Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Inhibitory control of hippocampal inhibitory neurons

Information processing within neuronal networks is determined by a dynamic partnership between principal neurons and local circuit inhibitory interneurons. The population of GABAergic interneurons is extremely heterogeneous and comprises, in many brain regions, cells with divergent morphological and physiological properties, distinct molecular expression profiles, and highly specialized functions. GABAergic interneurons have been studied extensively during the past two decades, especially in the hippocampus, which is a relatively simple cortical structure. Different types of hippocampal inhibitory interneurons control spike initiation [e.g., axo-axonic and basket cells (BCs)] and synaptic integration (e.g., bistratified and oriens–lacunosum moleculare interneurons) within pyramidal neurons and synchronize local network activity, providing a means for functional segregation of neuronal ensembles and proper routing of hippocampal information. Thus, it is thought that, at least in the hippocampus, GABAergic inhibitory interneurons represent critical regulating elements at all stages of information processing, from synaptic integration and spike generation to large-scale network activity. However, this raises an important question: if inhibitory interneurons are fundamental for network computations, what are the mechanisms that control the activity of the interneurons themselves? Given the essential role of synaptic inhibition in the regulation of neuronal activity, it would be logical to expect that specific inhibitory mechanisms have evolved to control the operation of interneurons. Here, we review the mechanisms of synaptic inhibition of interneurons and discuss their role in the operation of hippocampal inhibitory circuits.
CONTINUIDADES, CAMBIOS Y DESAFÍOS democráticos en Chile (2006-2009)

During December of 2005 and January of 2006 Chileans chose their new chief executive, Michelle Bachelet, and renewed Congress for period 2006-2009. The elections transpired without disruptions and granted the governing coalition "Concertacion de Partidos por la Democracia" (CPD) its fourth uninterrupted mandate since transition to democracy in 1990. Given that the constitutional reforms of 2005 eliminated the designated senators, this administration enjoys the most comfortable majority in congress since 1990. Despite it is possible to see the Chilean government immersed in a context of institutional stability and booming prices of Chilean products at the international arena, this scenario couldparadoxically manifest itself in a situation of social stress that might seriously complicate the agenda of President Bachelet and her coalition.
Program Evaluation of an Executive Functions Intervention at a Middle School Setting

Executive functions play an important role in children’s cognitive, academic and social functioning. The present study investigated the changes in executive functions in students who were enrolled in an academic support period everyday for forty-five minutes. Participants included twenty-six eighth-grade students eligible for Special Education and Related Services in a suburban middle school in New Jersey. The study used archival data consisting of items from the 44-item Executive Functions (EF) Rating Scale, a questionnaire that was completed by middle school special education teachers. To examine differences within groups, repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) were conducted to examine teacher ratings and changes in grades. Although the study did not find a significant difference on EF Rating Scale obtained before, during and immediately after program implementation, of all the students’ mean grades were all within the passing range for the first and second marking periods. Executive Functions Program Evaluation v TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgement iii Abstract iv Table of
Urban exploration using audio scents

We describe the design and evaluation of an audio-based mixed reality navigation system that uses the concept of audio scents for the implicit guidance of tourists and visitors of urban areas, as an alternative to turn-by-turn guidance systems. A field trial of our prototype uncovers great potential for this type of implicit navigation and is received positively by our participants. We discuss the technical implementation of our prototype, detailed findings from quantitative and subjective evaluation data gathered during the field trial and highlight possible strands for further research and development.
Irreducible representations of the free product of groups

We study some properties, such as uniform bound- edness, unitarity and irreducibility, of a class of representations of the free product of groups. In particular we show that the spherical functions on the free product of two groups, intro- duced by Cartwright and Soardi, are coeYcients of irreducible representations.
The Timing of a Conscious Decision: From Ear to Mouth

RP onset occurs earlier with a fixed interval, repeated spontaneous voluntary movement. When averaged on the stimulus’ onset, this motor preparation precedes the presentation of the repeated digit (hence, presumably also the decision to respond) in the fixed rate condition, but follows it when the timing is not predictable. though this does not necessarily mean that RP onset does not precede the decision to respond in both conditions.
The Perfect Match: A Case Study of a First-Year Woman Principal

This case study of a first-year woman principal in a small, rural school district describes succession effects from the perspectives of the female principal, some faculty members, a parent, and another administrator in the district. Open-ended interviews with the participants revealed a number of conflicting perceptions. The new principal perceived that she was successful in bringing about changes in the school on behalf of children. However, most of the faculty members considered the principal to be unsuccessful because she did not value their expertise or listen to their point of view. Some members of the community and the school board adopted the teachers’ perceptions. In the middle of her second year, the principal was terminated. Implications drawn from this case study may be of value to school leaders.
Creating A Musical Performance Dataset for Multimodal Music Analysis: Challenges, Insights, and Applications

We introduce a dataset for facilitating audio-visual analysis of musical performances. The dataset comprises a number of simple multi-instrument musical pieces assembled from coordinated but separately recorded performances of individual tracks. For each piece, we provide the musical score in MIDI format, the audio recordings of the individual tracks, the audio and video recording of the assembled mixture, and ground-truth annotation files including frame-level and note-level transcriptions. We anticipate that the dataset will be useful for developing and evaluating multi-modal techniques for music source separation, transcription, score following, and performance analysis. We describe our methodology for the creation of this dataset, particularly highlighting our approaches for addressing the challenges involved in maintaining synchronization and naturalness. We briefly discuss the research questions that can be investigated with this dataset.
International and US citizen women

Purpose – This paper aims to examine a subset of survey data collected through the Computing Research Association's Graduate Cohort Program to see how well theoretical and empirical factors fit with the actual motivations of women graduate students from different cultural backgrounds.Design/methodology/approach – Survey responses from international and US women participants in a support program for CSE graduate women in the USA are compared.Findings – These analyses indicate that US and international women are similar in what drew them to graduate computing programs. It was chiefly their interest in and enjoyment of computing. They differ in the attraction of particular career features, influence of peers, and belief in the value of competition among graduate students.Research limitations/implications – This study is limited by the extent to which these data permit thorough testing of theoretical models, and by lack of comparison with men in computing or women who chose not to enter a graduate computing p.
The effect of PMMA-based protein-leaking dialyzers on plasma homocysteine levels.

BACKGROUND Hyperhomocysteinemia is a well-recognized independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease in end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients. Since homocysteine (Hcy) largely binds to serum proteins (80 to 90%), in this study we investigated the possibility that polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA)-based protein-leaking dialyzers could reduce total plasma Hcy (tHcy) levels in ESRD patients. METHODS Two matched groups of patients (N = 13) showing mild to intermediate hyperhomocysteinemia on standard hemodialysis (HD) with conventional non-protein-leaking dialyzers were included. In the control group membranes were maintained the same, while the study group was switched to protein-leaking dialyzers (BK-F series; Toray, Japan) and studied for 6 months. tHcy was measured by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) at baseline and after 1, 3, and 6 months. Proteins and Hcy were also measured in the spent dialysate. RESULTS The pre-HD levels of tHcy in the control group remained close to baseline values (26.6 +/- 5.0 micromol/L), while in the study group at 1, 3, and 6 months they decreased from a baseline value (in micrormol/L) of 25.3 +/- 5.9 to 21.5 +/- 4.5, 16.9 +/- 4.0, and 17.2 +/- 4.2, respectively (P < 0.01 for values at 3 and 6 months vs. baseline). The intra-HD drop of tHcy (Delta HDHcy) slightly but progressively decreased during the 3 steps on protein-leaking dialyzers and a positive correlation was found between Delta HDHcy and pre-HD levels of tHcy. In spent dialysate samples from protein-leaking dialyzer-treated patients, the amount of protein-bound Hcy (bHcy) was approximately 10 times higher than in non-protein-leaking dialyzers, but the Delta HDHcy observed in non-protein-leaking dialyzers and protein-leaking dialyzers was comparable. Serum proteins and albumin were only slightly affected by protein-leaking dialyzers. CONCLUSION This study demonstrates that protein-leaking dialyzers used with a pure diffusive technique significantly lower pre-HD tHcy (approximately 33% of starting levels after 3 months of treatment) in ESRD patients. A possible underlying mechanism for this effect could be the removal of large molecular weight solutes responsible for a defective metabolism of the Hcy, as the removal of bHcy with protein-leaking dialyzers seems not sufficient, per se, to explain this steady reduction of tHcy levels in pre-HD.
On the stability of V2C controlled boost converter in continuous conduction mode

The operation principle and the stability of V2C controlled boost converter operating in continuous conduction mode (CCM) is analyzed in this paper. It is found that V2C control is essentially a kind of control technique utilizing peak capacitor voltage and inductor current, quite similar to peak current control. Its corresponding control waveform and the sub-harmonic oscillation are investigated subsequently. It is shown that sub-harmonic oscillation can be eliminated by slope compensation. Simulation results are given to verify analysis results.
Severity of symptoms in chronically institutionalized geriatric schizophrenic patients.

OBJECTIVE The goal of this study was to characterize the symptoms of geriatric, chronically ill, institutionalized schizophrenic patients and investigate age-related differences in schizophrenic symptoms and cognitive performance from early adulthood to late senescence. METHOD The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale and the Mini-Mental State examination were used to assess the schizophrenic symptoms and cognitive performance, respectively, of 393 institutionalized schizophrenic patients stratified into seven groups designated by 10-year age intervals from 25 years to over 85 years. RESULTS In the comparisons of the seven age groups, significant differences between groups in positive and negative subscale scores on the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale and in Mini-Mental State scores were revealed. Significant correlations between Mini-Mental State scores and Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale negative symptom scores, but not positive symptom scores, were found for all age groups, except for the youngest patients studied. Current treatment with neuroleptics and prior treatment with ECT, insulin coma, or leukotomy could not account for the poor cognitive performance of the older schizophrenic patients. CONCLUSIONS The older schizophrenic patients continued to experience psychotic and nonpsychotic symptoms in senescence. Their positive symptoms were moderately less severe and their negative symptoms and cognitive impairment were significantly more severe than those of the younger patients. Somatic treatment appeared not to be responsible for the severe cognitive impairment and negative symptoms of the older patients. These data are relevant to chronically hospitalized geriatric schizophrenic patients but not necessarily to all geriatric schizophrenic patients.
Evaluation of Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse (ARFI) imaging and contrast-enhanced ultrasound in renal tumors of unknown etiology in comparison to histological findings.

PURPOSE It was the aim of our study to combine the findings of contrast-enhanced ultrasound and ARFI-imaging in the evaluation of renal masses in comparison to the histological findings. MATERIALS AND METHODS Fifteen patients with unclear kidney lesions were analyzed. We used a high-end ultrasound machine (Siemens ACUSON S2000, Siemens Healthcare, Erlangen, Germany) with a multifrequency curved array 4 MHz or linear 9 MHz transducer. Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (bolus injection 1.6-2.4 ml SonoVue was carried out. We obtained fifteen ARFI measurements from each patient with at least five values for quantification. The ARFI-ROI (region of interest) was placed in the ventral margin of the kidney tumor and the whole ROI was covered by the tumor. The "reference-ROI" was placed in the ventral kidney parenchyma of the patient at a distance of at least two centimeters from the tumor. All renal tumors were surgically resected. In cases of complex renal cysts or anatomic variations mimicking renal tumors ("pseudo-tumors"), constant results of ultrasound examinations and additional MRI or multiphase CT over 6 months were required. RESULTS Fifteen patients were included in the study and were examined using the diagnostic ultrasound tools of our study The kidney tumors of our patients had diameters ranging from 1.5 to 8 cm and were located at depths ranging from 2 to 5.5 cm. ARFI imaging was also performed in all patients. A field up to a depth of 10 cm could be visualized for diagnostic use. Performing ARFI quantification using Siemens Virtual Touch Tissue Quantification we obtained minimum and maximum tissue shear velocities ranging from 1.6 to 3.42 m/s. The reference tissue ROIs showed values from 1.31 to 4.4 m/s. 12 cases were accepted for surgical resection. The visualization of lesions with Virtual Touch Tissue Imaging confirmed the measurements of ARFI quantification and were able to depict the different areas of stiffness in the kidney tissue. No infiltration of kidney veins or vena cava was detected by contrast-enhanced ultrasound. Of the 12 cases two "complicated" renal cysts were examined, and both showed Bosniak-III findings. CONCLUSION ARFI imaging improves visualization of unclear renal masses in comparison to fundamental B-scan and adds new information about the tissue stiffness in a less time-consuming and more reproducible way. CEUS with SonoVue allows an early evaluation of renal masses or complex cysts.
Two sides of the medallion: poor treatment tolerance but better survival by standard chemotherapy in elderly patients with advanced-stage diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

BACKGROUND We investigated treatment of unselected elderly patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and its subsequent impact on treatment tolerance and survival. PATIENTS AND METHODS Data from all 419 advanced-stage DLBCL patients, aged 75 or older and newly diagnosed between 1997 and 2004, were included from five regional population-based cancer registries in The Netherlands. Subsequent data on comorbidity, performance status, treatment, motives for adaptations or refraining from chemotherapy and toxic effects was collected from the medical records. Follow-up was completed until 1st January 2009. RESULTS Only 46% of patients received the standard therapy [aggressive chemotherapy with cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine and prednisone (CHOP)-like chemotherapy]. Motives for withholding chemotherapy were refusal by patient/family, poor performance status or estimated short life expectancy. Of all patients receiving CHOP-like chemotherapy, only 56% could complete at least six cycles. Grade 3 or 4 toxicity occurred in 67% of patients receiving standard therapy. The independent effect of therapy on survival remained after correction for the age-adjusted International Prognostic Index. CONCLUSIONS Standard therapy was applied less often in elderly patients with a subsequent independent negative impact on survival. Furthermore, high toxicity rate and the impossibility of the majority of patients to complete treatment were seen. This implies that better treatment strategies should be devised including a proper selection of senior patients for this aggressive chemotherapy.
Impact of Bacterial Genetics on the Transmission of Isoniazid-Resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Understanding the ecology of drug-resistant pathogens is essential for devising rational programs to preserve the effective lifespan of antimicrobial agents and to abrogate epidemics of drug-resistant organisms. Mathematical models predict that strain fitness is an important determinant of multidrug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis transmission, but the effects of strain diversity have been largely overlooked. Here we compared the impact of resistance mutations on the transmission of isoniazid-resistant M. tuberculosis in San Francisco during a 9-y period. Strains with a KatG S315T or inhA promoter mutation were more likely to spread than strains with other mutations. The impact of these mutations on the transmission of isoniazid-resistant strains was comparable to the effect of other clinical determinants of transmission. Associations were apparent between specific drug resistance mutations and the main M. tuberculosis lineages. Our results show that in addition to host and environmental factors, strain genetic diversity can influence the transmission dynamics of drug-resistant bacteria.
ROSAT X-Ray Observations of the Dwarf Galaxy Holmberg II

We present a study of the irregular dwarf galaxy Holmberg II based on ROSAT Position Sensitive Proportional Counter observations (total exposure time: 22 ks). Holmberg II is a nearby (3.2 Mpc), well-studied dwarf irregular galaxy. It is famous for its interstellar medium (ISM), which is dominated by expanding structures such as H I holes and shells. We search for X-ray emission from point sources as well as for diffuse emission, down to the detection limit of the ROSAT data. Using X-ray hardness ratio diagrams we differentiate between thermal plasma and power-law X-ray spectra, which helps to determine the nature of the individual sources. Correlating the X-ray data with complementary observations ranging from the far-ultraviolet to the radio regime, we increase the probability of correctly identifying sources belonging to Holmberg II. We did not detect soft X-ray emission originating from hot gas within supergiant H I shells above our luminosity sensitivity limit of Llimit(0.1-2.1 keV) ≥ 1037ergs s-1. This finding can probably be attributed to blowout in the case of the largest holes and insufficient sensitivity (owing to strong photoelectric absorption) in the case of the smaller H I holes. However, we find faint X-ray sources well beyond the stellar body but within the H I distribution of Holmberg II, which suggests the presence of X-ray binaries. This indicates that star formation has taken place across the entire gaseous disk of Holmberg II in the past, some of which may have created the structures seen in the ISM at large galactocentric radii.
Whole-body contact force sensing from motion capture

Using motion capture only, we challenge in this paper the estimation of the contact forces-backed with ground-truth sensing, in human whole-body interaction with the environment. Our method is novel and makes it possible to get rid of cumbersome force sensors in monitoring multi-contact motion and its interaction force data. This problem is very difficult. Indeed, while a given force distribution uniquely determines the resulting kinematics, the converse is generally not true in multi-contact. In such scenarios, physics-based optimization alone may only capture force distributions that are physically compatible with a given motion rather than the actual forces being applied. We address this indeterminacy by collecting a large-scale dataset on whole-body motion and contact forces humans apply in multi-contact scenarios. We then train recurrent neural networks on real human force distribution patterns and complement them with a second-order cone program ensuring the physical validity of the predictions. Extensive validation on challenging dynamic and multi-contact scenarios shows that the method we propose can outperform physical force sensing both in terms of accuracy and usability.
Repatriation Readjustment of International Managers: An Empirical Analysis of HRD Interventions.

Purpose – With increasing interest in overseas business expansion, particularly in the Asia‐Pacific region, expatriate management, including repatriation readjustmenst, has become a critical international human resource development (HRD) issue for multinational enterprises (MNEs). This empirical study therefore aims to investigate the use of HRD interventions relating to training and development for effective readjustment of international managers on repatriation.Design/methodology/approach – The data were collected through a field survey conducted on repatriation experience of international managers from more than five countries, who are working in Singapore.Findings – The study provides valuable insights about repatriation training programmes, training contents, programme duration, delivery modes, and providers of effective training programmes.Research limitations/implications – HRD professionals and senior executives of MNEs will benefit from the findings of this study in making decisions on effective .
A novel 3D NoC scheme for high throughput unicast and multicast routing protocols

Original scientific article Novel 3D-NoC architecture has been designed by expanding the impression of lossless compression of data. The proposed design shows remarkable results in terms of power efficiency and network throughput. In this scheme, proposed for 3D-NoC, the data to be transmitted is compressed on the transmitting side, so that the data packet is reduced before transmitting. And at the receiver, the original data is restored by decompressing the encoded data. Golomb-Rice algorithm is utilized to develop and implement the hardware encoder and decoder (Codec). The result is evaluated for both unicast and multicast routing. The improvement in power efficiency and throughput for proposed 3D-NoC (unicast) is 9,25 % and 17,61 % respectively. In similar, the improvement in power efficiency and throughput for proposed 3D-NoC (multicast) is 8,65 % and 14,66 % respectively. Further, from the result we observed that the improvement variation is higher for smaller bandwidth, which means the proposed 3D-NoC works well in case of narrow bandwidth.