Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adrenocortical and adrenomedullary homologs in eight species of adult and developing teleosts: morphology, histology, and immunohistochemistry.

Morphology, histology, and immunohistochemistry of the adrenocortical and adrenomedullary homologs (adrenal glands) of the following developing and adult teleosts were examined: Salmoniformes-Oncorhynchus mykiss (rainbow trout), Salmo trutta fario (brown trout), Coregonus lavaretus (white fish); Cyprinodontiformes-Gambusia affinis (mosquito fish). Perciformes-Dicentrarchus labrax (sea bass), Sparus aurata (sea bream), Diplodus sargus (white bream), Oblada melanura (saddled bream). The anatomical relationships of the gland with the renal system and venous vessels were also noted. In adults of all species steroidogenic and catecholaminergic chromaffin cells were found in the head kidney, which is pronephric in origin and subsequently transformed into a hematopoietic lymphatic organ. In Perciformes, chromaffin cells are distributed around the anterior and posterior cardinal veins and ducts of Cuvier; in Salmoniformes, around the posterior cardinal veins and in the hematopoietic tissue; and in G. affinis, around the ducts of Cuvier and posterior cardinal veins, while a few are visible also around the sinus venosus. In Perciformes and Salmoniformes, numerous chromaffin cells are also present in the posterior kidney, derived from the opisthonephros, in contact with the caudal vein. Steroidogenic cells are always confined to the head kidney. During development chromaffin and steroidogenic cells appear early after hatching in the pronephric kidney, at the level of the ducts of Cuvier and of the cephalic part of the posterior cardinal veins. Later, chromaffin cells in Perciformes reach the anterior cardinal veins, and subsequently, in both Perciformes and Salmoniformes, they reach the developing posterior kidney. Their localization along the posterior kidney is still in progress about 4 months after hatching and is completed about a year after hatching. These findings support the concept that the structure of the adrenal gland in teleosts is intermediate between that of the other actinopterygians and that of tetrapods. The development differs from that of tetrapods in that it occurs mainly in the pronephros and only later do chromaffin cells reach the opisthonephric kidney.
Efficiently and precisely locating memory leaks and bloat

Inefficient use of memory, including leaks and bloat, remain a significant challenge for C and C++ developers. Applications with these problems become slower over time as their working set grows and can become unresponsive. At the same time, memory leaks and bloat remain notoriously difficult to debug, and comprise a large number of reported bugs in mature applications. Previous tools for diagnosing memory inefficiencies-based on garbage collection, binary rewriting, or code sampling-impose high overheads (up to 100X) or generate many false alarms. This paper presents Hound, a runtime system that helps track down the sources of memory leaks and bloat in C and C++ applications. Hound employs data sampling, a staleness-tracking approach based on a novel heap organization, to make it both precise and efficient. Hound has no false positives, and its runtime and space overhead are low enough that it can be used in deployed applications. We demonstrate Hound's efficacy across a suite of synthetic benchmarks and real applications.
Two kinds of calcium channels in canine atrial cells. Differences in kinetics, selectivity, and pharmacology

Currents through Ca channels were recorded in single canine atrial cells using whole-cell recording with patch pipettes. Two components of Ca channel current could be distinguished. One ("Ifast") was present only if cells were held at negative potentials, was most prominent for relatively small depolarizations, and inactivated within tens of milliseconds. The other ("Islow"), corresponding to the Ca current previously reported in single cardiac cells, persisted even at relatively positive holding potentials, required stronger depolarizations for maximal current, and inactivated much more slowly. Both currents were unaffected by tetrodotoxin and both were reduced by Co. Ifast had the same size and kinetics when Ca was exchanged for Ba, while Islow was bigger and slower with Ba as the charge carrier. In isotonic BaCl2, fluctuation analysis showed that Ifast had a smaller single channel current than Islow. Islow was much more sensitive to block by nitrendipine than was Ifast; also, Islow, but not Ifast, was increased by the dihydropyridine drug BAY K8644. Isoproterenol produced large increases in Islow but had no effect on Ifast.
Citizens’ understanding of welfare of animals on the farm: An empirical study

ABSTRACT Many people believe that welfare standards for nonhuman animals on farms need to be improved. However, the definition of farm animal welfare (FAW) remains unclear, as different disciplines have developed competing understandings of FAW. Some studies have investigated citizens’ understanding of FAW through quantitative surveys. This study combined both closed-ended and open-ended questions and compared the findings from the different types of questions. For the open-ended question, respondents mostly named criteria in the categories of “housing system” and “management practice”; however, for the closed-ended question, the category “animal health” was most important. These findings suggest that not only whom you ask determines what comprises animal welfare, but how you ask. These findings should be considered when developing new animal welfare programs to increase the likelihood that the new programs will be accepted by the broader public and meet its expectations. In particular, improvements concerning animal health need to be publicized and clearly communicated to citizens, as health-related aspects are important to many people even though those aspects may not be the first thing they mentioned when asked.
A Cosmology-Independent Calibration of Gamma-Ray Burst Luminosity Relations and the Hubble Diagram

An important concern in the application of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) to cosmology is that the calibration of GRB luminosity/energy relations depends on the cosmological model, due to the lack of a sufficient low-redshift GRB sample. In this paper, we present a new method to calibrate GRB relations in a cosmology-independent way. Since objects at the same redshift should have the same luminosity distance, and since the distance moduli of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) obtained directly from observations are completely cosmology independent, we obtain the distance modulus of a GRB at a given redshift by interpolating from the Hubble diagram of SNe Ia. Then we calibrate seven GRB relations without assuming a particular cosmological model and construct a GRB Hubble diagram to constrain cosmological parameters. From the 42 GRBs at 1.4 < z ⩽ 6.6, we obtain ΩM = 0.25+ 0.04−0.05, ΩΛ = 0.75+ 0.05−0.04 for the flat ΛCDM model, and for the dark energy model with a constant equation of state w0 = − 1.05+ 0.27−0.40, which is consistent with the concordance model in a 1 σ confidence region.
Towards an efficient model of visual saliency for objective image quality assessment

Based on “ground truth” eye-tracking data, earlier research [1] shows that adding natural scene saliency (NSS) can improve an objective metric's performance in predicting perceived image quality. To include NSS in a real-world implementation of an objective metric, a computational model instead of eye-tracking data is needed. Existing models of visual saliency are generally designed for a specific domain, and so, not applicable to image quality prediction. In this paper, we propose an efficient model for NSS, inspired by findings from our eye-tracking studies. Experimental results show that the proposed model sufficiently captures the saliency of the eye-tracking data, and applying the model to objective image quality metrics enhances their performance in the same manner as when including eye-tracking data.
On wideband deconvolution using wavelet transforms

A discussion on the expression proposed by Weiss et al. (see J. Acoust. Soc. Amer., vol.96, p.850-6 and p.857-66, 1994 and IEEE Signal Processing Mag., vol.11, p.13-32, 1994) for deconvolving the wideband density function is presented. We prove here that such an expression reduces to be proportional to the wideband correlation receiver output, or continuous wavelet transform of the received signal with respect to the transmitted one. Moreover, we show that the same result has been implicitly assumed by Weiss et al., when the deconvolution equation is derived. We stress the fact that the analyzed approach is just the orthogonal projection of the density function onto the image of the wavelet transform with respect to the transmitted signal. Consequently, the approach can be considered a good representation of the density function only under the prior knowledge that the density function belongs to such a subspace. The choice of the transmitted signal is thus crucial to this approach.
Mutation of SFTPC in infantile pulmonary alveolar proteinosis with or without fibrosing lung disease

Pulmonary surfactant protein C (SP‐C) is a highly hydrophobic peptide produced by type‐II alveolar cells through the processing of a high‐molecular weight precursor (pro‐SP‐C), that enhances surface tension and facilitates the recycling of pulmonary surfactant in vitro. Recently, two seemingly dominant‐negative mutations of the pro‐SP‐C‐encoding gene (SFTPC, MIM 178620), were reported in families with vertically‐inherited interstitial lung disease (Nogee et al. [2001: N Engl J Med 344:573–579]; Thomas et al. [2002: Am J Respir Crit Care Med 165:1322–1328]). We have examined the SP‐C protein and its precursor as well as the encoding gene, in a cohort of 34 sporadic or familial cases with unexplained respiratory distress (URD) in which surfactant protein B (SP‐B) deficiency related to SFTPB mutation had been ruled out. One patient with complete SP‐C deficiency had no detectable mutation of SFTPC. Of the 10 patients with abnormal pro‐SP‐C processing, as suggested from analysis of broncho‐alveolar lavage (BAL) fluid, two distinct heterozygous SFTPC missense mutations were identified. The first, g.1286T > C (p.I73T), was de novo and resulted in progressive respiratory failure with intra‐alveolar storage of a granular, protein‐ and lipid‐rich, periodic acid Schiff (PAS)‐positive material (pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (PAP)), and interstitial lung disease. The second, g.2125G > A (p.R167Q), was found in two PAP patients from the endogamous white settler population of Réunion Island in which URD has an unexpectedly high prevalence. Since this mutation was diagnosed in subjects from this subpopulation who did not have evidence for lung disease, we propose environmental exposures or modifier genes to play a role in the phenotype, as suggested from murine models lacking the SP‐C protein, although we cannot rule out a rare polymorphism, hitherto restricted to that subpopulation. Most remarkably, these observations extend the phenotypic spectrum related to SFTPC mutation from interstitial lung disease to PAP. Notably, the reported mutations do not appear to be dominant negatives. This article contains supplementary material, which may be viewed at the American Journal of Medical Genetics website at http://www.interscience. wiley.com/jpages/0148‐7299/suppmat/index.html. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Making Democratic Governance Work: How Regimes Shape Prosperity, Welfare, and Peace, by Pippa Norris Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson

Writing in 1990, Dan Nimmo and David L. Swanson described political communication as a “diverse, interdisciplinary field of study” with contested terrain that is “enlivened by competing theories, approaches, agendas, and concepts of identity” (p. 7). It was a protean field under rapid development. World events added to the richness and complexity. The end of the Cold War and the emergence of transnational television opened up new areas of inquiry. More recently, the field has embraced “new media” as a core element of its research agenda. Yet, despite the breadth of interests and methods, political communication research has remained bound to a particular set of rare political circumstances. Most political communication research is premised on the presence of both fully consolidated state institutions and robust (though imperfect) media organizations. As a result, political communication scholars have generally neglected areas of limited statehood, places mostly in the Global South where state institutions are weak or altogether missing. According to political scientist Thomas Risse (2012, p. 6), about 80% of the world’s population lives in or is exposed to regions where the state lacks the capacity to provide for collective goods or implement and enforce binding rules. The Bertelsmann Transformation Index (2013) informs us that only 44 out of 129 countries listed (34%) enjoy a full monopoly of the means of violence (9 or 10 points on a 10-point scale), while only 28 out of 129 countries (22%) possess fully effective administrative capacities. These are also severely underdeveloped regions where most people get by on less than $2 a day (World Bank, 2013). A large swath of the planet remains, on the whole, outside the range of vision of most political communication scholarship. Pippa Norris’s Making Democratic Governance Work and Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson’s Why Nations Fail should be read as invitations to political communication scholars to explore important areas of
Optimal Workfare with Voluntary and Involuntary Unemployment

This paper addresses the welfare implications of introducing workfare into unemployment benefit policy. We consider a population composed of employed and unemployed workers and of individuals who do not seek employment. Job search behavior is unobservable, which means that voluntarily unemployed individuals can claim unemployment insurance (UI) benefits intended for unemployed workers. As a consequence, pecuniary benefit schemes underinsure workers against unemployment. We show that requiring unproductive activities (workfare) in exchange for UI benefits may generate a Pareto improvement by facilitating better unemployment insurance for workers, and we characterize the situations where this is the case.
A postural control model incorporating multisensory inputs for maintaining a musculoskeletal model in a stance posture

Graphical Abstract Maintenance of the upright stance is one of the basic requirements in human daily life. Stance postural control is achieved through muscle coordination based on the integration of multisensory inputs such as visual, vestibular, and proprioceptive somatosensory inputs. In this study, our aim was to develop a stance postural control model including a neural controller with feed-forward control and sensory feedback control based on visual, vestibular, and proprioceptive somatosensory feedback inputs. The feed-forward control consists of conventional feed-forward control, which sends constant inputs (necessary to maintain the posture) to the muscles, as well as stiffness regulation which controls the body stiffness (overall joint stiffness) based on sensory input conditions. In contrast to previous studies, a musculoskeletal model with 70 muscles rather than an inverted pendulum was selected to represent the human body. A bipedal stance under the influence of a maximal 120-ms neurological time delay was achieved by muscle control rather than joint torque control. Furthermore, we considered four sensory input conditions: normal, vision exclusion, vestibular loss, and vision exclusion together with vestibular loss. In each condition, variables of the neural controller were searched to keep the musculoskeletal model standing during a five-second forward dynamics simulation by the optimization method. As a result, we found that when all three types (visual, vestibular, and proprioceptive) of the sensory inputs are available, low muscle stiffness is sufficient to maintain the balance of a musculoskeletal model. When one (visual or vestibular) or several (both visual and vestibular) sensory inputs get excluded, high stiffness may be desirable for maintenance of the balance. This simulation result indicates that our newly developed computational model resembles the physiological features reported in experimental study, namely that individuals might stiffen their body during upright standing to cope with deterioration in sensory input.
On efficient consistency checks by robots

Most autonomous robotic agents use logic inference to keep to safe and permitted behaviour. Given a set of rules, it is important that the robot is able to establish the consistency of its rules and its current perception-based beliefs. This paper investigates how a robotic agent can use model checking to examine the consistency of its rules and beliefs. A rule set is modelled by a Boolean evolution system with synchronous semantics which can be translated into a labelled transition system (LTS). It is proven that stability and consistency can be formulated as computation tree logic (CTL) and linear temporal logic (LTL) properties. Two new algorithms are presented to perform realtime consistency and stability checks respectively, which is crucial for efficient consistency checks by robots.
High-Resolution Diffusion Tensor MR Imaging for Evaluating Myocardial Anisotropy and Fiber Tracking at 3T: the Effect of the Number of Diffusion-Sensitizing Gradient Directions

Objective We wanted to evaluate the effect of the number of diffusion-sensitizing gradient directions on the image quality for evaluating myocardial anisotropy and fiber tracking by using in vitro diffusion tensor MR imaging (DT-MRI). Materials and Methods The DT-MR images, using a SENSE-based echoplanar imaging technique, were acquired from ten excised porcine hearts by using a 3T MR scanner. With a b-value of 800 s/mm2, the diffusion tensor images were obtained for 6, 15 and 32 diffusion-sensitizing gradient directions at the midventricular level. The number of tracked fibers, the fractional anisotropy (FA), and the length of the tracked fibers were measured for the quantitative analysis. Two radiologists assessed the image quality of the fiber tractography for the qualitative analysis. Results By increasing the number of diffusion-sensitizing gradient directions from 6 to 15, and then to 32, the FA and standard deviation were significantly reduced (p < 0.01), and the number of tracked fibers and the length of the tracked fibers were significantly increased (p < 0.01). The image quality of the fiber tractography was significantly increased with the increased number of diffusion-sensitizing gradient directions (p < 0.01). Conclusion The image quality of in vitro DT-MRI is significantly improved as the number of diffusion-sensitizing gradient directions is increased.
An R&D Management Framework for Eco-Technology

Although research and development (RD (2) making an original eco-theme portfolio and roadmap; (3) gap analysis and implementation of new eco-themes; and (4) eco-value evaluation. (1) and (4) are new processes compared with conventional R&D management. Through practice at the Corporate R&D Center of Toshiba Corporation, the usefulness of the proposed framework is verified from the viewpoint of not only technological eco-innovation, but also that of organizational learning for environmental sustainability.
The CAN microcluster: Parallel processing over the controller area network

Most electrical engineering and computer science undergraduate programs include at least one course on microcontrollers and assembly language programming. Some departments offer legacy courses in C programming, but few include C programming from an embedded systems perspective, where it is still regularly used. Distributed computing and parallel processing are subjects generally reserved for graduate programs or specialized degrees. And although it is common to provide undergraduate courses on computer networks, the typical curriculum focuses on TCP/IP and Ethernet LANs, rarely venturing into the lesser known but commonly used networks such as the controller area network. By developing a computer cluster using simple microcontroller cards which communicate over a CAN, students are exposed to the intricacies of network communication, basic parallel and distributed processing concepts, and real-time embedded systems development. This paper presents the design of a <i<CAN Microcluster</i<, constructed using low-cost hardware components commonly available in ECE and CECS microcontroller laboratories. The software implementation is evaluated for both assembly language and C, and development issues are discussed.
USE OF MULTIPLE FRONT-ENDS AND I-VECTOR-BASED SPEAKER ADAPTATION FOR ROBUST SPEECH RECOGNITION

Although state-of-the-art speech recognition systems perform well in controlled environments they work poorly in realistic acoustical conditions in reverberant environments. Here, we use multiple front-ends (conventional mel-filterbank, multitaper spectrum estimation-based mel filterbank, robust mel and compressive gammachirp filterbank, iterative deconvolution-based dereverberated mel-filterbank, and maximum likelihood inverse filtering-based dereverberated mel-frequency cepstral coefficients) based recognition systems with multi-condition training data and combined their results using ROVER (Recognizer Output Voting Error Reduction). For 2and 8channel tasks, to get benefit from more than one channel, we also utilize ROVER instead of the multi-microphone signal processing method. As in previous work we also apply i-vector -based speaker adaptation which was found effective. Speech recognition experiments are conducted on the REVERB challenge 2014 corpora using the Kaldi recognizer. For the 2-channel task (using full batch processing) we obtained an average word error rate (WER) of 9.0% and 23.4% on the SimData and RealData respectively. Whereas for 8-channel task on the SimData and RealData the average WERs found were 8.9% and 21.7%, respectively.
Regulation of the antigen-induced F-actin response in rat basophilic leukemia cells by protein kinase C

Multivalent antigen that is capable of binding to and crosslinking the IgE receptors on rat basophilic leukemia (RBL) cells, induces a rapid and sustained rise in the content of filamentous actin. This reorganization of the actin may be responsible for changes in cellular morphology during the degranulation process. The antigen-stimulated polymerization of actin can be blocked in a dose-dependent manner by protein kinase inhibitors which also block degranulation. Conversely, reagents such as PMA, 1,2-dioctanoyl-sn-glycerol (diC8), and 1-oleoyl-2- acetyl-glycerol (OAG) which stimulate protein kinase C (PKC) also activate the rise in F-actin, although they have no effect on degranulation by themselves. The actin response which can be stimulated by the PKC activators can also be blocked by protein kinase inhibitors indicating that the PMA- and OAG-induced response is probably through activation of a protein kinase. Depletion of PKC activity through long term (20 h) exposure of RBL cells to PMA, also inhibited the F-actin response when the cells were stimulated with either multivalent antigen or OAG. External Ca++, which is an absolute requirement for degranulation, is not necessary for the rise in F-actin, but may modulate the response. Furthermore, ionomycin, which induces a large Ca++ influx, does not stimulate the F-actin increase even at doses that cause degranulation. These results suggest that activation of a protein kinase, such as PKC, may be responsible for signaling the polymerization of actin in RBL cells and that a rise in intracellular Ca++ is neither necessary nor sufficient for this response.