinoculation ( = 198; 95% CI: 210–216) and tested positive for prion disease. Our results suggest a large proportion of crows that consume prion-positive tissue are capable of passing infectious prions in their feces ( = 1.0; 95% CI: 0.8–1.0). Therefore, this common, migratory North American scavenger could play a role in the geographic spread of TSE diseases.
Analysis of Volatile Bacterial Metabolites by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

A method for the identification of key volatile organic compound (VOC) markers associated with infection by Neisseria meningitidis bacteria by gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry (GC‐MS) was developed. Headspace samples of bacterial VOCs were trapped on triple-sorbent bed tubes and then thermally desorbed into a laboratory GC‐MS system for separation. Identification was carried out by comparison of GC retention time and electron ionization mass spectra to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) database. Further confirmation was obtained by GC‐MS of known standard chemicals. A total of 75 VOCs were detected, five of which can be considered key VOC markers for Neisseria meningitidis. These peaks were identified as 1,2-dimethylcyclopropane, 2-methylpropanal, methacrolein, N-2-dimethyl-1-propanamine, and 3-methylbutanal by the NIST database.
How participatory can participatory modeling be ? A discussion of the degree of influence and stakeholder and expert perspectives in six dimensions of participatory modeling

The authors are involved in a project aiming at the development of a methodology for participatory modeling (DEMO) as a tool for public participation in water resource management. In this paper, some examples of different degrees of stakeholder influence in six key dimensions of participatory modeling are identified and discussed. Arnstein’s (1969) critical discussion of different degrees of “real” decision-making power is taken as a point of departure to assess possible degrees of stakeholder influence. Can we as participatory modelers be sure that we are really inviting our research objects to an equal communicative relationship where local perspectives, knowledge and priorities is respected to the same extent as central and/or expert perspectives? The paper presents an approach that could be used as a tool for structured reflection to avoid un-reflected tendencies towards expert knowledge dominance and low degree of stakeholder real influence over the process.
Development of a Facial Expression Imitation System

In the last decade, face analysis, e.g. face recognition, face detection, face tracking and facial expression recognition, is a very lively and expanding research field. As computer animated agents and robots bring a social dimension to human computer interaction, interest in this research field is increasing rapidly. In this paper, we introduce an artificial facial expression mimic system which can recognize facial expressions of human and also imitate the recognized facial expressions. We propose a classifier that is based on weak classifiers obtained by using modified rectangular features to recognize human facial expression in real-time. Next, we introduce our robot that is manipulated by a distributed control algorithm and that can make artificial facial expressions. Finally, experimental results of facial expression recognition and facial expression generation are shown for the validity of our artificial facial expression imitator