Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Discrimination in the Sense of Flutter: New Psychophysical Measurements in Monkeys

Humans and monkeys have similar capacities to discriminate the frequencies of mechanical sinusoids delivered to their hands in the range that corresponds to the sense of flutter (10–50 Hz). Previous studies showed that monkeys can discriminate whether comparison stimuli are higher or lower in frequency than a base stimulus that does not vary from trial to trial during an experiment. We verified this result in two monkeys trained in this manner. To confirm that these animals were able to discriminate, we tested them in a variant of the task in which the frequency of the base stimulus changed randomly from trial to trial. The monkeys failed to discriminate in this new testing mode; instead they seemed to categorize the comparison stimuli, ignoring the base stimulus. After further training in the randomized base condition, the two monkeys learned to discriminate accurately. We then explored how the stimulation parameters affected performance. We found that animals could discriminate accurately with stimulus durations as short as 250 msec, with interstimulus intervals as long as 10 sec, with 50% differences between base and comparison stimulus amplitudes or when stimulated on a different finger. Performance did not degrade in these conditions, even though the monkeys had never been trained or tested under them. The results show that monkeys may try to categorize rather than discriminate when the task allows either strategy, although they are capable of performing true discriminations very robustly. These findings have important implications for investigating the neuronal processes underlying sensory discrimination.
Canadian credentialing guidelines for flexible sigmoidoscopy.

A series of credentialing guidelines for gastrointestinal endoscopic procedures has been developed by the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology (CAG) Endoscopy Committee. The guidelines were reviewed and approved by the Clinical Affairs Committee, and endorsed by the Executive Board. In the present article, the CAG suggests specific guidelines for credentialing flexible sigmoidoscopy. It is intended to be read in conjunction with the introductory article that outlines the principles of credentialing (1). Dr Robert Enns The CAG does not credential individuals for endoscopic procedures; that is the responsibility of the endoscopist’s local institution or facility. The purpose of these guidelines is to provide a framework that will allow organizations to assess the training and competence of applicants to perform colonoscopy, as part of the credentialing process for the granting of privileges. Flexible sigmoidoscopy allows direct visualization of the colonic mucosa, from the rectum to the proximal sigmoid and descending colon. Although colonoscopy has become a preferred method for colon cancer screening, it may not always be available, and flexible sigmoidoscopy every five years has been endorsed as an acceptable screening option (2–5).
Revenue and Cost Management for Remanufactured Products

This paper considers pricing and remanufacturing strategy of a firm that decides to offer both new and remanufactured versions of its product in the market and is concerned with demand cannibalization. We present a model of demand cannibalization and a behavioral study that estimates a key modeling parameter: a fraction of consumers who switch from new to remanufactured product. As we show, this fraction has an inverted‐U shape, and, thus, the underlying consumer behavior cannot be modeled using the standard methodologies that rely on consumers' willingness to pay (WTP). We find that by incorporating the inverted‐U‐shaped consumer behavior, the firm remanufactures under broader conditions, charges a much lower price, and typically remanufactures more units—leading to an increase of profits from remanufacturing by up to a factor of two as compared with making decisions based on the WTP only. Lastly, we find that the behavior of the low‐price market segment plays an important role because the firm reacts to it differently than the WTP‐based logic would suggest.
Region-level moving object segmentation by graph labeling

In this paper we propose a method for the detection and localization of moving objects. The change detection problem in the pixel domain is formulated by two zero mean Laplacian distributions. Furthermore, the image is split in homogeneous colour regions and their inter-frame mean absolute difference is used to describe the change detection problem in the region level by two Gamma distributions. The pixel and region based change detection statistics are used to classify the colour regions as “changed” or “unchanged” with high confidence. These initially labeled regions constitute the “seeds” of the “changed”/“unchanged” classes. The remaining unlabeled regions are classified as belonging to one of them using a growing algorithm, which has been modified to refer to the labeling of regions (instead of pixels). Class growing is accomplished using the change detection and boundary information of unlabeled regions. The interconnection between region-nodes is represented by a region adjacency graph.
On memory allocation for high-speed packet analysis applications

The evolution of commodity hardware makes it a very attractive platform to develop high-performance networking applications that are affordable to deploy. All but the most trivial applications must copy packets into user-space for further analysis. Therefore, the allocation of memory for these copies becomes a performance-critical operation. In this work, we present a multi-layer slice memory allocator specifically designed to take advantage of spatial and temporal locality in dealing with high-speed packet processing applications. Experimental results show that the proposed approach clearly outperforms existing memory allocators in common networking use-cases.
Preprocessing and time-frequency analysis of newborn EEG seizures

Neurological disease or dysfunction in newborn infants is often first manifested by seizures. Prolonged seizures can result in impaired neurodevelopment or even death. In adults, the clinical signs of seizures are well defined and easily recognized. In newborns, however, the clinical signs are subtle and may be absent or easily missed without constant close observation. This article describes the use of adaptive signal processing techniques for removing artifacts from newborn electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. Three adaptive algorithms have been designed in the context of EEG signals. This preprocessing is necessary before attempting a fine time-frequency analysis of EEG rhythmical activities, such as electrical seizures, corrupted by high amplitude signals. After an overview of newborn EEG signals, the authors describe the data acquisition set-up. They then introduce the basic physiological concepts related to normal and abnormal newborn EEGs and discuss the three adaptive algorithms for artifact removal. They also present time-frequency representations (TFRs) of seizure signals and discuss the estimation and modeling of the instantaneous frequency related to the main ridge of the TFR.
Static analysis of schema-mappings ensuring oblivious termination

A schema-mapping is a high level specification of a data-exchange setting where a set of source-to-target dependencies is used to realize basic operations from source to target relations (such as copy, selection, join or union) while the target schema is subject to a set of target constraints (such as inclusion dependencies or key constraints). In this paper, we consider strong schema-mappings that allow for additional constraints such as source dependencies on the source schema and target-to-source dependencies from the target relations back to the source. Furthermore, strong schema-mappings may include disjunctive dependencies. We argue that this extension is desirable when the source instance is to provide both a lower and upper bound on the information that a target instance can have. We first focus on the implication problem for strong schema-mappings which is to determine whether a given constraint Δ is logically implied by the set Σ of constraints (denoted by σ ⊨ Δ). After providing complete characterizations for this problem in terms of universal solutions (while supporting equality constraints), we introduce criteria of termination, denoted by TOC, DTOC and MTOC, that allow the efficient computation of universal solutions for standard constraints, disjunctive constraints, and when the source instance is assumed to be immutable (i.e., it is master data), respectively. We obtain decision procedures for the implication problem, provided that Σ satisfies these termination conditions, and give the corresponding complexity bounds. As an immediate application we revisit the problems of determinacy, relative information completeness and variations thereof, all for strong schema-mappings. Indeed, by viewing them as implication problems we obtain efficient decision procedures when the relevant termination conditions are satisfied. We then focus on the problem of deciding whether source-to-target constraints in a strong schema-mapping are already implied by the embedded (standard) schema-mapping. This problem is important if one wants to use target-to-source constraints in standard data-exchange tools. Since no such constraints are logically implied by standard schema-mappings (and hence the results established earlier are of no use), we provide an alternative semantics for implication. More specifically, we want the constraint to be satisfied by every solution corresponding to the output of a standard data-exchange tool. We consider three semantics based on universal solutions, cores and CWA-solutions, respectively. Decidability of the implication of general (resp. safe) target-to-source constraints is shown for the CWA-based semantics (resp. core-semantics).
An adaptive pattern recognition hardware with on-chip shift register-based partial reconfiguration

A pattern recognition system that can process a large amount of image data at high speed is required in many fields. In this paper, we propose an on-chip pattern recognition system that utilizes the reconfigurability of the FPGA. The features of the system are not only very high recognition speed but also an adaptive function. For example, when objects to be detected change appearance, recognition parameters must be changed to retain the recognition accuracy. The system can automatically adjust by executing on-chip partial reconfiguration. The system runs at 25 MHz and can return a recognition result in one clock cycle, 40 ns. To update the system, all processes needed for searching for the best recognition parameters, generating configuration data and reconfiguring the system are carried out within 30s.
Anticancer Effect of Nemopilema nomurai Jellyfish Venom on HepG2 Cells and a Tumor Xenograft Animal Model

Various kinds of animal venoms and their components have been widely studied for potential therapeutic applications. This study evaluated whether Nemopilema nomurai jellyfish venom (NnV) has anticancer activity. NnV strongly induced cytotoxicity of HepG2 cells through apoptotic cell death, as demonstrated by alterations of chromatic morphology, activation of procaspase-3, and an increase in the Bax/Bcl-2 ratio. Furthermore, NnV inhibited the phosphorylation of PI3K, PDK1, Akt, mTOR, p70S6K, and 4EBP1, whereas it enhanced the expression of p-PTEN. Interestingly, NnV also inactivated the negative feedback loops associated with Akt activation, as demonstrated by downregulation of Akt at Ser473 and mTOR at Ser2481. The anticancer effect of NnV was significant in a HepG2 xenograft mouse model, with no obvious toxicity. HepG2 cell death by NnV was inhibited by tetracycline, metalloprotease inhibitor, suggesting that metalloprotease component in NnV is closely related to the anticancer effects. This study demonstrates, for the first time, that NnV exerts highly selective cytotoxicity in HepG2 cells via dual inhibition of the Akt and mTOR signaling pathways, but not in normal cells.
A unified optimization method for real-time trajectory generation of mobile robots with kinodynamic constraints in dynamic environment

This paper presents an efficient analytic method for a mobile robot to determine a collision-free trajectory with unified optimization. The robot kinodynamic constraints and the geometric constraints due to obstacles are addressed by considering a set of constrained inequalities from parameterized trajectories model. Two optimal performance matrices are employed to assess optimization problems. Particularly, both the constraints and performance functions are incorporated by similar forms in terms of trajectory parameters, which thereby can be considered in a uniform way. A parameter space of adjustable trajectory parameters is constructed to solve the unified optimization problem with constraints and results in more flexible and better optimal performance. The proposed approach is complete and enhances methods of deterministic real-time planning by overcoming typical drawbacks as intermediate configuration, curvature discontinuities, vertical singularities and incomplete optimization. Simulation results verify the validity and superiority of the proposed method.
Dynamic Security for Medical Record Sharing

Information routinely collected by health care organizations is used by researchers to analyze the causes of illness and evaluate the effectiveness of potential cures. Medical information sharing systems are built to encourage hospitals to contribute patient data for use in clinical studies. These organizations possess a wide variety of environments and risk assessments, and require sufficient assurances of patient privacy. This thesis introduces mechanisms to dynamically generate an applicable security policy for medical information sharing systems. We present implementation-independent mechanisms that are capable of interoperating with different security settings at different sites to produce security configurations with significantly different characteristics and vulnerabilities. We also present a rules-based agent to assist in the selection process. This approach gives maximum freedom to generate the appropriate system according to the tradeoffs between cost, patient privacy, and data accessibility. Thesis Supervisor: Peter Szolovits Title: Director, Clinical Decision Making Group
Dopaminergic mechanisms underlying the reduction of electrical coupling between horizontal cells of the turtle retina induced by d-amphetamine, bicuculline, and veratridine

Previous studies have shown that dopamine, bicuculline, or d- amphetamine reduce the electrical and dye-coupling between the axon terminals of the horizontal cells of the turtle retina (see Piccolino et al., 1984). In the present study we observed similar effects following the application of veratridine. The actions of all these drugs were prevented by dopamine antagonists acting on D1 receptors such as flupenthixol and SCH 23390. However, in contrast to dopamine, the actions of d-amphetamine, bicuculline, and veratridine were attenuated or abolished by pharmacological agents (such as 6-OH- dopamine, alpha-methyl-p-tyrosine, or reserpine) known to reduce the release of dopamine from dopaminergic neurons. Moreover, the actions of veratridine and bicuculline were prevented by tetrodotoxin, indicating that one or more neurons in the dopamine pathway are spike-generating. We conclude that d-amphetamine, bicuculline, and veratridine reduce electrical coupling between the axon terminals of the turtle horizontal cells by promoting the release of endogenous dopamine from the dopaminergic amacrine cells previously identified (Witkovsky et al., 1984). Electron-microscopic observations revealed that 6-OH-dopamine selectively attacked this population of amacrine cells. No degenerating terminals were found adjacent to the horizontal cell axon terminals. On this basis, we postulate that dopamine reaches the horizontal cell by diffusion through the extracellular space.
Isolation and Characterization of a 6/85-like Mycoplasma gallisepticum from Commercial Laying Hens

Abstract Eighty-three-week-old table egg layers with swollen sinuses were presented with a history of increased mortality. Serology revealed positive titers to Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG). The birds were part of a flock in which some birds had been vaccinated with 6/85 live MG vaccine at 18 wk of age. Tracheal cultures were obtained from both vaccinated and unvaccinated birds within the flock. The cultures were indistinguishable from 6/85 vaccine by both random amplified polymorphic DNA analysis and DNA sequence analysis. Challenge studies were performed to compare the field isolates with 6/85 vaccine and the R strain of MG. The field isolates produced a greater antibody response by serum plate agglutination than did the 6/85 vaccine. The isolates effectively colonized the trachea without increasing the tracheal mucosal thickness; however, they did not extensively colonize the air sacs or cause airsacculitis in the experimental birds.
Chickenpox and Stroke in Childhood: A Study of Frequency and Causation

Background and Purpose— The purpose of this study was to determine whether infection with varicella is causal for arterial ischemic stroke (AIS) in children. Methods— First, a prospective cohort study was conducted in young children (aged 6 months to 10 years) with AIS at 2 institutions (cohort study). The presence of varicella infection <12 months before AIS was determined and compared with the published frequency of varicella infection in the healthy pediatric population. The clinical and radiographic features of AIS were compared between the varicella and nonvaricella study cohorts. Second, a literature search of varicella-associated AIS was conducted, and the clinical and radiographic features were compared with the study nonvaricella cohort. Results— In the cohort study, 22 (31%) of 70 consecutive children with AIS had a varicella infection in the preceding year compared with 9% in the healthy population. Children in the varicella cohort were more likely to have basal ganglia infarcts (P <0.001), abnormal cerebral vascular imaging (P <0.05), and recurrent AIS or transient ischemic attacks (P <0.05) than those in the nonvaricella cohort. The pooled literature analysis of 51 cases of varicella-associated AIS showed similar findings to the varicella cohort. Conclusion— In young children with AIS, there is a 3-fold increase in preceding varicella infection compared with published population rates, and varicella-associated AIS accounts for nearly one third of childhood AIS. Varicella-associated AIS has characteristic features, including a 2-fold increase in recurrent AIS and transient ischemic attacks. Varicella is an important risk factor for childhood AIS.
Hedonic valuation of online game participation

We use hedonic valuation to establish a basis for valuing the time a user participates in an online gaming community. We distinguish between utilitarian and hedonic value. Our application involves elements of both utilitarian and hedonic value, however, the latter is much more important. We use an extensive data set involving a massive multi-player online role-playing game (MMORPG) from Korea. We specify and test econometric models that reflect the appropriate empirical structure for the setting, based on information about the players and the activities they engage in. The results permit us to estimate the hedonic value in monetary terms for the use of this mechanism per minute of participant use. We explore how such information can be used to create the appropriate incentives via optimal participation fees and subsidies to maximize consumer value.
The Intersection of the Extrinsic Hedgehog and WNT/Wingless Signals with the Intrinsic Hox Code Underpins Branching Pattern and Tube Shape Diversity in the Drosophila Airways

The tubular networks of the Drosophila respiratory system and our vasculature show distinct branching patterns and tube shapes in different body regions. These local variations are crucial for organ function and organismal fitness. Organotypic patterns and tube geometries in branched networks are typically controlled by variations of extrinsic signaling but the impact of intrinsic factors on branch patterns and shapes is not well explored. Here, we show that the intersection of extrinsic hedgehog(hh) and WNT/wingless (wg) signaling with the tube-intrinsic Hox code of distinct segments specifies the tube pattern and shape of the Drosophila airways. In the cephalic part of the airways, hh signaling induces expression of the transcription factor (TF) knirps (kni) in the anterior dorsal trunk (DTa1). kni represses the expression of another TF spalt major (salm), making DTa1 a narrow and long tube. In DTa branches of more posterior metameres, Bithorax Complex (BX-C) Hox genes autonomously divert hh signaling from inducing kni, thereby allowing DTa branches to develop as salm-dependent thick and short tubes. Moreover, the differential expression of BX-C genes is partly responsible for the anterior-to-posterior gradual increase of the DT tube diameter through regulating the expression level of Salm, a transcriptional target of WNT/wg signaling. Thus, our results highlight how tube intrinsic differential competence can diversify tube morphology without changing availabilities of extrinsic factors.
Induction as a search procedure

This chapter introduces Inductive Logic Programming (ILP) from the perspective of search algorithms in Computer Science. It first briefly considers the Version Spaces approach to induction, and then focuses on Inductive Logic Programming: from its formal definition and main techniques and strategies, to priors used to restrict the search space and optimized sequential, parallel, and stochastic algorithms. The authors hope that this presentation of the theory and applications of Inductive Logic Programming will help the reader understand the theoretical underpinnings of ILP, and also provide a helpful overview of the State-of-the-Art in the domain.
Effect of behavioral intervention training on parents' stress, parenting behaviors and self-efficacy

For children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs), early intervention is incredibly important. In order for a behavioral intervention to be fully effective, it needs to be followed at all times of the day, not just during school hours. Because of this, a key factor during intervention is the involvement of parents of the child with the disorder. Parents/caregivers of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders participating in behavioral interventions at the Faison School for Autism were surveyed in order to find out more about strategies used when implementing a child’s behavioral plan at home, and also their overall understanding of the plan itself. Other information of key parenting constructs was collected using the Parenting Stress Index (PSI), Parent-Child Relationship Inventory (PCRI), and Early Intervention Parenting Self-Efficacy Scale (EIPSES). These measures were collected before and after a one-session intervention in order to evaluate the impact of that training on the parents/caregivers that have a child with ASDs. Three parents participated in this study with varying profiles and responses to the intervention. Two of the parents who reported implementing the child’s behavior plan at home had low levels of stress and did not have many overall changes after intervention. The other profile of parent reported not implementing the behavior plan at home and was clinically stressed in addition to having some relationship issues with her child. These results support the idea that stress levels of the parent may be associated with their relationship with their child.