Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Acetylcholine-induced coronary vasoconstriction and vasodilation in tranquilized baboons.

To determine the effects of acetylcholine on the coronary bed in the baboon and whether the effects preceded or followed the action of acetylcholine on ventricular function, eight adult baboons (Papio anubis) were instrumented to measure left ventricular (LV) and mean arterial pressures, LV dP/dt, regional myocardial function, and coronary blood flow. Acetylcholine was injected locally through a catheter positioned in the coronary artery ostium using fluoroscopic guidance in intact sedated baboons. With heart rate held constant, intracoronary acetylcholine (0.5 micrograms/kg) reduced coronary blood flow by 82 +/- 4% from a baseline value of 34 +/- 4 ml/min without a significant change in mean arterial pressure and with a reduction in LV dP/dt of only 12 +/- 3%. The decrease in coronary blood flow occurred before either LV dP/dt or regional myocardial function fell in the region of the heart receiving acetylcholine. After the intense coronary constriction, a later phase characterized by dilation was observed. The changes in coronary blood flow with acetylcholine were unaffected by combined alpha- and beta-adrenoceptor blockades but were abolished by muscarinic blockade. Low doses of acetylcholine elicited only coronary vasodilation. All doses of acetylcholine, administered directly into the iliac artery, also elicited only iliac vasodilation. Intracoronary acetylcholine in conscious dogs also induced only coronary vasodilation, whereas in conscious calves at higher doses, initial vasoconstrictor responses were observed, which also preceded reductions in regional myocardial function. These results suggest that the controversy surrounding the effects of acetylcholine can be reconciled on the basis of species, vascular bed studied, and dose. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
A COGNITIVE E-LEARNING SYSTEM USING AROUSAL VALENCE EMOTIONAL MODEL

This paper proposes an approach to connote the basic human emotion to learner’s emotion for e learning. The emotions are captured from the EEG signals and are processed at various levels to classify them. This paper uses arousal-valence model to recognize the learner’s emotion. In addition, we introduce a cognitive system -Adaptive Control of Thought—Rational – (ACT–R) to dynamically monitor the learner’s emotion. This dynamic cognitive learning environment brings the learner’s mood to active listening mood through an external stimulus. This enables the learner to improvise their in-depth knowledge about the learning content and kindle their interest towards the subject. In general, this method is similar to the conventional classroom teaching where the teacher modulates the content delivery method depending on the mood of student. Keyword: EEG, Cognitive Architecture ACT-R, Intelligent Learning Environment, E-learning
An Approximated Proximal Alternating Method for Non-convex and Non-smooth Optimization

In this paper, an approximated proximal alternating method (APAM) is proposed for solving non-convex and non-smooth problems. Our APAM approximately solves the subproblems to certain inexactness so that it requires neither computing/estimating the Lipschitz constants nor calculating exact solutions. With a special designed error condition, APAM is proved to globally converge to a critical point of the problem, which as far as we know, is so far the best convergence result in non-convex optimization. Moreover, two practical strategies for checking the inexactness criterion are theoretically analyzed, which are more valid than the commonly used criteria in practice. Our algorithm APAM is applied to non-convex dictionary learning problem on both synthetic and real-world data. The experimental results with detailed analyses and discussions are given to help verify the efficiency of APAM.
Research on Secrecy Communication via Bilateral Artificial Noise Transmitting

The problem that we consider is the secrecy communication in bilateral transmitting scenario. The model is connected via wireless signal between two points: the transmitter and the receiver. We assume that the transmitter has a single transmit antenna while the receiver has two (one transmit, one receive). In recent papers, it is shown that artificial noise could be used to increase the secrecy capacity. However, for one transmitter antenna case, helper nodes can only be used. In this paper we propose a new 2-Stage artificial noise sending method to substitute helper nodes. So the cost of helper nodes can be saved. The comparison of artificial noise transmitting with Beamforming is given in this paper. It can be proved to increase the secrecy capacity via our approach.
Assessing the Importance of Factors Determining Decision-Making by Actors Involved in Innovation Processes

Innovations can be seen as chains of non-routine decisions. With each decision, the innovator has to assess how important the various decision attributes are. Because the decisions are non-routine, innovators cannot fall back on judgements of past importance. Most decision support methods elicit importance judgements but do not help innovators or other decision-makers with the mental processes leading to the judgment. The ‘importance assessment process’ can be divided into seven phases (such as (sub-)attribute processing and various forms of weighting). The phase ‘(sub)-attribute processing’ is the most important phase in terms of effort devoted to it, and the most obvious pitfalls that prevent valid importance assessments appear in this phase. This article describes some of these pitfalls. A few simple instruments may provide better-founded importance judgements that can be better communicated to other actors involved in innovation processes.
Local Network Community Detection with Continuous Optimization of Conductance and Weighted Kernel K-Means

Local network community detection is the task of finding a single community of nodes concentrated around few given seed nodes in a localized way. Conductance is a popular objective function used in many algorithms for local community detection. This paper studies a continuous relaxation of conductance. We show that continuous optimization of this objective still leads to discrete communities. We investigate the relation of conductance with weighted kernel k-means for a single community, which leads to the introduction of a new objective function, σ-conductance. Conductance is obtained by setting σ to 0. Two algorithms, EMc and PGDc, are proposed to locally optimize σ-conductance and automatically tune the parameter σ. They are based on expectation maximization and projected gradient descent, respectively. We prove locality and give performance guarantees for EMc and PGDc for a class of dense and well separated communities centered around the seeds. Experiments are conducted on networks with ground-truth communities, comparing to state-of-the-art graph diffusion algorithms for conductance optimization. On large graphs, results indicate that EMc and PGDc stay localized and produce communities most similar to the ground, while graph diffusion algorithms generate large communities of lower quality.
A decision support tool for optimizing integration of specialty crop enterprises in grain production systems

Agricultural production in the Midwestern US is highly concentrated with 85% percent of cropland acreage planted to only corn and soybeans (NASS, 2006). Crop specialization has improved the productivity and market efficiency of grain based commodity crops, but maintaining profitability has become increasingly difficult as input prices continue to rise while grain prices fluctuate substantially (Dimitri et al., 2005). In addition, limited diversity has resulted in a number of negative environmental and social consequences. Diversification is one alternative to help farming operations become more sustainable and survive in today’s unpredictable climate. Crop diversification and livestock integration can result in a series of synergisms and complementarities among farming system components, leading to more balanced nutrient and pest management cycles (Altieri and Rosset, 1996), greater farm income (Barbieri and Mahoney, 2009), and reduced income variability and risk (Helmers et al., 2001). Dramatic shifts away from the production of corn and soybeans are unlikely as farmers possess the skills and equipment to produce these crops. However, the integration of livestock or specialty crops as supplementary enterprises could help grain producers obtain the benefits of diversification. Our research was undertaken to determine the feasibility of integrating various supplemental enterprises into a traditional Midwestern corn-soybean rotation system. The objective was to identify supplemental cropping alternatives that have agronomic and market feasibility, would contribute to the environmental and economic sustainability of the operation, fit in during times of low labor requirements for corn and soybean operations, and not require substantial additional specialized machinery or knowledge by the farmer.
Throughput Optimality and Overload Behavior of Dynamical Flow Networks Under Monotone Distributed Routing

This paper investigates the throughput behavior of single-commodity dynamical flow networks governed by monotone distributed routing policies. The networks are modeled as systems of ordinary differential equations based on mass conversation laws on directed graphs with limited flow capacities on the links and constant external inflows at certain origin nodes. Under monotonicity assumptions on the routing policies, it is proven that, if the external inflow at the origin nodes does not violate any cut capacity constraints, then there exists a globally asymptotically stable equilibrium, and the network achieves maximal throughput. On the contrary, should such a constraint be violated, the network overload behavior is characterized. In particular, it is established that there exists a cut with respect to which the flow densities on every link grow linearly over time (respectively, reach their respective limits simultaneously) in the case where the buffer capacities are infinite (respectively, finite).
A formal semantics of timed activity diagrams and its PROMELA translation

The lack of a precise semantics for UML activity diagrams makes the reasoning on models constructed using such diagrams infeasible. However, such diagrams are widely used in domains that require a certain degree of confidence. Due to economical interests, the business domain is one of these. To enhance confidence level of UML activity diagrams, this paper provides a formal definition of their syntax and semantics. The main interest of our approach is that we chose UML activity diagrams, which are recognized to be more tractable by engineers, and we extend them with timing constraints. We outline the translation of our semantics into the PROMELA input language of the SPIN model checker which can be used to check several properties.
Particle swarm optimization for minimax problems

This paper investigates the ability of the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) method to cope with minimax problems through experiments on well-known test functions. Experimental results indicate that PSO tackles minimax problems effectively. Moreover, PSO alleviates difficulties that might be encountered by gradient-based methods, due to the nature of the minimax: objective function, and potentially lead to failure. The performance of PSO is compared with that of other established approaches, such as the sequential quadratic programming (SQP) method and a recently proposed smoothing technique.
Negative Affect and Social Cognition: The Differential Effects of Self-Referent vs. Other-Referent Emotional Priming on Impression Formation

The present study aimed at exploring conditions when negative mood effects on person judgments would particularly be moderated. Self-referent and other-referent sentence completion tasks were used as a priming tool to induce negative affective states in subjects. Under the self-referent priming condition, subjects were led to focus their attention to negative aspects of their own self, while under the other-referent priming condition their attention was made directed toward negative aspects of others. After the sentence completion tasks, all the subjects participated in an impression formation task where they rated an ambiguously described target person on several trait scales. As a result, it was found that the negative mood biased subjects' impressions of the target in the negative direction, but that the mood effects were less prevailing when negative affects were elicited by self-referent priming tasks than by other-referent priming tasks. The results were discussed in terms of the Bower and Cohen (1982) 's“blackboard”model, which assumes a mechanism for accommodating the emotional influences upon social judgments, depending on the differences in emotional sources.
IMPROVING ROAD NETWORK EXTRACTION IN HIGH RESOLUTION SAR IMAGES BY DATA FUSION

In this paper, the problem of the detection of road networks in high resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images is addressed. Our method, which is an improvement of previous work based on line extraction and connection with Markov random field, is dedicated to dense urban areas. The major modifications are, first, the introduction of a classification in order to improve both the level of confidence and the number of extracted roads and, secondly, a multi-scale process in order to take into account all the possible widths of roads. Two examples on real data prove the improvement brought by this two adding and the accuracy of the road detection.
Women Living with Men who Use Viagra

ABSTRACT Since the launch of Viagra, there have been few studies on the perspective of the female partner. Through a multiple case study approach drawing from phenomenology and the constant comparative method of analysis, this qualitative exploratory study examines the stories of four women living with a spouse who is currently taking Viagra. Findings highlight the need for a more holistic approach to treating erectile dysfunction that supports both partners within the couple relationship. It is also suggested that greater attention should be given to the relationship and to the sexual needs of women.
Musulmans et chrétiens au Canada et au Québec

Qu'en est-il des Musulmans au Canada et, plus particulierement, au Quebec? L'A. fournit d'abord quelques donnees demographiques et fait ensuite l'historique du peuplement musulman dans la region. Il decrit brievement les organismes de la communaute musulmane au Canada et analyse plus specialement ceux de la communaute musulmane au Quebec: ses institutions, ses lieux de culte, ses imams, ses registres d'etat civil, ses problemes d'education, ses questions vestimentaires, ses organes d'information et ses courants ideologiques. Tout ceci permet d'envisager alors leur rapport avec l'Etat et les Eglises: le role du gouvernement federal et celui du gouvernement du Quebec sont rapidement envisages, puis les efforts des Eglises, a travers diverses initiatives et associations, sont enfin analyses en vue d'un meilleur dialogue.
A Taxonomy of Model Transformations

This report summarises the results of the discussions of a working group on model transformation of the Dagstuhl Seminar on Language Engineering for Model-Driven Software Development. The main contribution is a taxonomy of model transformation. This taxonomy can be used to help developers in deciding which model transformation approach is best suited to deal with a particular problem.
Development of a micromanipulation mystem with force sensing

This article provides in-depth knowledge about our undergoing effort to develop an open architecture micromanipulation system with force sensing capabilities. The major requirement to perform any micromanipulation task effectively is to ensure the controlled motion of actuators within nanometer accuracy with low overshoot even under the influence of disturbances. Moreover, to achieve high dexterity in manipulation, control of the interaction forces is required. In micromanipulation, control of interaction forces necessitates force sensing in milli-Newton range with nano-Newton resolution . In this paper, we present a position controller based on a discrete time sliding mode control architecture along with a disturbance observer. Experimental verifications for this controller are demonstrated for 100, 50 and 10 nanometer step inputs applied to PZT stages. Our results indicate that position tracking accuracies up to 10 nanometers, without any overshoot and low steady state error are achievable. Furthermore, the paper includes experimental verification of force sensing within nano-Newton resolution using a piezoresistive cantilever end- effector. Experimental results are compared to the theoretical estimates of the change in attractive forces as a function of decreasing distance and of the pull off force between a silicon tip and a glass surface, respectively. Good agreement among the experimental data and the theoretical estimates has been demonstrated.
Accelerated Born–Infeld metrics in Kerr–Schild geometry

We consider Einstein Born–Infeld theory with a null fluid in Kerr–Schild geometry. We find accelerated charge solutions of this theory. Our solutions reduce to the Plebanski solution when the acceleration vanishes and to the Bonnor–Vaidya solution as the Born–Infeld parameter b goes to infinity. We also give the explicit form of the energy flux formula due to the acceleration of the charged sources.
Assessing the Response of Nematode Communities to Climate Change-Driven Warming: A Microcosm Experiment

Biodiversity has diminished over the past decades with climate change being among the main responsible factors. One consequence of climate change is the increase in sea surface temperature, which, together with long exposure periods in intertidal areas, may exceed the tolerance level of benthic organisms. Benthic communities may suffer structural changes due to the loss of species or functional groups, putting ecological services at risk. In sandy beaches, free-living marine nematodes usually are the most abundant and diverse group of intertidal meiofauna, playing an important role in the benthic food web. While apparently many functionally similar nematode species co-exist temporally and spatially, experimental results on selected bacterivore species suggest no functional overlap, but rather an idiosyncratic contribution to ecosystem functioning. However, we hypothesize that functional redundancy is more likely to observe when taking into account the entire diversity of natural assemblages. We conducted a microcosm experiment with two natural communities to assess their stress response to elevated temperature. The two communities differed in diversity (high [HD] vs. low [LD]) and environmental origin (harsh vs. moderate conditions). We assessed their stress resistance to the experimental treatment in terms of species and diversity changes, and their function in terms of abundance, biomass, and trophic diversity. According to the Insurance Hypothesis, we hypothesized that the HD community would cope better with the stressful treatment due to species functional overlap, whereas the LD community functioning would benefit from species better adapted to harsh conditions. Our results indicate no evidence of functional redundancy in the studied nematofaunal communities. The species loss was more prominent and size specific in the HD; large predators and omnivores were lost, which may have important consequences for the benthic food web. Yet, we found evidence for alternative diversity–ecosystem functioning relationships, such as the Rivets and the Idiosyncrasy Model.
Guidelines for scheduling some common computation-dags for Internet-based computing

A "pebble game" is developed to model the process of scheduling computation-dags for Internet-based computing (IC, for short). Strategies are derived for scheduling three common, significant families of such dags for IC: reduction-meshes, which represent (the intertask dependencies of) computations that can be performed by "up-sweeps" of meshes; reduction-trees, which represent "accumulative" computations that can be performed by "up-sweeps" of trees; and FFT (fast fourier transform) dags, which represent a large variety of convolutional computations. Two criteria are used to assess the quality of a schedule: its memory requirements and its rate of producing tasks that are eligible for allocation to remote clients. These criteria are important because of, respectively, the typically enormous sizes of IC computations and the typical temporal unpredictability of remote clients in IC. In particular, a high production rate of eligible tasks decreases a computation's vulnerability to the gridlock that can occur when a computation stalls pending the return of intermediate results by remote clients. Under idealized assumptions, the schedules derived are optimal in the rate of producing eligible tasks and are either exactly or approximately optimal in memory requirements.
Finding a Test Order using Object-Oriented Slicing Technique

For integration testing processes, testers need to find test sequences of classes in order to execute interactions. One major problem of test order is the presence of cyclic dependency calls. Many researchers have proposed techniques to solve this problem by removing relationships to break cycles and then create test stubs. Therefore, one major purpose of integration testing is minimization of test stubs. This paper presents an approach to find test sequences by using object-oriented slicing technique to alleviate using test stubs. The main objective of using object-oriented slicing is to break cycles by slicing classes for partial testing instead of removing relationships for test stub construction. With this approach, the cost of implementing test stubs is decreased.
Recognizing Textual Entailment Using Multiple Features and Filters

Textual entailment among sentences is an important part of applied semantic inference. In this paper we propose a novel technique to address the recognizing textual entailment challenge, which based on the distribution hypothesis that words that tend to occur in the same contexts tend to have similar meanings. Using the IDF of the overlapping words between the two propositions, we calculate the similarity between the two given propositions to infer the likelihood of entailment and then filter the results inferred. We evaluate our model on NTCIR-11 RITE dataset and then show how a combination of multiple features and filters can significantly improve the performance of recognizing textual entailmentover the best performers in those years. Our approach advances state-of-the-art Simplified Chinese NTCIR-11 RITE.
THE VALUE OF A GOVERNMENT MONITOR FOR FIRMS WITH HARD-TO-VALUE ASSETS

The Value of a Government Monitor for Firms with Hard-to-Value Assets Do federal bank examinations add value to the market's supervisory process? To address this question, we investigate whether Federal Reserve inspections of bank holding companies have affected the association between banks' reported book values and the market value of their equity. Using data from the fourth quarters of 1988 and 1990, we find that government examinations can significantly affect the market's interpretation of reported book values, although the particular effects vary between years and according to a bank's specific characteristics. Our results imply that individual examination visits do not directly affect bank market values, although they do improve the quality of reported accounting numbers.