Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Endogenous Wnt Signaling Maintains Neural Progenitor Cell Potency

Wnt signaling regulates neural stem cell (NSC) function and development throughout an individual's lifetime. Intriguingly, adult hippocampal progenitors (AHPs) produce several Wnts, and the intracellular machinery necessary to respond to them, creating the potential for an active autocrine‐signaling loop within this stem cell niche. However, the standard luciferase‐based Wnt assay failed to detect this signaling loop. This assay is inherently less temporally sensitive to activity among a population of unsynchronized proliferating cells because it relies on the rapidly degrading reporter luciferase. We circumvented this limitation using a promoter assay that employs green fluorescent protein (GFP), as a relatively long‐lived reporter of canonical Wnt activity. We found that at baseline, AHPs secreted functional Wnt that self‐stimulates low‐level canonical Wnt signaling. Elimination baseline Wnt activity, via application of an extracellular Wnt antagonist promoted neurogenesis, based on a combination of unbiased gene expression analysis and cell‐fate analysis. A detailed clonal analysis of progenitors transduced with specific intracellular antagonists of canonical signaling, either Axin or truncated cadherin (β‐catenin sequestering), revealed that loss of baseline signaling depletes the population of multipotent precursors, thereby driving an increasing fraction to assume a committed cell fate (i.e., unipotent progenitors). Similarly, baseline Wnt signaling repressed differentiation of human NSCs. Although the specific Wnts produced by neural precursors vary with age and between species, their effects remain remarkably consistent. In sum, this study establishes that autonomous Wnt signaling is a conserved feature of the neurogenic niche that preserves the delicate balance between NSC maintenance and differentiation. Stem Cells 2009;27:1130–1141
PCDS: Power Control with Opportunistic Scheduling for Cognitive Radio Networks Reconfiguration

Cognitive Radio network (CR N ) is a network composed of elements that, through learning and reasoning, dynamically adapt to varying network conditions in order to improve spectrum efficiency for wireless networking. To investigate opportunistic scheduling, this paper develops a methodology based on the jointly consideration of the power control , spectrum allocation and flow routing. The two-phrase cross-layer design with multi - user interference consideration is explained. The influences from the diverse transmission power control are identified. To support user communication sessions, the Power Control with Decentralized Scheduling (PCDS) algorithm with reconfiguration management scheme is presented, which can dramatically improve spectral efficiency and performance of a multi-hop network. Using Bandwidth Foot Product (BFP) as a link metric, the power control granularity is predicted by a proposed strategy that considers radio resource management. The experimental results show that PCDS with reconfiguration can achieve good power granularity control and high spectrum allocation success rate.
Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease

This is the second of a series of articles based on presentations at the American Diabetes Association (ADA) 70th Scientific Sessions, held 25–29 June 2010 in Orlando, Florida, pertaining to cardiovascular disease (CVD). At a symposium on the relationship between diabetes and CVD, Silvio E. Inzucchi, New Haven, CT, reviewed findings of the Detection of Ischemia in Asymptomatic Diabetes (DIAD) study. Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality, but a concern is that myocardial ischemia may be silent, with its first presentation an acute myocardial infarction or sudden death. If CAD can be identified in a preclinical stage, identifying patients with silent ischemia might lead to benefits beyond that from intensive risk factor reduction, perhaps leading to “more serious” risk factor treatment, both on the part of the physician and on the part of the patient, or, perhaps, to benefits beyond that from recommending revascularization. Screening can involve electrocardiographic exercise testing, myocardial perfusion imaging or stress echocardiography after adenosine or exercise, or computed tomography angiography. There were three portions to the DIAD study; the first described the prevalence and predictors of silent ischemia, the second identified which factors were associated with progression and which with regression of CAD, and the third addressing the question of whether cardiac event rates were affected by screening versus not screening among individuals with type 2 diabetes. With adenosine-sestamibi single photon emission computed tomography myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI), DIAS endeavored to identify high-risk patients based on conventional risk factors. The study included 1,123 eligible type 2 diabetic patients age 50–75 years without a history of CAD and with a normal resting electrocardiogram, randomized to undergo or not undergo MPI (1). Of 522 screened, 113 (22%) had abnormalities, substantially fewer than the 50–60% anticipated, with 83 showing perfusion abnormality, and 30 …
Minimum Generation Error Training for HMM-Based Speech Synthesis

In HMM-based speech synthesis, there are two issues critical related to the MLE-based HMM training: the inconsistency between training and synthesis, and the lack of mutual constraints between static and dynamic features. In this paper, we propose minimum generation error (MGE) based HMM training method to solve these two issues. In this method, an appropriate generation error is defined, and the HMM parameters are optimized by using the generalized probabilistic descent (GPD) algorithm, with the aims to minimize the generation errors. From the experimental results, the generation errors were reduced after the MGE-based HMM training, and the quality of synthetic speech is improved
Comment évaluer la valeur sociale d'un bien? D'une définition substantive à la construction sociale d'une procédure de qualification

Les strategies de responsabilite sociale des entreprises (RSE) conduisent certaines d'entre elles, comme ArcelorMittal, a se demander quelle est la ‘valeur sociale' de ses produits. Pour definir ce qu'est la valeur sociale, nous nous appuyons sur la litterature scientifique en economie dans laquelle le concept de ‘valeur' est une question canonique. Une definition objective de la valeur sociale ne peut etre fournie puisqu'elle resulte d'un jugement collectif issu d'interactions sociales au sein d'un groupe (espace politique). C'est pourquoi, nous mobilisons le concept de ‘going concern' de Commons ainsi que l'analyse d'Ostrom relative aux autorites politiques, lesquels revelent la necessite de construire une procedure politique de qualification des parametres constituant la valeur sociale. Cette procedure se doit de faire sens aupres du going concern, c'est-a-dire aupres de ceux qui y participent. Nous proposons par consequent une methode scientifique pour operationnaliser cette procedure politique dans le cadre d'une recherche action. Mots-cles : Valeur sociale, Responsabilite sociale de l'entreprise, Going concern, Procedure politique, Recherche action Because of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) agendas, some firms, like ArcelorMittal, wish to know the ‘social value' of their products. We therefore develop in this paper the scientific literature on the concept of value - which has been a canonic issue for economics - in order to define the concept of social value. The ‘social value' cannot be defined as an ‘objective' nature and refers instead to a collective judgment emerging from social interactions within a group (political sphere). We therefore use Commons' concept of ‘going concern' and Ostrom's analysis of political authorities, which both reveal that defining the ‘social value' of a product implies the design a political procedure for qualifying the variables. Such a procedure will make sense to the going concern, i.e the ones that will have a say in this procedure. We have finally design a scientific method in order to operationalize this political procedure on the field, which can be an aim to achieve for CSR strategies. Key words: Social value, Corporate social responsibility, Going concern, Political procedure, Action research
Photoacoustic Tomography of Human Hepatic Malignancies Using Intraoperative Indocyanine Green Fluorescence Imaging

Recently, fluorescence imaging following the preoperative intravenous injection of indocyanine green has been used in clinical settings to identify hepatic malignancies during surgery. The aim of this study was to evaluate the ability of photoacoustic tomography using indocyanine green as a contrast agent to produce representative fluorescence images of hepatic tumors by visualizing the spatial distribution of indocyanine green on ultrasonographic images. Indocyanine green (0.5 mg/kg, intravenous) was preoperatively administered to 9 patients undergoing hepatectomy. Intraoperatively, photoacoustic tomography was performed on the surface of the resected hepatic specimens (n = 10) under excitation with an 800 nm pulse laser. In 4 hepatocellular carcinoma nodules, photoacoustic imaging identified indocyanine green accumulation in the cancerous tissue. In contrast, in one hepatocellular carcinoma nodule and five adenocarcinoma foci (one intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma and 4 colorectal liver metastases), photoacoustic imaging delineated indocyanine green accumulation not in the cancerous tissue but rather in the peri-cancerous hepatic parenchyma. Although photoacoustic tomography enabled to visualize spatial distribution of ICG on ultrasonographic images, which was consistent with fluorescence images on cut surfaces of the resected specimens, photoacoustic signals of ICG-containing tissues decreased approximately by 40% even at 4 mm depth from liver surfaces. Photoacoustic tomography using indocyanine green also failed to identify any hepatocellular carcinoma nodules from the body surface of model mice with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis. In conclusion, photoacoustic tomography has a potential to enhance cancer detectability and differential diagnosis by ultrasonographic examinations and intraoperative fluorescence imaging through visualization of stasis of bile-excreting imaging agents in and/or around hepatic tumors. However, further technical advances are needed to improve the visibility of photoacoustic signals emitted from deeply-located lesions.
Noradrenergic vascular hyper-responsiveness in human hypertension is dependent on oxygen free radical impairment of nitric oxide activity.

BACKGROUND Noradrenergic vascular hyper-responsiveness is a hallmark of essential hypertension. To evaluate whether nitric oxide plays a role in the enhanced vascular response to norepinephrine in hypertension, we examined 32 hypertensives and 28 normotensives who were distributed in 3 experimental series. METHODS AND RESULTS In the first series, we measured the forearm blood flow (FBF) response to a norepinephrine infusion under control conditions and during the infusion of L-N-monomethylarginine (L-NMMA). Norepinephrine evoked dose-dependent vasoconstriction that was greater in hypertensives than in normotensives (maximum FBF, -61+/-1 versus -51+/-1%; P<0.01). During L-NMMA infusion, norepinephrine vasoconstriction was not modified in hypertensives; however, it was potentiated in normotensives (maximum FBF, -64+/-2%; P<0.01). In the second series, we tested whether norepinephrine vasoconstriction could be affected by an antioxidant such as ascorbic acid. Norepinephrine vasoconstriction was blunted by ascorbic acid administration only in hypertensives (maximum FBF, -49+/-3 versus -63+/-2%; P<0.01); the vasoconstriction became similar to that observed in normotensives. During ascorbic acid plus L-NMMA administration, the vascular response to norepinephrine increased to a similar extent in both study groups. To rule out the possibility that the effect of ascorbic acid on norepinephrine vasoconstriction could depend on adrenergic receptor-induced nitric oxide release, in the last series we inhibited endogenous nitric oxide and replaced it with an exogenous nitric oxide donor (sodium nitroprusside). Even in these conditions, ascorbic acid attenuated norepinephrine vasoconstriction only in hypertensives (maximum FBF, -50+/-2 versus -62+/-1%; P<0.01). CONCLUSIONS Our data demonstrate that noradrenergic vascular hyper-responsiveness in hypertension is dependent on an impairment of nitric oxide activity that is realized through norepinephrine-induced oxygen free radical production.
Sustained Magnetic Responses in Temporal Cortex Reflect Instantaneous Significance of Approaching and Receding Sounds

Rising sound intensity often signals an approaching sound source and can serve as a powerful warning cue, eliciting phasic attention, perception biases and emotional responses. How the evaluation of approaching sounds unfolds over time remains elusive. Here, we capitalised on the temporal resolution of magnetoencephalograpy (MEG) to investigate in humans a dynamic encoding of perceiving approaching and receding sounds. We compared magnetic responses to intensity envelopes of complex sounds to those of white noise sounds, in which intensity change is not perceived as approaching. Sustained magnetic fields over temporal sensors tracked intensity change in complex sounds in an approximately linear fashion, an effect not seen for intensity change in white noise sounds, or for overall intensity. Hence, these fields are likely to track approach/recession, but not the apparent (instantaneous) distance of the sound source, or its intensity as such. As a likely source of this activity, the bilateral inferior temporal gyrus and right temporo-parietal junction emerged. Our results indicate that discrete temporal cortical areas parametrically encode behavioural significance in moving sound sources where the signal unfolded in a manner reminiscent of evidence accumulation. This may help an understanding of how acoustic percepts are evaluated as behaviourally relevant, where our results highlight a crucial role of cortical areas.
Segmentation of magnetic resonance images using fuzzy algorithms for learning vector quantization

Evaluates a segmentation technique for magnetic resonance (MR) images of the brain based on fuzzy algorithms for learning vector quantization (FALVQ). These algorithms perform vector quantization by updating all prototypes of a competitive network through an unsupervised learning process. Segmentation of MR images is formulated as an unsupervised vector quantization process, where the local values of different relaxation parameters form the feature vectors which are represented by a relatively small set of prototypes. Some experiments are presented which evaluate a variety of FALVQ algorithms in terms of their ability to identify different tissues and discriminate between normal tissues and abnormalities.
First steps in enhancing 3D vision technique using 2D/3D sensors

In this paper, a novel imaging technique for enhancing 3-D vision is proposed. The enhancement is achieved with the help of 3-D time-of-flight camera, this 3D camera delivers the intensity and depth information of the scene in real time. Although this kind of 3-D cameras provide accurate depth information, its low 2-D image res- olution tends to be a hindering factor for many image pro- cessing applications. This limitation can be inundated with the proposed setup; a 2-D sensor (CCD/CMOS) with higher resolution is used to improve the image resolution. The 2-D and 3-D cameras are placed in a special housing, so that the field-of-view (FOV) is nearly same for both the cameras. The 2D/3D data fusion becomes facile for mapping and/or image registration. Hence the new system provides better image quality with range data. Within this paper, we discuss the initial results and findings of the proposed system.
A Rule-Based Privacy-Preserving Policy for Social Networks

The development of online social network enables people to share private information and make social connections with others easily. But now the number of individuals and the size of their information in a social network are so huge that the complexity of privacy protection increases greatly. Many privacy violations occur in current online social network which becomes a serious problem. The paper discusses the privacy-preserving policy for online social networks based on logical rules, which includes three levels: system level, user level and object level. The openness and closeness of rights of objects can be set to system, users and objects respectively, which makes the privacy-preserving policy so flexible and fine-grained that the method can accommodate the diversity and dynamics of social networks preferably. Finally, an application is exampled to show the effectiveness of the policy.
Design of truthful double auction for dynamic spectrum sharing

To cope with the shortage of spectrum for wireless communications, dynamic spectrum sharing through auction mechanism is one potential approach for raising spectrum efficiency and wireless access capacity. This paper presents a design of truthful double auction for multiple heterogeneous spectrum units (TDAMH). Unlike existing double auctions for spectrum sharing, TDAMH not only supports sellers' and buyers' diverse demands in quantity but also considers the spectrum heterogeneity among sellers, which are significant trends in next generation wireless communication markets. Furthermore, TDAMH exploits the spatial reusability of spectrum by grouping conflict-free buyers and allowing buyers in one group to share same spectrum units. TDAMH has two innovations. The first is the division of buyers in one group with diverse demands into multiple virtual bidding groups (VBGs) with single unit demand, which allows each buyer to bid on multiple heterogeneous spectrum units and enables spectrum reusability. In a VBG bidding for one specific resource unit, the buyer who bids the lowest will be eliminated but the buyer's bid is selected for the determination of the VBG bid. The second is a discriminatory settlement mechanism between sellers and buyers that charges winning buyers in one VBG the bid of the VBG and pays winning sellers in one clearing price, which guarantees the properties of individual rationality and budget balance. Integration of the two innovations also incentivizes sellers and buyers to bid truthfully based on supply and demand information. Besides proofs of the three economic properties, this paper provides extensive numerical experimentation to evaluate performance of TDAMH in spectrum rent-out ratio (ROR), reusability and revenue. Results show that, by enabling spectrum reusability, although ROR is below 0.6 in all test instances, the generated spectrum revenue is higher than the expected revenue by sellers in about 40% of the total test instances.
Association of Birth Parameters with Refractive Status in a Sample of Caucasian Children Aged 4–17 Years

Purpose. To investigate the association of birth parameters with refractive status in different age groups of Caucasian children. Materials and Methods. This cross-sectional study included 564 eyes of 282 children aged 4 to 17 years. All children underwent complete ophthalmologic examination. The children were divided into three groups according to their refractive status (emmetropia,myopia, and hyperopia), ages (4–7, 8-9, 10–12, and 13–17), and appropriateness for gestational age, respectively. Results. The mean age of the children was 9.2 ± 2.8 (age range 4–17 years). The mean spheric equivalent was +0.3 ± 1.7 (range: (−10.0)–(+10.0) diopters). The mean birth weight and gestational age were 2681.1 ± 930.8 grams (750–5000 grams) and 37.2 ± 3.7 weeks (25–42 weeks). According to multinominal logistic regression analysis, children with myopia were more likely to have higher birth weights than emmetropic children (OR: 1.0, 95% CI: 1.000–1.001, and P = 0.028). The hypermetropes were found to be significantly small for gestational age between 13 and 17 years of age. Conclusion. Birth weight and appropriateness for gestational age as birth parameters may have an impact on development of all types of refractive errors. The hypermetropic children tended to be small for gestational age.
BIDIRECTIONAL ISOLATED DC-DC CONVERTER FOR FUEL CELLS AND SUPERCAPACITORS HYBRID SYSTEM

In future, electrical power systems for electrical vehicles may employ hybrid energy sources, such as fuel cells and super capacitors. The fuel cells (FCs) and super capacitors (SCs) as an environmentally renewable energy system has been applied in many such fields, as hybrid electric vehicle and uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems. The available power generated from a fuel cell (FC) may not be sufficient to meet sustained load demands, mainly during peak demand or transient conditions. During these conditions, supercapacitor (SC) bank can supply a large amount of power. The combined use of FC and SC has the potential for better energy efficiency, reducing the cost of FC technology, and improved fuel usage. Here, a bidirectional isolated dc-dc converter for fuel cells and the supercapacitor hybrid energy system is being controlled by phase-shift angle and duty cycle method. The dc-dc converter acts as a multiport device. The converter has three modes of operation (1) Boost mode (2) SC power mode (3) SC recharge mode. All switches are controlled by phase shifted PWM signals with a variable duty cycle. Zero voltage switching (ZVS) is achieved by the parasitic capacitance of the switches. For the simulation, MATLAB/Simulink is used. Here the operation principle of the proposed converter is being described and the waveforms for various stages of operation are analyzed.
Options for the management of antiviral resistance during hepatitis B therapy: reflections on battles over a decade

Although much advancement has been achieved in the treatment of chronic hepatitis B, antiviral resistance is still a challenging issue. Previous generation antiviral agents have already developed resistance in a number of patients, and it is still being used especially in resource limited countries. Once antiviral resistance occurs, it predisposes to subsequent resistance, resulting in multidrug resistance. Therefore, prevention of initial antiviral resistance is the most important strategy, and appropriate choice and modification of therapy would be the cornerstone in avoiding treatment failures. Until now, management of antiviral resistance has been evolving from sequential therapy to combination therapy. In the era of tenofovir, the paradigm shifts again, and we have to decide when to switch and when to combine on the basis of newly emerging clinical data. We expect future eradication of chronic hepatitis B virus infection by proper prevention and optimal management of antiviral resistance.
Did unusually sunny skies help drive the record sea ice minimum of 2007?

We conduct experiments with an ice‐ocean model to answer the question whether and to what degree unusually clear skies during the summer of 2007 contributed to the record sea ice extent minimum in the Arctic Ocean during September of 2007. Anomalously high pressure over the Beaufort Sea during summer 2007 appears associated with a strong negative cloud anomaly. This anomaly is two standard deviations below the 1980–2007 average established from a combination of two different satellite‐based records. Cloud anomalies from the MODIS sensor are compared with anomalies from the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis and are found in good agreement in spatial patterns and magnitude. However, these experiments establish that the negative cloud anomaly and increased downwelling shortwave flux from June through August did not contribute substantially to the record sea ice extent minimum. This finding eliminates one aspect of the unusual weather that may have contributed to the record minimum.