Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Predicting individual differences in low-income children's executive control from early to middle childhood.

The present longitudinal study tested the roles of early childhood executive control (EC) as well as exposure to poverty-related adversity at family and school levels as key predictors of low-income children's EC in elementary school (n = 391). Findings suggest that children's EC difficulties in preschool and lower family income from early to middle childhood are robust predictors of later EC difficulties as rated by teachers in 2nd and 3rd grades. Findings also suggest enrollment in unsafe elementary schools is significantly predictive of higher levels of teacher-rated EC difficulty, but only for those children who showed initially elevated levels of EC difficulty in early childhood. Implications for scientific models of cognitive development and poverty-related adversity are discussed.
A cost-effective LED and photodetector based fast direct 3D diffuse optical imaging system

A cost-effective and high-speed 3D diffuse optical tomography system using high power LED light sources and silicon photodetectors has been designed and built, that can continuously scan and reconstruct spectroscopic images at a frame rate of 2 fps. The system is experimentally validated with tissue mimicking cylindrical resin phantom having light absorbing inhomogeneities of different size, shape and contrast, and at different locations.
Four-Dimensional CT of the Diaphragm in Children: Initial Experience

Objective To evaluate the technical feasibility of four-dimensional (4D) CT for the functional evaluation of the pediatric diaphragm. Materials and Methods In 22 consecutive children (median age 3.5 months, age range 3 days–3 years), 4D CT was performed to assess diaphragm motion. Diaphragm abnormalities were qualitatively evaluated and diaphragm motion was quantitatively measured on 4D CT. Lung density changes between peak inspiration and expiration were measured in the basal lung parenchyma. The diaphragm motions and lung density changes measured on 4D CT were compared between various diaphragm conditions. In 11 of the 22 children, chest sonography was available for comparison. Results Four-dimensional CT demonstrated normal diaphragm (n = 8), paralysis (n = 10), eventration (n = 3), and diffusely decreased motion (n = 1). Chest sonography demonstrated normal diaphragm (n = 2), paralysis (n = 6), eventration (n = 2), and right pleural effusion (n = 1). The sonographic findings were concordant with the 4D CT findings in 90.9% (10/11) of the patients. In diaphragm paralysis, the affected diaphragm motion was significantly decreased compared with the contralateral normal diaphragm motion (−1.1 ± 2.2 mm vs. 7.6 ± 3.8 mm, p = 0.005). The normal diaphragms showed significantly greater motion than the paralyzed diaphragms (4.5 ± 2.1 mm vs. −1.1 ± 2.2 mm, p < 0.0001), while the normal diaphragm motion was significantly smaller than the motion of the contralateral normal diaphragm in paralysis (4.5 ± 2.1 mm vs. 7.6 ± 3.8 mm, p = 0.01). Basal lung density change of the affected side was significantly smaller than that of the contralateral side in diaphragm paralysis (89 ± 73 Hounsfield units [HU] vs. 180 ± 71 HU, p = 0.03), while no significant differences were found between the normal diaphragms and the paralyzed diaphragms (136 ± 66 HU vs. 89 ± 73 HU, p = 0.1) or between the normal diaphragms and the contralateral normal diaphragms in paralysis (136 ± 66 HU vs. 180 ± 71 HU, p = 0.1). Conclusion The functional evaluation of the pediatric diaphragm is feasible with 4D CT in select children.
"Flagellated" cancer cells propel anti-tumor immunity

The use of innate immune receptor agonists in cancer therapies has suffered from many drawbacks. Our recent observations suggest that some of these hurdles can be overcome by introducing flagellin into tumor cells to promote tumor antigen presentation by dendritic cells (DCs) and simultaneously trigger two types of pattern recognition receptors (PRRs).
A Canonical Quadratic Form on the Determinant Line of a Flat Vector Bundle

We introduce and study a canonical quadratic form, called the torsion quadratic form, of the determinant line of a flat vector bundle over a closed oriented odd-dimensional manifold. This quadratic form caries less information than the refined analytic torsion, introduced in our previous work, but is easier to construct and closer related to the combinatorial Farber-Turaev torsion. In fact, the torsion quadratic form can be viewed as an analytic analogue of the Poincare-Reidemeister scalar product, introduced by Farber and Turaev. Moreover, it is also closely related to the complex analytic torsion defined by Cappell and Miller and we establish the precise relationship between the two. In addition, we show that up to an explicit factor, which depends on the Euler structure, and a sign the Burghelea-Haller complex analytic torsion, whenever it is defined, is equal to our quadratic form. We conjecture a formula for the value of the torsion quadratic form at the Farber-Turaev torsion and prove some weak version of this conjecture. As an application we establish a relationship between the Cappell-Miller and the combinatorial torsions.
Characterization and modulation of Na+ and Ca2+ currents underlying the action potential in bag cells of two species of Aplysia.

The neurosecretory bag cells of Aplysia produce long trains of action potentials (afterdischarge) to release hormones important to egg laying. These ionic currents are modulated by second messengers. Modulation of excitability in bag cells is incompletely understood partly because the currents that are modulated have not been fully characterized. Whole-cell voltage-clamp experiments were executed in cultured cells from sexually mature A. californica and A. brasiliana to characterize the inward voltage-gated currents for Na+ and Ca2+. These species had similar Na+ and Ca2+ current characteristics. The Na+ currents activated at voltages less negative than -30 mV and peaked at between +10 and +20 mV in artificial sea water. The time course and pharmacology of bag cell Na+ currents were similar to those of fast Na+ current in other excitable cells. Na+ currents were abolished in Na(+)-free extracellular solution and were not inhibited by Cd2+. The KD for inhibition by tetrodotoxin was 2.6 nmol l-1. The Na+ current was relatively insensitive to depolarized holding potentials (Vh), maintaining approximately 65% of peak current amplitude throughout the activation range at Vh = -30 mV. In experiments using a 1 s depolarized Vh prior to a test pulse, the half-inactivation voltage (V1/2) was -21 mV. The time constant of recovery from steady-state activation was 2.9 ms at Vh = -70 mV and 6.8 ms at Vh = -30 mV. The Ca2+ currents activated near -10 mV and peaked at approximately +20 mV with 11 mmol l-1 Ba2+ as the charge carrier. The pharmacology and V1/2 of bag cell Ca2+ current were similar to those of L-type Ca2+ currents. In extracellular solution without Na+, but containing Ba2+, Cs+ and tetraethylammonium, the Ca2+ current was inhibited by 25-100% by nifedipine (10 mumol l-1), mean 42%, and was unaffected in the majority of cells by omega-conotoxin (10 mumol l-1). The Ca2+ current was insensitive to Ni2+ (100 mumol l-1), but was abolished by 100 mumol l-1 Cd2+. Like the Na+ current, the Ca2+ current was relatively insensitive to depolarized Vh, maintaining more than 80% of peak current amplitude throughout the activation range at Vh = -40 mV. With a 1 s depolarized Vh prior to a test pulse, the V1/2 was -30 mV. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Decentralized language learning through acting

This paper presents an algorithm for learning the meaning of messages communicated between agents that interact while acting optimally towards a cooperative goal. Our reinforcement-learning method is based on Bayesian filtering and has been adapted for a decentralized control process. Empirical results shed light on the complexity of the learning problem, and on factors affecting the speed of convergence. Designing intelligent agents able to adapt their mutual interpretation of messages exchanged, in order to improve overall task-oriented performance, introduces an essential cognitive capability that can upgrade the current state of the art in multi-agent and human-machine systems to the next level. Learning to communicate while acting will add to the robustness and flexibility of these systems and hence to a more efficient and productive performance.
Evaluation of a pGLcNAc-derived Material as an Activator of Intervertebral Disc Tissue Repair

Degeneration of the intervertebral discs is the most common cause of back pain. The early stages of degeneration affect the nucleus pulposus (NP) of the intervertebral discs followed by a rapid degeneration of the annulus fibrosus. Regeneration of the NP may slow down or reverse the progression of the disease. A new deacetylated derivative of a marine diatomic glycosaminoglycan was developed to obtain a hydrogel formulation proposed to have a reparative effect on damaged NP tissue. The hydration kinetics and viscoelastic behaviour of the hydrogel under shear were studied and compared with the behaviour of nondegenerated human lumbar NP. In vitro studies were conducted using primary cell cultures treated with the drug to study cell viability and extracellular matrix factor expression. In vivo studies using New Zealand White (NZW) rabbits have also been conducted using MRI to quantify disc volume followed by histological and immunohistochemical analysis. Rheological data has indicated that the elastic component of the hydrogel dominates the viscous component over a frequency range of 0.1 to 15.85 rad/s. Proteoglycan expression of the treated cells was found to be 78.4 ± 1.9 (p<0.05) times higher than the untreated controls. RTPCR and immunohistochemical data from in vitro studies have demonstrated that characteristic the chondrocyte markers, aggrecan and collagen II, are expressed in the treated cells. A comparison of disc volumes at 6 weeks post-op has shown that the treated discs have 41% greater volume than the untreated
A Stepwise Framework for Flowsheet Integration in Extractive Distillation

The aim of this work is to develop a stepwise framework for energy saving in extractive distillation process on the view of flowsheet integration. It combines process simulation, heat integration and heuristic rule. Evolutionary approach is applied for flowsheet integration according to heuristic rules. C-5 mixture separation process with acetonitrile (ACN) as the solvent is presented as a case study. Based on the heat integration and heuristic rules, an optimal integrated flowsheet was obtained. The simulation results showed that the total consumption of utility could save up to 39.3% compared with the conventional flowsheet before heat integration and 12.5% after heat integration.
What are we looking for: Towards statistical modeling of saccadic eye movements and visual saliency

In this paper, we present a unified statistical framework for modeling both saccadic eye movements and visual saliency. By analyzing the statistical properties of human eye fixations on natural images, we found that human attention is sparsely distributed and usually deployed to locations with abundant structural information. This new observations inspired us to model saccadic behavior and visual saliency based on Super Gaussian Component (SGC) analysis. The model sequentially obtains SGC using projection pursuit, and generates eye-movements by selecting the location with maximum SGC response. Beside human saccadic behavior simulation, we also demonstrated our superior effectiveness and robustness over state-of-the-arts by carrying out dense experiments on psychological patterns and human eye fixation benchmarks. These results also show promising potentials of statistical approaches for human behavior research.
Interprocedural static slicing of binary executables

Although the slicing of programs written in a high-level language has been widely studied in the literature, very little work has been published on the slicing of binary executable programs. The lack of existing solutions is really hard to understand since the application domain for slicing binaries is similar to that for slicing high-level languages. We present a method for the interprocedural static slicing of binary executables. We applied our slicing method to real size binaries and achieved an interprocedural slice size of between 56%-68%. We used conservative approaches to handle unresolved function calls and branching instructions. Our current implementation contains an imprecise (but safe) memory dependence model as well. However, this conservative slicing method might still be useful in analysing large binary programs. We suggest some improvements to eliminate useless edges from dependence graphs as well.
Enzymatic function of alginate immobilized rat hepatocytes

The use of immobilized hepatocytes represents a promising approach for the problem of detoxification in acute hepatic failure. Hepatocyte viability and detoxification function of a number of complex enzyme systems were examined before and after immobilization in alginate droplets. Detoxification function was assessed quantitatively by measuring the kinetics of several specific detoxification systems: the cytochrome P450 system, the urea cycle, and two conjugation systems. Reaction rates for all enzyme systems were similar in immobilized and nonimmobilized cells, and were in good agreement with previously published literature values. These results indicate that transport limitations do not occur in these gels and that the intrinsic reaction rate is the limiting step. Feasibility of detoxification replacement by immobilized cells is discussed using measured reaction rates.
Obstacle avoidance for mobile robots: A Hybrid Intelligent System based on Fuzzy Logic and Artificial Neural Network

Obstacle avoidance is one of the most important aspects of autonomous mobile robots. This task is composed by two phases. First, the robot must detect obstacles in the environment with its sensors. Then, it must choose an appropriate movement to go through the environment without colliding. However, the noise produced during the sensors reading can lead the robot to take wrong decisions. This paper presents the development of an E-Puck mobile robot obstacle avoidance controller using a Hybrid Intelligent System (HIS) based on Fuzzy Logic (FL) and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). The FL treats the data of infrared sensors and then feeds an ANN that decides which movement the robot must perform. The HIS was compared to another approach in which the data of infrared sensors are used directly in an ANN. The empirical results show that HIS avoids more collisions and improves the smoothness of navigation.
Searching Video for Complex Activities with Finite State Models

We describe a method of representing human activities that allows a collection of motions to be queried without examples, using a simple and effective query language. Our approach is based on units of activity at segments of the body, that can be composed across space and across the body to produce complex queries. The presence of search units is inferred automatically by tracking the body, lifting the tracks to 3D and comparing to models trained using motion capture data. We show results for a large range of queries applied to a collection of complex motion and activity. Our models of short time scale limb behaviour are built using labelled motion capture set. We compare with discriminative methods applied to tracker data; our method offers significantly improved performance. We show experimental evidence that our method is robust to view direction and is unaffected by the changes of clothing.
Early History of Mammals Is Elucidated with the ENCODE Multiple Species Sequencing Data

Understanding the early evolution of placental mammals is one of the most challenging issues in mammalian phylogeny. Here, we addressed this question by using the sequence data of the ENCODE consortium, which include 1% of mammalian genomes in 18 species belonging to all main mammalian lineages. Phylogenetic reconstructions based on an unprecedented amount of coding sequences taken from 218 genes resulted in a highly supported tree placing the root of Placentalia between Afrotheria and Exafroplacentalia (Afrotheria hypothesis). This topology was validated by the phylogenetic analysis of a new class of genomic phylogenetic markers, the conserved noncoding sequences. Applying the tests of alternative topologies on the coding sequence dataset resulted in the rejection of the Atlantogenata hypothesis (Xenarthra grouping with Afrotheria), while this test rejected the second alternative scenario, the Epitheria hypothesis (Xenarthra at the base), when using the noncoding sequence dataset. Thus, the two datasets support the Afrotheria hypothesis; however, none can reject both of the remaining topological alternatives.
Magnesium in disease

Although the following text will focus on magnesium in disease, its role in healthy subjects during physical exercise when used as a supplement to enhance performance is also noteworthy. Low serum magnesium levels are associated with metabolic syndrome, Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and hypertension; consequently, some individuals benefit from magnesium supplementation: increasing magnesium consumption appears to prevent high blood pressure, and higher serum magnesium levels are associated with a lower risk of developing a metabolic syndrome. There are, however, conflicting study results regarding magnesium administration with myocardial infarction with and without reperfusion therapy. There was a long controversy as to whether or not magnesium should be given as a first-line medication. As the most recent trials have not shown any difference in outcome, intravenous magnesium cannot be recommended in patients with myocardial infarction today. However, magnesium has its indication in patients with torsade de pointes and has been given successfully to patients with digoxin-induced arrhythmia or life-threatening ventricular arrhythmias. Magnesium sulphate as an intravenous infusion also has an important established therapeutic role in pregnant women with pre-eclampsia as it decreases the risk of eclamptic seizures by half compared with placebo.
Neuropharmacology of New Psychoactive Substances (NPS): Focus on the Rewarding and Reinforcing Properties of Cannabimimetics and Amphetamine-Like Stimulants

New psychoactive substances (NPS) are a heterogeneous and rapidly evolving class of molecules available on the global illicit drug market (e.g smart shops, internet, “dark net”) as a substitute for controlled substances. The use of NPS, mainly consumed along with other drugs of abuse and/or alcohol, has resulted in a significantly growing number of mortality and emergency admissions for overdoses, as reported by several poison centers from all over the world. The fact that the number of NPS have more than doubled over the last 10 years, is a critical challenge to governments, the scientific community, and civil society [EMCDDA (European Drug Report), 2014; UNODC, 2014b; Trends and developments]. The chemical structure (phenethylamines, piperazines, cathinones, tryptamines, synthetic cannabinoids) of NPS and their pharmacological and clinical effects (hallucinogenic, anesthetic, dissociative, depressant) help classify them into different categories. In the recent past, 50% of newly identified NPS have been classified as synthetic cannabinoids followed by new phenethylamines (17%) (UNODC, 2014b). Besides peripheral toxicological effects, many NPS seem to have addictive properties. Behavioral, neurochemical, and electrophysiological evidence can help in detecting them. This manuscript will review existing literature about the addictive and rewarding properties of the most popular NPS classes: cannabimimetics (JWH, HU, CP series) and amphetamine-like stimulants (amphetamine, methamphetamine, methcathinone, and MDMA analogs). Moreover, the review will include recent data from our lab which links JWH-018, a CB1 and CB2 agonist more potent than Δ9-THC, to other cannabinoids with known abuse potential, and to other classes of abused drugs that increase dopamine signaling in the Nucleus Accumbens (NAc) shell. Thus the neurochemical mechanisms that produce the rewarding properties of JWH-018, which most likely contributes to the greater incidence of dependence associated with “Spice” use, will be described (De Luca et al., 2015a). Considering the growing evidence of a widespread use of NPS, this review will be useful to understand the new trends in the field of drug reward and drug addiction by revealing the rewarding properties of NPS, and will be helpful to gather reliable data regarding the abuse potential of these compounds.
Analysis of Human Grasping Behavior: Correlating Tasks, Objects and Grasps

This paper is the second in a two-part series analyzing human grasping behavior during a wide range of unstructured tasks. It investigates the tasks performed during the daily work of two housekeepers and two machinists and correlates grasp type and object properties with the attributes of the tasks being performed. The task or activity is classified according to the force required, the degrees of freedom, and the functional task type. We found that 46 percent of tasks are constrained, where the manipulated object is not allowed to move in a full six degrees of freedom. Analyzing the interrelationships between the grasp, object, and task data show that the best predictors of the grasp type are object size, task constraints, and object mass. Using these attributes, the grasp type can be predicted with 47 percent accuracy. Those parameters likely make useful heuristics for grasp planning systems. The results further suggest the common sub-categorization of grasps into power, intermediate, and precision categories may not be appropriate, indicating that grasps are generally more multi-functional than previously thought. We find large and heavy objects are grasped with a power grasp, but small and lightweight objects are not necessarily grasped with precision grasps-even with grasped object size less than 2 cm and mass less than 20 g, precision grasps are only used 61 percent of the time. These results have important implications for robotic hand design and grasp planners, since it appears while power grasps are frequently used for heavy objects, they can still be quite practical for small, lightweight objects.