Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sequential minimal eigenvalues - an approach to analysis dictionary learning

Over the past decade there has been a great interest in a synthesis-based model for signals, based on sparse and redundant representations. Such a model assumes that the signal of interest can be decomposed as a linear combination of few columns from a given matrix (the dictionary). An alternative, analysis-based, model can be envisioned, where an analysis operator multiplies the signal, leading to a sparse outcome. In this paper we propose a simple but effective analysis operator learning algorithm, where analysis “atoms” are learned sequentially by identifying directions that are orthogonal to a subset of the training data. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm in three experiments, treating synthetic data and real images, showing a successful and meaningful recovery of the analysis operator.
Latency measures of pattern-reversal VEP in adults and infants: different information from transient P1 response and steady-state phase.

PURPOSE Temporal properties such as the peak latency of pattern-reversal (PR) visual evoked potentials (VEPs) have been found to be a sensitive indicator of visual development. Latency can be assessed from the slope of a plot of phase against temporal frequency (TF) for steady state VEP measurements as well as from the transient P1 peak. This study aimed to discover whether the two methods provide different information regarding early visual development. METHODS Developmental changes of the transient peak latency were tracked using low TFs of one to four reversals per second (r/s) and a spatial frequency (SF) of 0.24 cycles per degree (cpd) in comparison with latencies calculated from the phase versus TF gradient in the range of 1 to 19 r/s. PR-VEP responses were recorded from 81 adults and 137 infants (ages 3.6-79 weeks). RESULTS Values of the calculated and transient peak latencies were similar in adults, but the calculated latency was statistically longer than transient peak latency in younger infants. Moreover, while the transient peak latency asymptoted to an adult value of 104 ms at approximately 15 weeks of age, the calculated latency did not asymptote until after 30 weeks. CONCLUSIONS In this study, the effectiveness of the phase-based method to calculate latency was confirmed. In infants, the rapid decrease of P1 latency may be due to the progressive maturation of conduction time in the afferent visual pathways, with the development of adult levels of phase-based calculated latency being due to the maturation of later cortical processing in infants.
Practical utility of amyloid and FDG-PET in an academic dementia center

Objective: To evaluate the effect of amyloid imaging on clinical decision making. Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of 140 cognitively impaired patients (mean age 65.0 years, 46% primary β-amyloid (Aβ) diagnosis, mean Mini-Mental State Examination 22.3) who underwent amyloid (Pittsburgh compound B [PiB]) PET as part of observational research studies and were evaluated clinically before and after the scan. One hundred thirty-four concurrently underwent fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)-PET. We assessed for changes between the pre- and post-PET clinical diagnosis (from Aβ to non-Aβ diagnosis or vice versa) and Alzheimer disease treatment plan. The association between PiB/FDG results and changes in management was evaluated using χ2 and multivariate logistic regression. Postmortem diagnosis was available for 24 patients (17%). Results: Concordance between scan results and baseline diagnosis was high (PiB 84%, FDG 82%). The primary diagnosis changed after PET in 13/140 patients (9%) overall but in 5/13 (38%) patients considered pre-PET diagnostic dilemmas. When examined independently, discordant PiB and discordant FDG were both associated with diagnostic change (unadjusted p < 0.0001). However, when examined together in a multivariate logistic regression, only discordant PiB remained significant (adjusted p = 0.00013). Changes in treatment were associated with discordant PiB in patients with non-Aβ diagnoses (adjusted p = 0.028), while FDG had no effect on therapy. Both PiB (96%) and FDG (91%) showed high agreement with autopsy diagnosis. Conclusions: PET had a moderate effect on clinical outcomes. Discordant PiB had a greater effect than discordant FDG, and influence on diagnosis was greater than on treatment. Prospective studies are needed to better characterize the clinical role of amyloid PET.
Globalization and Underdevelopment in the pre-Modern Third World

A large GDP per capita gap appeared between the industrial core and the poor periphery between 1810 and 1940, the periphery producing, increasingly, primary products. The terms of trade facing the periphery also underwent a secular boom then bust, peaking sometime between the 1870s and World War I. These terms of trade trends appear to have been exogenous to the periphery, and their secular peak varied according to the country’s main export product. Additionally, the terms of trade facing the periphery exhibited relatively high volatility. This lecture argues that these correlations are causal, that secular growth and volatility in the terms of trade had asymmetric effects on economic growth in core and periphery. On the upswing, the secular rise in its terms of trade had powerful de-industrialization effects in the periphery which suppressed growth. Over the full cycle 1810-1940, terms of trade volatility suppressed growth in the periphery as well. Before 1870, “deep” fundamentals probably accounted for a third of the growth gap between core and periphery, while terms of trade experience probably accounted for two thirds. After 1870, these proportions were about reversed. Jeffrey G. Williamson Department of Economics Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138 and NBER and CEPR jwilliam@fas.harvard. edu JEL No. F10, N10, O10
Uncoupling of VEGF with Endothelial NO as a Potential Mechanism for Abnormal Angiogenesis in the Diabetic Nephropathy

Abnormal angiogenesis is a well characterized complication in diabetic retinopathy and is now recognized as a feature of diabetic nephropathy. The primary growth factor driving the increased angiogenesis in diabetic retinopathy and nephropathy is vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). While VEGF is considered an important growth factor for maintaining glomerular capillary integrity and function, increased action of VEGF in diabetic renal disease may carry adverse consequences. Studies by our group suggest that the effects of VEGF are amplified in the setting of endothelial dysfunction and low nitric oxide (NO) levels, which are a common feature in the diabetic state. The lack of NO may amplify the effects of VEGF to induce inflammation (via effects on the macrophage) and may lead to dysregulation of the vasculature, exacerbating features of diabetic renal disease. In this review, we summarize how an “uncoupling” of the VEGF-NO axis may contribute to the pathology of the diabetic kidney.
Connexin 43 Downregulation and Dephosphorylation in Nonischemic Heart Failure Is Associated With Enhanced Colocalized Protein Phosphatase Type 2A

In nonischemic heart failure (HF), ventricular tachycardia initiates by a nonreentrant mechanism, but there is altered conduction (that could lead to re-entry) that could arise from changes in gap junctional proteins, especially connexin43 (Cx43). We studied Cx43 expression and phosphorylation state in the left ventricle (LV) from an arrhythmogenic rabbit model of nonischemic HF and from patients with HF attributable to idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. We also investigated the role of protein phosphatases that dephosphorylate Cx43—PP1 and PP2A. In HF rabbit LV, Cx43 mRNA and total protein were decreased by 29% and 34%, respectively (P<0.05 and P<0.001). In controls, Cx43 was primarily in the phosphorylated state, but with HF there was a 64% increase in nonphosphorylated Cx43 (Cx43-NP, normalized to total Cx43; P<0.05). Similar results were noted in HF rabbit myocytes (P<0.05) and in human idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy LV (P<0.05). We found that PP1 and PP2A colocalized with Cx43 in rabbit LV. With HF, the level of colocalized PP2A increased >2.5-fold (P<0.002), whereas colocalized PP1 was unchanged. We also found intercellular coupling (assessed by Lucifer Yellow dye transfer) was markedly reduced in HF. However, okadaic acid (10 nmol/L) reduced the amount of Cx43-NP and significantly improved cell coupling in HF. Thus, in nonischemic HF in rabbits and humans, there is a decrease in both Cx43 expression and phosphorylation that contributes to uncoupling. Increased levels of PP2A that colocalize with Cx43 can underlie enhanced levels of Cx43-NP in HF. Modulation of Cx43 phosphorylation may be a potential therapeutic target to improve conduction in HF.
On the optimality of likelihood ratio test for local sensor decision rules in the presence of non-ideal channels

Distributed detection has been intensively studied in the past. In this correspondence, we consider the design of local decision rules in the presence of non-ideal transmission channels between the sensors and the fusion center. Under the conditional independence assumption among multiple sensor observations, we show that the optimal local decisions that minimize the error probability at the fusion center amount to a likelihood ratio test given a particular constraint on the fusion rule. This constraint turns out to be quite general and is easily satisfied for most sensible fusion rules. A design example using a parallel sensor fusion structure with binary symmetric channels between local sensors and the fusion center is given to illustrate the usefulness of the result in obtaining optimal thresholds for local sensor observations. The study that incorporates the transmission channel in sensor system design may have potential applications in the emerging field of wireless sensor networks. †Corresponding author. Biao Chen is with Syracuse University, Department of EECS, 121 Link Hall, Syracuse, NY 13244. Phone/Fax: (315)443-3332/2583. Email: bichen@ecs.syr. edu. Peter K. Willett is with the University of Connecticut, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 317 Fairfield Rd. U-1157, Storrs, CT 06269-1157. Phone/Fax: (860)486-2195/2447. Email: willett@engr.uconn. edu.
Optimizing predictive text entry for short message service on mobile phones 1

Mobile phone based SMS messaging is a ubiquitous form of communication in the modern world. However, the 12-key keypad found on many mobile phones today poses problems for text entry. As three or four letters share the same key, some form of disambiguation is required to determine which letter is intended by the user. The predictive text entry method is the most common text entry technique used in present day mobile phones. To measure the efficiency of text entry, we perform a task analysis to model the actions of users and develop keystroke-level and time-level models. A corpus of SMS messages is collected and users were video-taped to obtain timing information for data analysis. Based on these models, we propose methods to improve the predictive text entry method, focusing on remapping letters to keys and examining predictive word completion. Using the time model, we show how both techniques can be reinforce each other to yield a reduction of over 25% of time for message input over the standard predictive text entry model.
EXTENDING MARTINGALE MEASURE STOCHASTIC INTEGRAL WITH APPLICATIONS TO SPATIALLY HOMOGENEOUS S.P.D.E’S

We extend the de(cid:12)nition of Walsh’s martingale measure stochastic integral so as to be able to solve stochastic partial di(cid:11)erential equations whose Green’s function is not a function but a Schwartz distribution. This is the case for the wave equation in dimensions greater than two. Even when the integrand is a distribution, the value of our stochastic integral process is a real-valued martingale. We use this extended integral to recover necessary and su(cid:14)cient conditions under which the linear wave equation driven by spatially homogeneous Gaussian noise has a process solution, and this in any spatial dimension. Under this condition, the non-linear three dimensional wave equation has a global solution. The same methods apply to the damped wave equation, to the heat equation and to various parabolic equations.
What matters to users?: factors that affect users' willingness to share information with online advertisers

Much of the debate surrounding online behavioral advertising (OBA) has centered on how to provide users with notice and choice. An important element left unexplored is how advertising companies' privacy practices affect users' attitudes toward data sharing. We present the results of a 2,912-participant online study investigating how facets of privacy practices---data retention, access to collected data, and scope of use---affect users' willingness to allow the collection of behavioral data. We asked participants to visit a health website, explained OBA to them, and outlined policies governing data collection for OBA purposes. These policies varied by condition. We then asked participants about their willingness to permit the collection of 30 types of information. We identified classes of information that most participants would not share, as well as classes that nearly half of participants would share. More restrictive data-retention and scope-of-use policies increased participants' willingness to allow data collection. In contrast, whether the data was collected on a well-known site and whether users could review and modify their data had minimal impact. We discuss public policy implications and improvements to user interfaces to align with users' privacy preferences.
Passivity-Based Control Design for Cyber-Physical Systems

Real-life Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs), such as automotive vehicles, building automation systems, and groups of unmanned air vehicles are monitored and controlled by networked control systems. The overall system dynamics emerges from the interaction among physical dynamics, computational dynamics, and communication networks. Network uncertainties such as time-varying delay and packet loss cause significant challenges that probihit the application of traditional componentbased design methods. This paper proposes a passive control architecture for designing CPSs that are insensitive to network uncertainties. The proposed method improves orthogonality across the controller design and implementation design layers with respect to network uncertainties, thus empowering modeldriven development. The paper presents the architecture for a simplified system consisting of a robotic manipulator controlled by a digital controller over a wireless network and simulation results that show that the system is insensitive to time-varying network delays.
Interacting Socially through Embodied Action

This chapter contrasts traditional, disembodied information-processing approaches to intersubjectivity in socio-cognitive research with more recent, embodied approaches. Based on an analysis of the shortcomings of the former, it focuses on the latter, but also clarifies different notions of embodiment and its role in cognition and social interaction. Integrating a broad range of theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence from mainly social psychology, social neuroscience, embodied linguistics and gesture studies, four fundamental functions of the body in social interaction are identified: (1) the body as a social resonance mechanism, (2) the body as a means and end in communication and social interaction, (3) embodied action and gesture as a ‘helping hand’ in shaping, expressing and sharing thoughts, and (4) the body as a representational device. The theoretical discussions are illustrated with an example from a case study of insitu embodied social interaction, with a focus on the importance of crossmodal interaction in the process of scaffolding. It is concluded that the body is of crucial importance in understanding social interaction and cognition in general, and in particular the relational nature of mind and intersubjectivity.
Jointly Considering Utterance Importance and Redundancy by Structured Support Vector Machine

In extractive spoken document summarization, it is desired to select important utterances from documents to construct the summary while avoiding redundancy among the selected utterances, but it is not easy to balance the two different goals. In this paper, a supervised spoken document summarization approach is proposed based on structured support vector machine (SVM), in which the above two goals are jointly considered during training. A set of parameters not only describing the ways to evaluate the importance of the utterances but minimizing the redundancy is directly learned from the training set. Encouraging results were obtained on a lecture corpus in the preliminary experiments.
Divergent Mitochondrial Biogenesis Responses in Human Cardiomyopathy

Background— Mitochondria are key players in the development and progression of heart failure (HF). Mitochondrial (mt) dysfunction leads to diminished energy production and increased cell death contributing to the progression of left ventricular failure. The fundamental mechanisms that underlie mt dysfunction in HF have not been fully elucidated. Methods and Results— To characterize mt morphology, biogenesis, and genomic integrity in human HF, we investigated left ventricular tissue from nonfailing hearts and end-stage ischemic (ICM) or dilated (DCM) cardiomyopathic hearts. Although mt dysfunction was present in both types of cardiomyopathy, mt were smaller and increased in number in DCM compared with ICM or nonfailing hearts. mt volume density and mtDNA copy number was increased by ≈2-fold (P<0.001) in DCM hearts in comparison with ICM hearts. These changes were accompanied by an increase in the expression of mtDNA-encoded genes in DCM versus no change in ICM. mtDNA repair and antioxidant genes were reduced in failing hearts, suggestive of a defective repair and protection system, which may account for the 4.1-fold increase in mtDNA deletion mutations in DCM (P<0.05 versus nonfailing hearts, P<0.05 versus ICM). Conclusions— In DCM, mt dysfunction is associated with mtDNA damage and deletions, which could be a consequence of mutating stress coupled with a peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor &ggr; coactivator 1&agr;–dependent stimulus for mt biogenesis. However, this maladaptive compensatory response contributes to additional oxidative damage. Thus, our findings support further investigations into novel mechanisms and therapeutic strategies for mt dysfunction in DCM.
Low-Resolution Molecular Models Reveal the Oligomeric State of the PPAR and the Conformational Organization of Its Domains in Solution

The peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) regulate genes involved in lipid and carbohydrate metabolism, and are targets of drugs approved for human use. Whereas the crystallographic structure of the complex of full length PPARγ and RXRα is known, structural alterations induced by heterodimer formation and DNA contacts are not well understood. Herein, we report a small-angle X-ray scattering analysis of the oligomeric state of hPPARγ alone and in the presence of retinoid X receptor (RXR). The results reveal that, in contrast with other studied nuclear receptors, which predominantly form dimers in solution, hPPARγ remains in the monomeric form by itself but forms heterodimers with hRXRα. The low-resolution models of hPPARγ/RXRα complexes predict significant changes in opening angle between heterodimerization partners (LBD) and extended and asymmetric shape of the dimer (LBD-DBD) as compared with X-ray structure of the full-length receptor bound to DNA. These differences between our SAXS models and the high-resolution crystallographic structure might suggest that there are different conformations of functional heterodimer complex in solution. Accordingly, hydrogen/deuterium exchange experiments reveal that the heterodimer binding to DNA promotes more compact and less solvent-accessible conformation of the receptor complex.
Child-centered interaction in the design of a game for social skills intervention

In this article we describe the CALSIUM framework to elicit children's contributions and perspectives in the design of an online game for enhancing social skills of children. This study advocates a participatory design approach that emphasizes the active involvement of users at the early part of the design process. The children play-tested the game prototype and participated in focus group discussions. Using storyboarding, a low-fidelity prototyping technique, they developed design concepts and ideas which were translated into design directions for the development of the game. The data collected were used to glean insights into the likes and dislikes of children and to analyze the opportunities and challenges in engaging children as users, testers, informants, and design partners. Besides stretching children's creativity and critical thinking on the game design, the children's cognitive understanding of social knowledge was enhanced, evident from the design artifacts produced.
The Parkinson's disease protein DJ-1 is neuroprotective due to cysteine-sulfinic acid-driven mitochondrial localization

Loss-of-function DJ-1 mutations can cause early-onset Parkinson's disease. The function of DJ-1 is unknown, but an acidic isoform accumulates after oxidative stress, leading to the suggestion that DJ-1 is protective under these conditions. We addressed whether this represents a posttranslational modification at cysteine residues by systematically mutating cysteine residues in human DJ-1. WT or C53A DJ-1 was readily oxidized in cultured cells, generating a pI 5.8 isoform, but an artificial C106A mutant was not. We observed a cysteine-sulfinic acid at C106 in crystalline DJ-1 but no modification of C53 or C46. Oxidation of DJ-1 was promoted by the crystallization procedure. In addition, oxidation-induced mitochondrial relocalization of DJ-1 and protection against cell death were abrogated in C106A but not C53A or C46A. We suggest that DJ-1 protects against neuronal death, and that this is signaled by acidification of the key cysteine residue, C106.