Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Differential Effects of Selexipag and Prostacyclin Analogs in Rat Pulmonary Artery

{4-[(5,6-Diphenylpyrazin-2-yl)(isopropyl)amino]butoxy}acetic acid (ACT-333679) is the main metabolite of the selective prostacyclin (PGI2) receptor (IP receptor) agonist selexipag. The goal of this study was to determine the influence of IP receptor selectivity on the vasorelaxant efficacy of ACT-333679 and the PGI2 analog treprostinil in pulmonary artery under conditions associated with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Selexipag and ACT-333679 evoked full relaxation of pulmonary artery from control and monocrotaline (MCT)-PAH rats, and ACT-333679 relaxed normal pulmonary artery contracted with either endothelin-1 (ET-1) or phenylephrine. In contrast, treprostinil evoked weaker relaxation than ACT-333679 of control pulmonary artery and failed to induce relaxation of pulmonary artery from MCT-PAH rats. Treprostinil did not evoke relaxation of normal pulmonary artery contracted with either ET-1 or phenylephrine. Expression of prostaglandin E3 (EP3) receptor mRNA was increased in pulmonary artery from MCT-PAH rats. In contraction experiments, the selective EP3 receptor agonist sulprostone evoked significantly greater contraction of pulmonary artery from MCT-PAH rats compared with control rats. The presence of a threshold concentration of ET-1 significantly augmented the contractile response to sulprostone in normal pulmonary artery. ACT-333679 did not evoke direct contraction of rat pulmonary artery, whereas treprostinil evoked concentration-dependent contraction that was inhibited by the EP3 receptor antagonist (2E)-3-(3′,4′-dichlorobiphenyl-2-yl)-N-(2-thienylsulfonyl)acrylamide. Antagonism of EP3 receptors also revealed a relaxant response to treprostinil in normal pulmonary artery contracted with ET-1. These data demonstrate that the relaxant efficacy of the selective IP receptor agonist selexipag and its metabolite ACT-333679 is not modified under conditions associated with PAH, whereas relaxation to treprostinil may be limited in the presence of mediators of disease.
Simulation and Analysis of SRAM Cell Structures at 90nm Technology

SRAM is a most common embedded memory for CMOS ICs and it uses Bistable Latching circuitry to store a bit. This paper represents the simulation of different SRAM cells and their comparative analysis on different parameters such as Power Supply Voltage, Operating Frequency, Temperature and area efficiency etc. All the simulations have been carried out on BSIM 3V3 90nm technology at Tanner EDA tool .
Enhancing the Performance of Waveguide Filters Using Additive Manufacturing

This paper describes the development of resonator and coupling architectures that enhance the insertion loss and far out of band rejection of single-mode waveguide filters. The inherent geometrical freedom of 3-D additive manufacturing techniques is exploited to realize complex geometries monolithically. It also has the added benefit of reduced manufacturing lead time. Resonator and coupling structures using complex geometries are introduced and examples of manufactured direct-coupled-cavity filters are given. Analysis and measurements show excellent agreement. The suitability of the manufacturing process for standard and complex geometries is discussed.
Model-based design of resource-efficient automotive control software

Automotive platforms today run hundreds of millions of lines of software code implementing a large number of different control applications spanning across safety-critical functionality to driver assistance and comfort-related functions. While such control software today is largely designed following model-based approaches, the underlying models do not take into account the details of the implementation platforms, on which the software would eventually run. Following the state-of-the-art in control theory, the focus in such design is restricted to ensuring the stability of the designed controllers and meeting control performance objectives, such as settling time or peak overshoot. However, automotive platforms are highly cost-sensitive and the issue of designing “resource-efficient” controllers has largely been ignored so far and is addressed using very ad hoc techniques. In this paper, we will illustrate how, following traditional embedded systems design oriented thinking, computation, communication and memory issues can be incorporated in the controller design stage, thereby resulting in control software not only satisfying the usual control performance metrics but also making efficient utilization of the resources on distributed automotive architectures.
1 The Self in Self-Conscious Emotions

When Jeff Skilling, former CEO of Enron, applied to Harvard Business School at the age of 26, he had trouble coming across positively to the admissions officer. He had spent most of his college years gambling (and losing) thousands of dollars in the stock market rather than focusing on schoolwork, and this was evident from his transcript. At some point during the interview the admissions officer finally lost his patience with the young man, and asked Skilling, point blank, “Jeff, are you smart? ” To which Skilling replied, without missing a beat, “I’m f*cking smart” (Clark, 2006). Although this kind of unabashed hubristic pride may have won Skilling a place in the Harvard Business School’s class of 1979, it also may have been a cause of Skilling’s impulsive risk taking, his willingness to exaggerate his successes, and his development of reckless policies that eventually led to the downfall of Enron and Skilling’s criminal indictment for fraud. As psychologists who seek to understand the affective roots of Skilling’s behavior, we cannot be satisfied by simply blaming it on a pattern of high positive or negative affect, or high or low activation. Skilling’s actions and personality can only be fully understood by invoking the discrete self-conscious emotions of pride and shame, which likely motivated much of his behavior throughout his life. In fact, self-conscious emotions play a central role in motivating and regulating almost all of people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (Campos, 1995; Fischer & Tangney, 1995). Most people spend a great deal of time avoiding social approbation, a strong elicitor of shame and embarrassment. We worry about losing social status in the eyes of others and, as Goffman (1955) noted, our every social act is influenced by even the slight chance of public shame or loss of “face. ” In fact, according to the “Cooley–Scheff conjecture,” we are “virtually always in a state of either pride or shame” (Scheff, 1988, p. 399). Researchers have linked self-conscious emotions to a wide array of empirical out-
Sleep and Sleep-Wake Manipulations in Bipolar Depression

In the last 30 years, it has been convincingly demonstrated that sleep in major depression is characterized by disturbances of sleep continuity, a reduction of slow wave sleep, a disinhibition of REM sleep including a shortening of REM latency (i.e. the time between sleep onset and the occurrence of the first REM period) and an increase in REM density. Furthermore, manipulations of the sleep-wake cycle like total or partial sleep deprivation or phase advance of the sleep period have been proven to be effective therapeutic strategies for patients with unipolar depression. The database concerning sleep and sleep-wake manipulations in bipolar disorder in comparison is not yet as extensive. Studies investigating sleep in bipolar depression suggest that during the depressed phase sleep shows the same stigmata as in unipolar depression. During the hypomanic or manic phase, sleep is even more curtailed, though subjectively not experienced as disturbing by the patients. REM sleep disinhibition is present as well. An important issue is the question, whether sleep-wake manipulations can also be applied in patients with bipolar depression. Work by others and our own studies indicate that sleep deprivation and a phase advance of the sleep period can be used to treat bipolar patients during the depressed phase. The risk of a switch into hypomania or mania does not seem to be more pronounced than the risk with typical pharmacological antidepressant treatment. For patients with mania, sleep deprivation is not an adequate treatment – in contrast, treatment strategies aiming at stabilizing a regular sleep-wake schedule are indicated.
Changes in hippocampal arc protein expression and synaptic plasticity by the presentation of contextual cues linked to drug experience

Contextual cues linked to drug experience have been frequently associated to craving and relapse, with this phenomenon being described in human and experimental animals. Hippocampal synaptic plasticity has been related to learning, memory, and adaptive processes developed during chronic administration of drug abuse. In this study, we investigated if the environmental context associated with withdrawal experience was able to evoke the same behavioral alteration observed after chronic benzodiazepine administration. Furthermore, we studied the hippocampal synaptic plasticity and anatomical expression of Arc protein during withdrawal and the re‐exposure to the context associated with anxiety expression (characteristic sign of benzodiazepines withdrawal). It was demonstrated that re‐exposure evoked on days 15 and 25 after the first exposure the same behavior. An increased hippocampal synaptic plasticity, expressed as a lower threshold to induce long‐term potentiation on dentate gyrus, was observed in animals dependent on diazepam and during retrieval, in the same group, until day 15. This plastic change disappeared 25 days after the first exposure. An overexpression of Arc protein in the dorsal dentate gyrus and CA1 on the first day of withdrawal in the dependent animals was observed. Synapse 64:39–46, 2010. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
RESOLVING THE ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS AND HOST EMISSION IN THE MID-INFRARED USING A MODEL-INDEPENDENT SPECTRAL DECOMPOSITION

We present results on the spectral decomposition of 118 Spitzer Infrared Spectrograph (IRS) spectra from local active galactic nuclei (AGNs) using a large set of Spitzer/IRS spectra as templates. The templates are themselves IRS spectra from extreme cases where a single physical component (stellar, interstellar, or AGN) completely dominates the integrated mid-infrared emission. We show that a linear combination of one template for each physical component reproduces the observed IRS spectra of AGN hosts with unprecedented fidelity for a template fitting method with no need to model extinction separately. We use full probability distribution functions to estimate expectation values and uncertainties for observables, and find that the decomposition results are robust against degeneracies. Furthermore, we compare the AGN spectra derived from the spectral decomposition with sub-arcsecond resolution nuclear photometry and spectroscopy from ground-based observations. We find that the AGN component derived from the decomposition closely matches the nuclear spectrum with a 1σ dispersion of 0.12 dex in luminosity and typical uncertainties of ∼0.19 in the spectral index and ∼0.1 in the silicate strength. We conclude that the emission from the host galaxy can be reliably removed from the IRS spectra of AGNs. This allows for unbiased studies of the AGN emission in intermediate- and high-redshift galaxies—currently inaccesible to ground-based observations—with archival Spitzer/IRS data and in the future with the Mid-InfraRed Instrument of the James Webb Space Telescope. The decomposition code and templates are available at http://denebola.org/ahc/deblendIRS.
Simple features generation method for SVM based iris classification

Iris pattern is the region on human eye that generally used for identifying person. The pattern is unique for each person and must be transformed into a representation that gives meaning to the textures. However, this process could be hampered if the given image has poor contrast of intensity level. This paper suggests an approach to enhance the image in order to obtain abundant iris texture. First, using common method of segmentation, the iris region is localized and transformed to rectangular form. Then, we apply the moving average on the image to reduce random noise. At this stage, an amendment will be imposed to produce uniform gray levels distribution. After that, histogram equalization method will be applied to produce equalized contrast and more embellish iris pattern. Finally, this enhanced image is used to produce one dimensional real value as iris signature. Support Vector Machines (SVM) is used to classify the iris images and the results are promising.
Phenserine regulates translation of β-amyloid precursor protein mRNA by a putative interleukin-1 responsive element, a target for drug development

The reduction in levels of the potentially toxic amyloid-β peptide (Aβ) has emerged as one of the most important therapeutic goals in Alzheimer's disease. Key targets for this goal are factors that affect the expression and processing of the Aβ precursor protein (βAPP). Earlier reports from our laboratory have shown that a novel cholinesterase inhibitor, phenserine, reduces βAPP levels in vivo. Herein, we studied the mechanism of phenserine's actions to define the regulatory elements in βAPP processing. Phenserine treatment resulted in decreased secretion of soluble βAPP and Aβ into the conditioned media of human neuroblastoma cells without cellular toxicity. The regulation of βAPP protein expression by phenserine was posttranscriptional as it suppressed βAPP protein expression without altering βAPP mRNA levels. However, phenserine's action was neither mediated through classical receptor signaling pathways, involving extracellular signal-regulated kinase or phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase activation, nor was it associated with the anticholinesterase activity of the drug. Furthermore, phenserine reduced expression of a chloramphenicol acetyltransferase reporter fused to the 5′-mRNA leader sequence of βAPP without altering expression of a control chloramphenicol acetyltransferase reporter. These studies suggest that phenserine reduces Aβ levels by regulating βAPP translation via the recently described iron regulatory element in the 5′-untranslated region of βAPP mRNA, which has been shown previously to be up-regulated in the presence of interleukin-1. This study identifies an approach for the regulation of βAPP expression that can result in a substantial reduction in the level of Aβ.
PLANNING AND INHIBITORY ABILITIES IN CRIMINALS WITH ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY DISORDER

The aim of our study was to analyze planning and executive control in aggressive offenders diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). The problem of inner diversity in the psychopathic population referring to these executive functions was examined, as well as the impact of executive functions on aggressiveness. Our research involved a group of 130 male subjects: 65 ASPD criminals in the clinical groups and the same number of non-criminals as a control gorup. The Violent Rating Scale and DSM-IV criteria for ASPD were applied; the neuropsychological instruments administered included the Stroop Test and the Tower of London Test;. Our results confirmed the hypothesis that the level of exe cutive functioning was lower in ASPD criminals in relation to both examined cognitive activities: planning and inhibitory control. Surprisingly, no associations were found between the executive indicators and the level of violence. Further investigation led to the conclusion that the ASPD population is heterogeneous in respect to planning capacities. Our findings are consistent with a majority of the scientific reports on executive functioning in the ASPD group, but shed more light on the problematic area of cognitive diversity within psychopaths. One important result from our study for forensic-clinical practice is that Stroop Test evinced better discriminatory power, and thus may be a better tool for determining if a suspected criminal is properly accused.
Image-Based High-Throughput Field Phenotyping of Crop Roots1[W][OPEN]

Automatic methods developed or reproducible field-based phenotyping allow distinction of genotypes, including 13 newly accessible plant root traits. Current plant phenotyping technologies to characterize agriculturally relevant traits have been primarily developed for use in laboratory and/or greenhouse conditions. In the case of root architectural traits, this limits phenotyping efforts, largely, to young plants grown in specialized containers and growth media. Hence, novel approaches are required to characterize mature root systems of older plants grown under actual soil conditions in the field. Imaging methods able to address the challenges associated with characterizing mature root systems are rare due, in part, to the greater complexity of mature root systems, including the larger size, overlap, and diversity of root components. Our imaging solution combines a field-imaging protocol and algorithmic approach to analyze mature root systems grown in the field. Via two case studies, we demonstrate how image analysis can be utilized to estimate localized root traits that reliably capture heritable architectural diversity as well as environmentally induced architectural variation of both monocot and dicot plants. In the first study, we show that our algorithms and traits (including 13 novel traits inaccessible to manual estimation) can differentiate nine maize (Zea mays) genotypes 8 weeks after planting. The second study focuses on a diversity panel of 188 cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) genotypes to identify which traits are sufficient to differentiate genotypes even when comparing plants whose harvesting date differs up to 14 d. Overall, we find that automatically derived traits can increase both the speed and reproducibility of the trait estimation pipeline under field conditions.
Workflow support for wireless sensor and actor networks: a position paper

As initial challenges of wireless sensor and actor networks (WSANs) are overcome, their application possibilities evolve. For these applications to move mainstream, efficient programming methods are required which can be used by domain experts. So far, the question of how can WSANs be efficiently programmed remains unanswered. In this paper we examine proposed middleware approaches, and show that they have focused on data extraction rather than in-network actuation. We thus propose the usage of workflows as a means to define the logic that orchestrates the network activity, and introduce a language to express WSAN interactions. At this time, a concrete system is not given, but the paper discusses the relevant aspects towards one, and poses many questions for future research.
Human-Oriented Challenges of Social BPM: An Overview

Social BPM is the practice of actively involving all relevant stakeholders into BPM through the use of social software and its underlying principles. This allows enhancing the correctness, completeness, and usefulness of process models and instances by leveraging the domain and method knowledge of the entire business community. However, the large number and variety of contributors and contributions also results in a number of challenges, which will be examined in this paper.
On the Performance of Partitioned-Spreading CDMA with Multistage Demodulation

The performance of partition-spreading CDMA (PS-CDMA), a recently proposed multiple-access system, is investigated. It is shown via variance evolution that the asymptotic channel throughput of PS-CDMA improves monotonically as the number of partitions increases. The fundamental limit of the PS-CDMA system is calculated by evaluating the spectral efficiency of the layered channel that is generated by multistage PS-CDMA demodulation. Capacity-approaching codes of high rate are suggested in the encoding for each PS-CDMA user, which justifies a low-complexity two-stage decoding scheme for PS-CDMA.
Social Policy in Hong Kong

Understanding Hong Kong, ahmed Shafiqul Huque, Julia Tao and Paul Wilding health,Robin D.C. Gould housing, Ngai Ming Yip and Kwok-yu Lau education, Ho-mun Chan and Joan Y.H. Leung social security, Brian Brewer and Stewart MacPherson social care, Veronica Pearson transport, Tin-ming Ko labour protection, grace O.M. Lee.
Transformed Representation 1 RUNNING HEAD: TRANSFORMED REPRESENTATION The Proteus Effect: Implications of Transformed Digital Self-Representation on Online and Offline Behavior

Virtual environments allow us to dramatically alter our self-representation. More importantly, studies have shown that people infer their expected behaviors and attitudes from observing their avatar’s appearance, a phenomenon known as the Proteus Effect (Yee & Bailenson, 2007). For example, users given taller avatars negotiated more aggressively than users given shorter avatars. Two studies are reported here that extend our understanding of this effect. The first study extends the work beyond laboratory settings to an actual online community. We found that both the height and attractiveness of an avatar in an online game were significant predictors of the player’s performance. In our second study, we found that the behavioral changes stemming from the virtual environment transferred to subsequent face-to-face interactions. Participants were placed in an immersive virtual environment and were given either shorter or taller avatars. They then interacted with a confederate for about 15 minutes. In addition to causing a behavioral difference within the virtual environment, we found that participants given taller avatars negotiated more aggressively in subsequent face-to-face interactions than participants given shorter avatars. Together, these two studies show that our virtual bodies can change how we interact with others in actual avatar-based online communities as well as in subsequent face-to-face interactions.
The Dorsomedial Hypothalamic Nucleus Is Not Necessary for the Expression of Circadian Food-Anticipatory Activity in Rats

Restricted daytime feeding generates food-anticipatory activity (FAA) by entrainment of a circadian pacemaker separate from the light-entrainable pacemaker located in the SCN. The dorsomedial hypothalamic nucleus (DMH) has been proposed as the site of food-entrainable oscillators critical for the expression of FAA, but another study found no effects of complete DMH ablation on FAA. To account for these different results, the authors examined methodological factors, including (1) cage configuration and feeding method and (2) use of social cues. Intact and DMH-ablated rats were maintained on one 4-h daily meal in the middle of the light period, using caging and feeding methods matching those of Gooley et al. (2006). Rats with partial or complete DMH ablation were less nocturnal during ad lib food access but exhibited normal FAA during restricted feeding, as quantified by FAA magnitude, ratios, latency to appearance, duration, and precision. To evaluate the use of social cues, intact rats naive to restricted-feeding schedules were food deprived for 72 h on 4 tests. Daytime activity increased during food deprivation, but the magnitude and waveform of this activity was not influenced by the presence of food-entrained rats exhibiting robust FAA in adjacent cages. Thus, hungry intact rats do not use social cues to anticipate a daily mealtime, suggesting that DMH-ablated rats do not anticipate meals by reacting to sounds from food-entrained intact rats in adjacent cabinets. These results confirm our previous finding that the DMH is not critical for normal expression of FAA in rats, and this observation is extended to food restriction methodologies used by other labs. The methodological differences that do underlie discrepant results remain unresolved, as does the location of food-entrainable oscillators, input pathways, and output pathways critical for FAA.