Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Toward interactive humanoid robots: a constructive approach to developing intelligent robots

Many robotics researchers are exploring new possibilities of intelligent robots in our everyday life. Interactive robots, which have various modalities, can communicate with humans as new information media. In this talk, we argue recent research activities of intelligent interactive robots in Japan. Then, we consider a constructive approach to developing interactive humanoid robots in ATR Media Information Science Laboratories. Cognitive scientists and robotics engineers work together in ATR.
BIST-aided scan test - a new method for test cost reduction

It is common to use ATPG of scan-based design for high fault coverage in LSI testing. However, significant increase in test cost is caused in accordance with increasing design complexity. Recent strategies for test cost reduction combine ATPG and BIST techniques. Unfortunately, these strategies have serious constraints. We propose a new method that employs ATE and BIST structures to apply coded test patterns to LSI circuits. Results obtained using practical circuits show drastic test cost reduction capability of the proposed method.
Chronic bosentan treatment improves renal artery vascular function in diabetes

Objective Endothelin-1 (ET-1) has been suggested to play an important role in the pathogenesis of diabetes-induced vascular complications. The primary purpose of the present study was to examine the potential beneficial effects of chronic ET receptor blockade (with bosentan) on vascular function in renal arteries from streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rats. Design Wistar rats were divided into four groups: control (C), control bosentan-treated (CB), diabetic (D) and diabetic bosentan-treated (DB). Following 10 weeks of bosentan treatment, vascular responses to norepinephrine (NE), ET-1, acetylcholine (ACh) were determined in vascular segments of renal arteries, both with and without the endothelium denuded, according to the following protocol: (1) a cumulative dose–response curve (DRC) to NE in the absence and presence of the nitric oxide synthase (NOS) inhibitor L-NAME (2) cumulative DRC to ET-1 and (3) cumulative DRC to ACh in precontracted arteries. In addition, plasma ET-1 was assayed and ET-1-like immunoreactivity was determined in vascular tissues by immunohistochemistry. Results The maximum contractile responses to NE and ET-1 were markedly exaggerated in endothelium-intact renal arteries from untreated D rats while ACh responses were preserved. Arteries denuded of endothelium did not exhibit exaggerated responses to NE or ET-1. L-NAME treatment did not affect responses to NE in arteries with or without endothelium. Strikingly, responses to NE and ET-1 (in arteries with endothelium) were completely normalized following long-term bosentan treatment. In addition, plasma ET-1 levels did not differ between C and D groups. However, renal arteries isolated from the D group exhibited increased ET-1-like immunoreactivity (local ET-1 content). Conclusion These data uncover, for the first time, beneficial effects of mixed ETA/ETB receptor blockade on renal artery vascular function in diabetes. Alterations in the production and/or action of ET-1 may have important implications in the development of vascular dysfunction in experimental diabetes.
APM3: A Methodology Metamodel for Agile Project Management

The advent of agile methodologies, though contributing much to software development processes, had a more profound impact on project management processes. Through supporting adaptability in their process frameworks, agile methodologies deviated from conventional project management approaches. This novel attitude has resulted in the emergence of an agile framework for project management. The Agile Project Management Framework (APMF) consists of fine-grained project management practices applied in agile methodologies, and is fast emerging as an alternative to the conventional project management framework. However, there are deficiencies in both frameworks that prevent developers from enhancing each framework to embrace the other. A logical solution is to merge the two frameworks into a Unified Project Management Framework (UPMF). With this objective in mind, we propose a project-management methodology metamodel as the common abstract substrate to fuse the standard framework with its agile counterpart. The proposed Agile Project Management Methodology Metamodel (APM3) has been developed through applying abstraction to the fine-grained constituents of APMF. Based on the generic agile metamodel of APM3, an analytical review of the project management processes of seven prominent agile methodologies has been conducted.
ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY IN EYE-TRACKING

Eye-trackers are becoming increasingly widespread as a tool to investigate second language (L2) acquisition. Unfortunately, clear standards for methodology—including font size, font type, and placement of interest areas—are not yet available. Although many researchers stress the need for ecological validity—that is, the simulation of natural reading conditions—it may not be prudent to use such a design to investigate new directions in eye-tracking research, and particularly in research involving small lexical items such as articles. In this study, we examine whether two different screen layouts can lead to different results in an eye-tracking study on the L2 acquisition of Italian gender. The results of an experiment with an ecologically valid design are strikingly different than the results of an experiment with a design tailored to track eye movements to articles. We conclude that differences in screen layout can have significant effects on results and that it is crucial that researchers report screen layout information.
Quantification and associated variability of induced vitellogenin gene transcripts in fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas) by quantitative real‐time polymerase chain reaction assay

—Ecological risk assessors have a growing need for sensitive and rapid indicators of environmental exposures in aquatic ecosystems resulting from natural and synthetic estrogen‐like compounds. Investigators developing subcellular exposure markers in traditional sentinel organisms must be vigilant about inherent variability of analyses, especially regarding regulatory and policy statements. Here, we report a quantitative real‐time polymerase chain reaction (QPCR) assay for the detection of vitellogenin transcripts environmentally triggered in fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas). We demonstrate that our QPCR assay exhibits little inter‐ or intra‐assay variability (21.7 and 11.9%, respectively). This method appears to be robust in terms of variability stemming from extrinsic sources, indicating that it may be readily transferable to laboratories having the requisite equipment. Our primary focus in development of this method derived from the observation that transcriptional responses of the vitellogenin gene (vtg) in fathead minnows demonstrated high biological variability between identically treated individuals, even under controlled laboratory conditions (coefficient of variation, > 100%). This variability was not seen in other genes from the same RNA preparations that we examined, suggesting that it is specific to the vitellogenin response. Our data and those of others suggest that variability in vtg expression is common to a number of aquatic vertebrates, which is indicative of genetic causation. Despite a relatively high degree of variability in vtg transcription, this method is sensitive enough to detect exposures of 5.0 ng 17α‐ethinylestradiol (EE2)/L within 24 h of exposure, and it has the ability to discriminate 10.0 and 5.0 ng EE2/L within 48 h. The vitellogenin QPCR assay is a highly sensitive, comparatively rapid, and inexpensive method for the detection and characterization of exposure to environmental estrogens and estrogen mimics.
The scheduling problem in wireless networks

We describe the fundamental issue of scheduling the allocation of wireless network resources and provide several formulations of the associated problems. The emphasis is on scheduling transmission attempts. We place this problem in the context of existing approaches, like information theoretic and traditional network theoretic ones, as well as novel avenues that open up the possibility of addressing this issue for non-stationary and non-ergodic environments. We summarize concrete recent results for specific special cases that include unicast and multicast traffic, different objective functions, and reduced complexity versions of the problem. We conclude with some thoughts for future work. We identify and single out the cross-layer nature of the problem and include a simple physical-layer criterion in what is mostly a medium access control (MAC) problem.
A Comparative Analysis of Cache Designs for Vector Processing

This paper presents an experimental study on cache memory designs for vector computers. We use an execution-driven simulator to evaluate vector cache performance of a set of application programs from Perfect Club and SPEC92 benchmark suites. Our simulation results uncover a few important facts which were unknown before: First of all, the prime-mapped cache that we newly proposed shows great performance potential in vector processing environment. Because of its conflict-free property, the prime-mapped cache performs significantly better than conventional cache designs for all applications considered. Second, performance results on the benchmarks indicate that data locality in vector processing does exist, although the effects of line size, associativity, replacement algorithm, and prefetching scheme on cache performance are very different from what has been commonly believed. A medium size vector cache (e.g., 128 Kbytes) eliminates the necessity for a large number of interleaved memory banks in vector computers. Our experiments show that the vector computer that has a medium size prime-mapped cache with small cache line size and limited amount of prefetching provides significant speedup over conventional vector computers without cache. Performance results reported in this paper can also provide guidance to general-purpose computer designers to enhance cache performance for numerical applications.
Influence of Musical Training on Understanding Voiced and Whispered Speech in Noise

This study tested the hypothesis that the previously reported advantage of musicians over non-musicians in understanding speech in noise arises from more efficient or robust coding of periodic voiced speech, particularly in fluctuating backgrounds. Speech intelligibility was measured in listeners with extensive musical training, and in those with very little musical training or experience, using normal (voiced) or whispered (unvoiced) grammatically correct nonsense sentences in noise that was spectrally shaped to match the long-term spectrum of the speech, and was either continuous or gated with a 16-Hz square wave. Performance was also measured in clinical speech-in-noise tests and in pitch discrimination. Musicians exhibited enhanced pitch discrimination, as expected. However, no systematic or statistically significant advantage for musicians over non-musicians was found in understanding either voiced or whispered sentences in either continuous or gated noise. Musicians also showed no statistically significant advantage in the clinical speech-in-noise tests. Overall, the results provide no evidence for a significant difference between young adult musicians and non-musicians in their ability to understand speech in noise.
Depolymerization and Re/Upcycling of Biodegradable PLA Plastics

With the escalating utilization of plastic products, global attention has been increasingly drawn to environmental pollution and recycling challenges stemming from plastic waste. Against this backdrop, biodegradable plastics have emerged as viable alternatives owing to their sustainability and capacity for biodegradation. Polylactic acid (PLA) presently commands the largest market share among biodegradable plastics, finding extensive application in products such as thin films, medical materials, and biodegradable straws. However, the widespread adoption of PLA is hindered by challenges such as high cost, low recycling rates, and complete degradation to H2O and CO2 in natural conditions. Therefore, it is imperative and time-sensitive to explore solutions for the depolymerization and re/upcycling of PLA waste plastics. This review comprehensively outlines the current landscape of PLA recycling methods, emphasizing the advantages and significance of chemical re/upcycling. The subsequent exploration encompasses recent breakthroughs and technical obstacles inherent in diverse chemical depolymerization methods. Ultimately, this review accentuates the impediments and forthcoming possibilities in the realm of PLA plastics, emphasizing the pursuit of closed-loop recycling and upcycling.
Using a morphological analyzer in high precision POS tagging of Hungarian

The paper presents an evaluation of maxent POS disambiguation systems that incorporate an open source morphological analyzer to constrain the probabilistic models. The experiments show that the best proposed architecture, which is the first application of the maximum entropy framework in a Hungarian NLP task, outperforms comparable state of the art tagging methods and is able to handle out of vocabulary items robustly, allowing for efficient analysis of large (web-based) corpora.
Sleep, Learning, and Dreams: Off-line Memory Reprocessing

Converging evidence and new research methodologies from across the neurosciences permit the neuroscientific study of the role of sleep in off-line memory reprocessing, as well as the nature and function of dreaming. Evidence supports a role for sleep in the consolidation of an array of learning and memory tasks. In addition, new methodologies allow the experimental manipulation of dream content at sleep onset, permitting an objective and scientific study of this dream formation and a renewed search for the possible functions of dreaming and the biological processes subserving it.
Unraveling determinants of transcription factor binding outside the core binding site

Binding of transcription factors (TFs) to regulatory sequences is a pivotal step in the control of gene expression. Despite many advances in the characterization of sequence motifs recognized by TFs, our ability to quantitatively predict TF binding to different regulatory sequences is still limited. Here, we present a novel experimental assay termed BunDLE-seq that provides quantitative measurements of TF binding to thousands of fully designed sequences of 200 bp in length within a single experiment. Applying this binding assay to two yeast TFs, we demonstrate that sequences outside the core TF binding site profoundly affect TF binding. We show that TF-specific models based on the sequence or DNA shape of the regions flanking the core binding site are highly predictive of the measured differential TF binding. We further characterize the dependence of TF binding, accounting for measurements of single and co-occurring binding events, on the number and location of binding sites and on the TF concentration. Finally, by coupling our in vitro TF binding measurements, and another application of our method probing nucleosome formation, to in vivo expression measurements carried out with the same template sequences serving as promoters, we offer insights into mechanisms that may determine the different expression outcomes observed. Our assay thus paves the way to a more comprehensive understanding of TF binding to regulatory sequences and allows the characterization of TF binding determinants within and outside of core binding sites.
Défice cognitivo de tipo vascular: Controvérsias e desafios

Cerebrovascular disease is the second most common cause of cognitive impairment in the elderly. Although the vascular dementia (VD) designation is widely used, there are a number of limitations related to cerebrovascular disease heterogeneity, several clinical presentations, diagnostic criteria unconformity, circularity and mixed dementia existence. The term vascular cognitive impairment (VCI) has been proposed to comprise a broad spectrum of cognitive disorders sharing a suspected vascular cause, with several degrees of severity. VCI is a frequent clinical picture and is associated with worse cognition, institutionalization and death. Emphasizing the early detection of dementia, which is believed may have prodromal symptoms, it is given an opportunity to clinic interventions such as the control of vascular risk factors. Additionally subcortical form has been indicated as a solution to identify more homogenous groups of patients with a more predicable outcome. Beside these aspects, in this paper, we discuss relationships between VD and VCI, as well as some future directions. Key- words - vascular cognitive impairment, vascular dementia, preventable disorder.
Beating the Odds: How the Poor Get to College

Prologue: Why the Odds Don't Change for the Poor Part One: Weighing the Odds 1. The Odds Against Escaping from Poverty 2. The Odds Against Going to College Part Two: Beating the Odds 3. A Portrait of Twenty-Four Who Succeeded 4. Hitting the Jackpot: Entree to the Elites 5. Betting the Farm: The Struggle Just to Get in the Door Part Three: Improving the Odds 6. Nine Mentors Who Changed the Odds 7. The Lesson: One Arm Around One Child 8. Evening the Odds: Making College Possible for the Poor Resource: Brief Biographies of the Twenty-Four Students Inverviewed.
ACAT-1, Cav-1 and PrP expression in scrapie susceptible and resistant sheep

Scrapie is a prion disease for which no means of ante-mortem diagnosis is available. We recently found a relationship between cell susceptibility to scrapie and altered cholesterol homeostasis. In brains and in skin fibroblasts and peripheral blood mononuclear cells from healthy and scrapie-affected sheep carrying a scrapie-susceptible genotype, the levels of cholesterol esters were consistently higher than in tissues and cultures derived from animals with a scrapie-resistant genotype. Here we show that intracellular accumulation of cholesterol esters (CE) in fibroblasts derived from scrapie-susceptible sheep was accompanied by parallel alterations in the expression level of acyl-coenzymeA: cholesterol-acyltransferase (ACAT1) and caveolin-1 (Cav-1) that are involved in the pathways leading to intracellular cholesterol esterification and trafficking. Comparative analysis of cellular prion protein (PrPc) mRNA, showed an higher expression level in cells from animals carrying a susceptible genotype, with or without Scrapie. These data suggest that CE accumulation in peripheral cells, together with the altered expression of some proteins implicated in intracellular cholesterol homeostasis, might serve to identify a distinctive lipid metabolic profile associated with increased susceptibility to develop prion disease following infection.
A blinded randomized clinical trial of manual therapy and physiotherapy for chronic back and neck complaints: physical outcome measures.

B. W. Koes et al.'s trial on manual therapy (Koes BW et al. A Blinded Randomized Clinical Trial of Manual Therapy and Physiotherapy for Chronic Back and Neck Complaints: Physical Outcome Measures. J Manipulative Physiol Ther 1992: 15(1):16-23) seems to suffer from "double vision. " This study has appeared in two forms (1. 2). In the Spine version, there was no advantage to manual therapy over physical therapy at 3 wk. However, in the . 1.14PT version. manual therapy results were statistically better than the physical therapy results at 3 wk. If one looks at the tables published in the two articles, it is obvious that the data are different (Table 5 in Spine vs. Table 6 in J.IIPT). although all other aspects of the reports are identical. How do the authors account for these differences? Which set of results should we believe? In the Spine version. the effects of manual therapy and physical therapy are explained by the effect of referral and giving the patient extra attention. In the J.IIPT version, manual therapy is extolled as a treatment that shows a faster and larger improvement than the other therapies. In addition, the authors of this study have failed to differentiate between manipulation and mobilization. Previous trials comparing these two treatments have shown that they are not equivalent (3). This means that the treatment applied in their trial was some mix of manipulation and mobilization as defined by the Dutch Society for Manual Therapy. Future trials should differentiate between these two different types of manual therapy.
Genetic Diversity and Association of EST-SSR and SCoT Markers with Rust Traits in Orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata L.)

Orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata L.), is a well-known perennial forage species; however, rust diseases have caused a noticeable reduction in the quality and production of orchardgrass. In this study, genetic diversity was assessed and the marker-trait associations for rust were examined using 18 EST-SSR and 21 SCoT markers in 75 orchardgrass accessions. A high level of genetic diversity was detected in orchardgrass with an average genetic diversity index of 0.369. For the EST-SSR and SCoT markers, 164 and 289 total bands were obtained, of which 148 (90.24%) and 272 (94.12%) were polymorphic, respectively. Results from an AMOVA analysis showed that more genetic variance existed within populations (87.57%) than among populations (12.43%). Using a parameter marker index, the efficiencies of the EST-SSR and SCoT markers were compared to show that SCoTs have higher marker efficiency (8.07) than EST-SSRs (4.82). The results of a UPGMA cluster analysis and a STRUCTURE analysis were both correlated with the geographic distribution of the orchardgrass accessions. Linkage disequilibrium analysis revealed an average r2 of 0.1627 across all band pairs, indicating a high extent of linkage disequilibrium in the material. An association analysis between the rust trait and 410 bands from the EST-SSR and SCoT markers using TASSEL software revealed 20 band panels were associated with the rust trait in both 2011 and 2012. The 20 bands obtained from association analysis could be used in breeding programs for lineage selection to prevent great losses of orchardgrass caused by rust, and provide valuable information for further association mapping using this collection of orchardgrass.
Care of the Patient With an Acute Pulmonary Embolism

There are evidence-based prevention strategies known to reduce the risk of pulmonary embolism formation. However, pulmonary emboli remain a leading cause of death in critically ill patients with a 3-month mortality of 10% to 15%. This article addresses patients’ risk factors, pulmonary embolism prevention strategies, clinical manifestations, and treatment modalities the interdisciplinary team should understand.
TIGR in Iraq and Afghanistan: Network-adaptive distribution of media rich tactical data

The Tactical Ground Reporting (TIGR) system provides a unique multimedia patrol preparation and debriefing tool tailored to the needs of the patrol leader, and is used by all U.S. Army brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan. The distribution of data from geographically dispersed patrols requires network awareness and policy flexibility. The TIGR system utilizes an application overlay on to the tactical network that is tailored to the distribution of rich media. This architecture results in the theater-wide replication of compressed reports and meta-data, while the storage of full-quality media is distributed to the node closest to where the media was created. Thumbnail and other compressed media representations are replicated according to policy to meet soldier needs. Full-quality media can be accessed on demand from any location in the network. Network utilization is controlled by a policy-based content subscription system, a priority queuing mechanism, and the discrete scheduling of network traffic. In this paper, we focus on the requirements for media rich tactical applications, detail a system that meets those requirements, and discuss experiences using TIGR in theater.