Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Decreased caveolin-1 levels contribute to fibrosis and deposition of extracellular IGFBP-5

Our previous studies have demonstrated increased expression of insulin‐like growth factor binding protein‐5 (IGFBP‐5) in fibrotic tissues and IGFBP‐5 induction of extracellular matrix (ECM) components. The mechanism resulting in increased IGFBP‐5 in the extracellular milieu of fibrotic fibroblasts is unknown. Since Caveolin‐1 (Cav‐1) has been implicated to play a role in membrane trafficking and signal transduction in tissue fibrosis, we examined the effect of Cav‐1 on IGFBP‐5 internalization, trafficking and secretion. We demonstrated that IGFBP‐5 localized to lipid rafts in human lung fibroblasts and bound Cav‐1. Cav‐1 was detected in the nucleus in IGFBP‐5‐expressing fibroblasts, within aggregates enriched with IGFBP‐5, suggesting a coordinate trafficking of IGFBP‐5 and Cav‐1 from the plasma membrane to the nucleus. This trafficking was dependent on Cav‐1 as fibroblasts from Cav‐1 null mice had increased extracellular IGFBP‐5, and as fibroblasts in which Cav‐1 was silenced or lipid raft structure was disrupted through cholesterol depletion also had defective IGFBP‐5 internalization. Restoration of Cav‐1 function through administration of Cav‐1 scaffolding peptide dramatically increased IGFBP‐5 uptake. Finally, we demonstrated that IGFBP‐5 in the ECM protects fibronectin from proteolytic degradation. Taken together, our findings identify a novel role for Cav‐1 in the internalization and nuclear trafficking of IGFBP‐5. Decreased Cav‐1 expression in fibrotic diseases likely leads to increased deposition of IGFBP‐5 in the ECM with subsequent reduction in ECM degradation, thus identifying a mechanism by which reduced Cav‐1 and increased IGFBP‐5 concomitantly contribute to the perpetuation of fibrosis.
Sleep-disordered breathing in newborn mice heterozygous for the transcription factor Phox2b.

RATIONALE Central congenital hypoventilation syndrome (CCHS) is a rare autosomal dominant syndrome present from birth, and characterized by depressed ventilation during sleep. Heterozygous mutations of the homeobox gene Phox2b were recently found in a very high proportion of patients. OBJECTIVES To determine whether newborn mice with heterozygous targeted deletion of the transcription factor Phox2b would display sleep-disordered breathing. METHODS We measured breathing pattern using whole-body plethysmography in wild-type and mutant 5-day-old mice, and we classified sleep-wake states using nuchal EMG and behavioral scores. RESULTS We found that sleep apnea total time was approximately six times longer (8.9 +/- 12 vs. 1.5 +/- 2.2 seconds, p < 0.0015), and ventilation during active sleep was 21% lower (18.4 +/- 5.1 vs. 23.3 +/- 5.5 ml/g/second, p < 0.006) in mutant than in wild-type pups. During wakefulness, apnea time and ventilation were not significantly different between mutant and wild-type pups. Mutant and wild-type pups showed highly similar sleep-wake states. CONCLUSION Although their respiratory phenotype was much less severe than CCHS, the Phox2b(+/-) mutant mice showed sleep-disordered breathing, which partially modeled the key feature of CCHS.
Latent process model for manifold learning

In this paper, we propose a novel stochastic framework for unsupervised manifold learning. The latent variables are introduced, and the latent processes are assumed to characterize the pairwise relations of points over a high dimensional and a low dimensional space. The elements in the embedding space are obtained by minimizing the divergence between the latent processes over the two spaces. Different priors of the latent variables, such as Gaussian and multinominal, are examined. The Kullback-Leibler divergence and the Bhattachartyya distance are investigated. The latent process model incorporates some existing embedding methods and gives a clear view on the properties of each method. The embedding ability of this latent process model is illustrated on a collection of bitmaps of handwritten digits and on a set of synthetic data
Evolving Mario to Maximize Coin Score Using Neat and Novelty

Genetic algorithms can be used to evolve agents that will complete game tasks in a given game environment. In this paper, we discuss our experimental results using NEAT and Novelty to evolve Mario, from the popular game Super Mario Bros, to maximize his coin score. To conduct our experiments, we developed our own Mario simulator, creating a small world and a big world. Each world has an easy and hard version; the addition of coin boxes is what defines a world to be difficult. Just like in the original SMB, we added hidden rooms that contain many coins. However, finding the hidden room is the most difficult part. We hypothesized that Novelty would outperform NEAT because of its exploratory nature, while NEAT would focus more on getting the coins that are easy to obtain. Our results indicated that without an input that tells Mario what type of coin is nearest to him, Novelty significantly outperforms NEAT. However, with the input, NEAT can perform on par, or even better than Novelty at times. We argue that the reason for his discrepancy is that the addition of the input makes the task less deceptive for NEAT, which closes the performance gap between NEAT and Novelty.
What are public moods?

‘Public moods’ are often referred to in laymen’s accounts of public reactions to social events, yet the concept has rarely been invoked by social scientists. Taking public moods seriously as an analytical concept, this article relies on recent work on the moods of individuals as a means of exploring the moods of the public. To be in a certain mood is to attune oneself to the situation in which one finds oneself. Our mood is the report we give on the state of our attunement. A public mood can either be understood as the mood of a certain age, the mood of an audience which jointly attends to a public performance, or the bonding which takes places between bodies which are in close physical proximity to each other. It is in the public mood that emotions, thoughts and plans for action arise.
The benefits of ultrashort optical pulses in optically interconnected systems

Many properties of an optically interconnected system can be improved through the use of a modelocked laser. The short pulse duration, high peak power, wide spectral bandwidth, and low timing jitter of such a laser lead to these benefits. Timing advantages include simplified synchronization across large chip areas, receiver latency reduction, and data resynchronization. Lower power dissipation may be achieved through improved receiver sensitivity. Additional applications of short optical pulses include time-division multiplexing, single-source wavelength-division multiplexing, and precise time-domain testing of circuits. Several of these concepts were investigated using a high-speed chip-to-chip optical interconnect demonstration link. The link employs a modelocked laser and surface-normal optoelectronic modulators that were flip-chip bonded to silicon CMOS circuits. This paper outlines experiments that were performed on or simulated for the link, and discusses the important benefits of ultrashort optical pulses for optical interconnection.
Correction of physiologically induced global off‐resonance effects in dynamic echo‐planar and spiral functional imaging

In functional magnetic resonance imaging, a rapid method such as echo‐planar (EPI) or spiral is used to collect a dynamic series of images. These techniques are sensitive to changes in resonance frequency which can arise from respiration and are more significant at high magnetic fields. To decrease the noise from respiration‐induced phase and frequency fluctuations, a simple correction of the “dynamic off‐resonance in k‐space” (DORK) was developed. The correction uses phase information from the center of k‐space and a navigator echo and is illustrated with dynamic scans of single‐shot and segmented EPI and, for the first time, spiral imaging of the human brain at 7 T. Image noise in the respiratory spectrum was measured with an edge operator. The DORK correction significantly reduced respiration‐induced noise (image shift for EPI, blurring for spiral, ghosting for segmented acquisition). While spiral imaging was found to exhibit less noise than EPI before correction, the residual noise after the DORK correction was comparable. The correction is simple to apply and can correct for other sources of frequency drift and fluctuations in dynamic imaging. Magn Reson Med 47:344–353, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Intercontinental source attribution of ozone pollution at western U.S. sites using an adjoint method

We use the GEOS‐Chem chemical transport model and its adjoint to quantify source contributions to ozone pollution at two adjacent sites on the U.S. west coast in spring 2006: Mt. Bachelor Observatory (MBO) at 2.7 km altitude and Trinidad Head (TH) at sea level. The adjoint computes the sensitivity of ozone concentrations at the receptor sites to ozone production rates at 2° × 2.5° resolution over the history of air parcels reaching the site. MBO experiences distinct Asian ozone pollution episodes; most of the ozone production in these episodes takes place over East Asia with maxima over northeast China and southern Japan, adding to a diffuse background production distributed over the extratropical northern hemisphere. TH shows the same Asian origins for ozone as MBO but no distinct Asian pollution episodes. We find that transpacific pollution plumes transported in the free troposphere are diluted by a factor of 3 when entrained into the boundary layer, explaining why these plumes are undetectable in U.S. surface air.
Epigenetic Markers in Rectal Cancer

DNA methylation changes in rectal cancer may serve as a new screening marker and a tool for monitoring recurrence. Importantly, these changes may also function as a predictive marker to allow appropriate exclusion of (neo)adjuvant therapies in patients at low risk for disease recurrence, sparing them from potential treatment-related morbidities. Clin Cancer Res; 16(10); 2699–701. ©2010 AACR.
Speech Recognition Using Hidden Markov Model with MFCC-Subband Technique

This paper presents an approach to the recognition of speech signal using frequency spectral information with mel frequency for the improvement of speech feature representation in a HMM based recognition approach. The mel frequency approach exploits the frequency observation for speech signal in a given resolution which results in resolution feature overlapping resulting in recognition limit. Resolution decomposition with frequency mapping approach for a HMM based speech recognition system. The Simulation results show a improvement in the quality metrics of speech recognition wrt. to computational time, learning accuracy for a speech recognition system.
A rice fungal MAMP-responsive MAPK cascade regulates metabolic flow to antimicrobial metabolite synthesis

Plants recognize potential microbial pathogens through microbial-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs) and activate a series of defense responses, including cell death and the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and diverse anti-microbial secondary metabolites. Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascades are known to play a pivotal role in mediating MAMP signals; however, the signaling pathway from a MAPK cascade to the activation of defense responses is poorly understood. Here, we found in rice that the chitin elicitor, a fungal MAMP, activates two rice MAPKs (OsMPK3 and OsMPK6) and one MAPK kinase (OsMKK4). OsMPK6 was essential for the chitin elicitor-induced biosynthesis of diterpenoid phytoalexins. Conditional expression of the active form of OsMKK4 (OsMKK4DD) induced extensive alterations in gene expression, which implied dynamic changes of metabolic flow from glycolysis to secondary metabolite biosynthesis while suppressing basic cellular activities such as translation and cell division. OsMKK4DD also induced various defense responses, such as cell death, biosynthesis of diterpenoid phytoalexins and lignin but not generation of extracellular ROS. OsMKK4DD-induced cell death and expression of diterpenoid phytoalexin pathway genes, but not that of phenylpropanoid pathway genes, were dependent on OsMPK6. Collectively, the OsMKK4–OsMPK6 cascade plays a crucial role in reprogramming plant metabolism during MAMP-triggered defense responses.
An Impulse Radio Ultrawideband System for Contactless Noninvasive Respiratory Monitoring

We design a impulse radio ultrawideband radar monitoring system to track the chest wall movement of a human subject during respiration. Multiple sensors are placed at different locations to ensure that the backscattered signal could be detected by at least one sensor no matter which direction the human subject faces. We design a hidden Markov model to infer the subject facing direction and his or her chest movement. We compare the performance of our proposed scheme on 15 human volunteers with the medical gold standard using respiratory inductive plethysmography (RIP) belts, and show that on average, our estimation is over 81% correlated with the measurements of a RIP belt system. Furthermore, in order to automatically differentiate between periods of normal and abnormal breathing patterns, we develop a change point detection algorithm based on perfect simulation techniques to detect changes in the subject's breathing. The feasibility of our proposed system is verified by both the simulation and experiment results.
A wireless sensor network protocol for the OMG Data Distribution Service

Wireless Sensor Network technologies are maturing into industrial applicability, but the availability of broadly supported architectures and integration of existing standards is still lagging behind. As a proposal to ameliorate this situation, we consider the OMG Data Distribution Service (DDS), a middleware standard for interoperable data-centric publish/subscribe architectures with real-time capabilities, a candidate for standards-based realisations of equally data-centric WSN scenarios. DDS is rooted in larger-scale architectures. Consequently, the RTPS network protocol defined as a sibling standard to DDS assumes Ethernet-sized network frames and substantial communication resources, which are potential obstacles to applying DDS to WSNs. We therefore propose SNPS as an alternative transport protocol for DDS communication. SNPS has been designed as part of sDDS, a model-driven DDS realization architecture supporting highly resource-constrained embedded sensor node platforms. Still, SNPS is generally independent of sDDS; it was demonstrated to be usable even with minimalist solutions lacking a proper DDS run-time system. For SNPS, a modular layered architecture focussing on minimum footprint and scalability was defined. SNPS packets are assembled from an extensible set of submessages that are chosen and filled according to a well-defined, unambiguous protocol state engine. Keeping a stack of context information for a stream of SNPS submessages minimizes explicit state representation in the resulting packet structure. Other aspects of the protocol design are the support for bundling of data to minimize the total number of link layer frames exchanged and the leveraging of multi- and broadcast properties of wireless sensor networks. Most of the features are beneficial for wired sensor networks as well. SNPS has been implemented for several wireless and wired network protocols (ZigBee, 6LoWPAN, and Ethernet/UDP/IP) on diverse embedded sensor node and PC platforms. It has been embedded in the sDDS architecture and integrated into minimalist standalone implementations. It will be the main DDS transport protocol used at sensor integration levels of current projects of the authors' laboratory research group targeting home and industrial automation scenarios.
Detecting Earth-Mass Planets with Gravitational Microlensing

We show that Earth-mass planets orbiting stars in the Galactic disk and bulge can be detected by monitoring microlensed stars in the Galactic bulge. The star and its planet act as a binary lens which generates a light curve that can differ substantially from the light curve due only to the star itself. We show that the planetary signal remains detectable for planetary masses as small as an Earth mass when realistic source star sizes are included in the light curve calculation. These planets are detectable if they reside in the “lensing zone,” which is centered between 1 and 4 AU from the lensing star and spans about a factor of 2 in distance. If we require a minimum deviation of 4% from the standard point-lens microlensing light curve, then we find that more than 2% of all M⊕ planets and 10% of all 10 M⊕ in the lensing zone can be detected. If a third of all lenses have no planets, a third have 1 M⊕ planets, and the remaining third have 10 M⊕ planets then we estimate that an aggressive ground-based microlensing planet search program could find one Earth-mass planet and half a dozen 10 M⊕ planets per year.
Ballistocardiogram Measurement System Using Three Load-Cell Sensors Platform in Chair

This paper presents a Ballistocardiogram (BCG) measurement system to obtain BCG signal from a subject sitting on a chair installed three load-cell sensors platform. The measurement relies on sensing pressure variations on the seat related to cardiovascular cycles. Signals from sensors are amplified and filtered through a passband between 1 Hz and 40 Hz. An embedded-software runs on Micro2440 development board to sample the signal and implement a user operating interface that shows the real-time signal and control system. A PC program is developed to receive data from Micro2440 board and display the results. Our experiments were carried out with four healthy volunteers (three male and one female, aged 24 ± 2 years old). The results show that the repeatable BCG signal can be measured from three load-cell sensors platform under the seat of a normal chair.
Algebraic Curves in Structure From Motion

We introduce multiple-view geometry for algebraic curves, with applications in both static and dynamic scenes. More precisely, we show when and how the epipolar geometry can be recovered from algebraic curves. For that purpose, we introduce a generalization of Kruppa’s equations, which express the epipolar constraint for algebraic curves. For planar curves, we show that the homography through the plane of the curve in space can be computed. We investigate the question of three-dimensional reconstruction of an algebraic curve from two or more views. In the case of two views, we show that for a generic situation, there are two solutions for the reconstruction, which allows extracting the right solution, provided the degree of the curve is greater or equal to 3. When more than two views are available, we show that the reconstruction can be done by linear computations, using either the dual curve or the variety of inter-secting lines. In both cases, no curve (cid:12)tting is necessary in the image space. For dynamic scenes, we address the question of recovering the trajectory of a moving point, also called trajectory triangulation, from moving, non-synchronized cameras. Two cases are considered. First we address the case where the moving point itself is tracked in the images. Secondly, we focus on the case where the tangents to the motion are detected in the images. Both cases yield linear computations, using the dual curve or the variety of intersecting lines. Eventually, we present several experiments on both synthetic and real data, which demonstrate that our results can be used in practical situations.
Localized Topologies with Bounded Node Degree for Three Dimensional Wireless Sensor Networks

Three dimensional (3D) wireless sensor networks have attracted a lot of attention due to its great potential usages in both commercial and civilian applications. Topology control in 3D sensor networks has been studied recently. Different 3D geometric topologies were proposed to be the underlying network topologies to achieve the sparseness of the communication networks. However, most of the proposed 3D topologies cannot bound the node degree, i.e., some nodes may need to maintain large number of neighbors in the constructed topologies, which is not energy efficient and may lead to large interference. In this paper, we extend several existing 3D topologies to a set of new 3D topologies with bounded node degree. We provide theoretical analysis on their power efficiency and node degree and also simulation evaluations over random 3D sensor networks. The simulation results confirm nice performance of these proposed 3D topologies.
Empoderar a los profesores en su quehacer académico a través de certificaciones internacionales en competencia digitales

This work has the aim to demonstrate the importance of the development of the digital competitions in the university teachers to empower his academic work with the support of the Technologies of the Information and Communication (ICT). In this sense, the University of Tamaulipas (UAT) Mexico has trained a total of 124 teachers from the different UAT schools in the International Certification Program in Digital Competencies-ICDL, of which up to now 76 teachers have accredited the Basic Certification-ICDL related with Computer Fundamentals, Online Course Fundamentals, Word Processor and Spreadsheets. To do this, teachers had to perform level tests, study lessons and develop, in a self-taught manner, different types of exercises and practices, until submitting their certification exam. This paper also presents the advances that teachers had in the development of their digital competences, comparing the results of the beginning and the end of the certification. Universities should invest in the training of their teachers, in order to respond to the challenges of the 21st century higher education, mainly because they require a specialized teaching profile, sufficient background in pedagogical methods, expertise in contents and certifications in digital competencies recognized by international organizations that guarantee their quality.
Taylor Series and Asymptotic Expansions

There are several important observations to make about this definition. (i) The definition says that, for each fixed n, ∑n m=0 amx m becomes a better and better approximation to f(x) as x gets smaller. As x → 0, ∑m=0 amx approaches f(x) faster than x tends to zero. (ii) The definition says nothing about what happens as n → ∞. There is no guarantee that for each fixed x, ∑n m=0 amx m tends to f(x) as n → ∞.