Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Some improvements to total degree tests

A low-degree test is a collection of simple, local rules for checking the proximity of an arbitrary function to a low-degree polynomial. Each rule depends on the function's values at a small number of places. If a function satisfies many rules then it is close to a low-degree polynomial. Low-degree tests play an important role in the development of probabilistically checkable proofs. In this paper we present two improvements to the efficiency of low-degree tests. Our first improvement concerns the smallest field size over which a low-degree test can work. We show how to test that a function is a degree d polynomial over prime fields of size only d+2. Our second improvement shows a better efficiency of the low-degree test of Rubinfeld and Sudan (1993) than previously known. We show concrete applications of this improvement via the notion of "locally checkable codes". This improvement translates into better tradeoffs on the size versus probe complexity of probabilistically checkable proofs than previously known. <<ETX>>
An Analytical Comparison of Inpainting Techniques for Effective Selection

Image inpainting is a method that restores or repairs a damaged or corrupted piece of the image or video in undetectable form. This method has a broad range of applications, such as removing scratches in previous photographs, removing large objects, text and creative special effects. The major aim of the inpainting is to change the damaged region in an image. In this paper we provide a comparative analysis of different techniques used for image inpainting. In this paper we discuss various inpainting techniques as texture synthesis inpainting, PDE based inpainting, and exemplar based inpainting.
Socio-environmental factors and sandfly prevalence in Delft Island, Sri Lanka: implications for leishmaniasis vector control.

Sri Lanka was free of any form of leishmaniasis until recently. The first autochthonous case of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) was only detected in 19921. By the year 2002, 65 cases, mainly from northern dry zone, were reported2. Leishmania donovani zymodeme MON-37 was identified to be responsible for CL in Sri Lanka3, though L. donovani is more typically associated with visceral leishmaniasis (VL). In neighbouring India anthroponotic CL (ACL) is mainly caused by L. tropica and is vectored by Phlebotomus sergenti and P. papatasi4. In Sri Lanka the presence of P. argentipes, the well known vector of VL caused by L. donovani in the Indian subcontinent, has been reported for many years5–7. However, the presence of P. sergenti and P. papatasi has not been reported so far from Sri Lanka.
A Brain Emotional Learning-based Prediction Model for the prediction of geomagnetic storms

This paper introduces a new type of brain emotional learning inspired models (BELIMs). The suggested model is utilized as a suitable model for predicting geomagnetic storms. The model is known as BELPM which is an acronym for Brain Emotional Learning-based Prediction Model. The structure of the suggested model consists of four main parts and mimics the corresponding regions of the neural structure underlying fear conditioning. The functions of these parts are implemented by assigning adaptive networks to the different parts. The learning algorithm of BELPM is based on the steepest descent (SD) and the least square estimator (LSE). In this paper, BELPM is employed to predict geomagnetic storms using the Disturbance Storm Time (Dst) index. To evaluate the performance of BELPM, the obtained results have been compared with the results of the adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS).
Electrospinning of Polyvinylidene Fluoride and Polyetherimide From Mixed Solvents

Polyvinylidene fluoride and Ultem(TradeMark) polyetherimide were dissolved in 50/50 acetone/N,N dimethylformamide (DMF) and 80/20 tetrahydrofuran/DMF, respectively, and electrospun. Polymer solution concentrations and molecular weights were changed while other spinning parameters (voltage, distance, solution feed rate) were held constant. Fiber diameters in the resulting electrospun mats varied from 0.25 to 4.4 microns, increasing with polymer concentration and molecular weight; trends in diameter were compared with trends in viscosities and surface tensions of the spinning solutions.
Research Perspectives on the Regulation and Physiological Functions of FGF21 and its Association with NAFLD

Fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) is a metabolic hormone primarily secreted from the liver and functions in multiple tissues. Various transcription factors induce FGF21 expression in the liver, which indicates that FGF21 is a mediator of multiple environmental cues. FGF21 alters metabolism under starvation conditions, protects the body from energy depletion, and extends life span. Pharmacological administration of FGF21 alleviates dyslipidemia and induces weight loss in obese animals. In addition to the well-studied functions of FG21, several lines of recent evidence indicate a possible link between FGF21 and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). High serum levels of FGF21 are associated with NAFLD and its risk factors, such as endoplasmic reticulum stress and chronic inflammation. In addition, FGF21 alleviates the major risk factors of NAFLD, including obesity, dyslipidemia, and insulin insensitivity. Thus, FGF21 is a potential drug candidate for diseases, such as NAFLD, dyslipidemia, and type 2 diabetes. In this review, the research perspectives of FGF21 and therapeutic potencies of FGF21 as a modulator of NAFLD are summarized.
Mesolimbic recruitment by nondrug rewards in detoxified alcoholics: Effort anticipation, reward anticipation, and reward delivery

Aberrant sensitivity of incentive neurocircuitry to nondrug rewards has been suggested as either a risk factor for or consequence of drug addiction. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we tested whether alcohol‐dependent patients (ADP: n = 29) showed altered recruitment of ventral striatal (VS) incentive neurocircuitry compared to controls (n = 23) by: (1) cues to respond for monetary rewards, (2) post‐response anticipation of rewards, or (3) delivery of rewards. Using an instrumental task with two‐stage presentation of reward‐predictive information, subjects saw cues signaling opportunities to win $0, $1, or $10 for responding to a target. Following this response, subjects were notified whether their success would be indicated by a lexical notification (“Hit? ”) or by delivery of a monetary reward (“Win? ”). After a variable interval, subjects then viewed the trial outcome. We found no significant group differences in voxelwise activation by task contrasts, or in signal change extracted from VS. Both ADP and controls showed significant VS and other limbic recruitment by pre‐response reward anticipation. In addition, controls also showed VS recruitment by post‐response reward‐anticipation, and ADP had appreciable subthreshold VS activation. Both groups also showed similar mesolimbic responses to reward deliveries. Across all subjects, a questionnaire measure of “hot” impulsivity correlated with VS recruitment by post‐response anticipation of low rewards and with VS recruitment by delivery of low rewards. These findings indicate that incentive‐motivational processing of nondrug rewards is substantially maintained in recovering alcoholics, and that reward‐elicited VS recruitment correlates more with individual differences in trait impulsivity irrespective of addiction. Hum Brain Mapp 33:2174–2188, 2012. Published 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Reduced anterior cingulate glutamatergic concentrations in childhood OCD and major depression versus healthy controls.

OBJECTIVE To examine in vivo glutamatergic neurochemical alterations in the anterior cingulate cortex of pediatric patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) without major depressive disorder (MDD) versus pediatric patients with MDD without OCD and healthy controls. METHOD Single-voxel proton magnetic resonance spectroscopic examinations of the anterior cingulate cortex were conducted in 14 psychotropic-naïve children and adolescents with MDD without OCD, 10 to 19 years of age, 14 case-matched healthy controls, and 20 nondepressed, psychotropic-naïve pediatric patients with OCD 7 to 19 years of age. RESULTS Anterior cingulate glutamatergic concentrations were significantly reduced in both patients with OCD (15.1% decrease) and patients with MDD (18.7% decrease) compared with controls. Anterior cingulate glutamatergic concentrations did not differ significantly between patients with OCD and those with MDD. CONCLUSIONS Altered anterior cingulate glutamatergic neurotransmission may be involved in the pathogenesis of OCD and MDD. These preliminary findings further suggest that reduced anterior cingulate glutamate does not differentiate pediatric patients with OCD from pediatric patients with MDD.
Lattice-Reduction for Power Optimisation Using the Fast Least-Squares Solution-Seeker Algorithm

The power constraint factor in precoding methods plays an important role in the reduction of SER at the receiver. The value of this scaling factor lies in the individual power assigned to the transmit symbols prior the transmission. Such assignment will depend entirely on the matrix condition of the channel, in this case the eigenvalue's power of the channel inverse. Thus, the minimisation of this power constraint will rely on closing the power gap among the transmit symbols, and one solution is to use an auxiliary vector for fixing the matrix condition. This is equivalent to solving the integer leastsquares problem. For achieving this specific goal there are two effective choices: the lattice-reduction, whose objective is to reduce the basis of any given matrix, and the sphere techniques which enumerate all the lattice points inside a sphere centered at the query point. Both choices aim for finding or fitting an approximated least-squares solution occasioning astonishing results in performance when minimising the scaling factor prior to transmit.
Mastl kinase, a promising therapeutic target, promotes cancer recurrence

Mastl kinase promotes mitotic progression and cell cycle reentry after DNA damage. We report here that Mastl is frequently upregulated in various types of cancer. This upregulation was correlated with cancer progression in breast and oral cancer, poor patient survival in breast cancer, and tumor recurrence in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. We further investigated the role of Mastl in tumor resistance using cell lines derived from the initial and recurrent tumors of the same head and neck squamous cell carcinoma patients. Ectopic expression of Mastl in the initial tumor cells strongly promoted cell proliferation in the presence of cisplatin by attenuating DNA damage signaling and cell death. Mastl knockdown in recurrent tumor cells re-sensitized their response to cancer therapy in vitro and in vivo. Finally, Mastl targeting specifically potentiated cancer cells to cell death in chemotherapy while sparing normal cells. Thus, this study revealed that Mastl upregulation is involved in cancer progression and tumor recurrence after initial cancer therapy, and validated Mastl as a promising target to increase the therapeutic window.
A Study on Primary User Emulation Attack in Cognitive Radio Networks

CR is an emerging technology in wireless communications. Based on their operating environment CRNs can dynamically reconfigure their characteristcics. So that many security issues has been an alarming fact to CRNs. One such attack is the Primary User Emulation Attack (PUEA). There are many techniques available to mitigate this attack. This paper presents a study about various defense techniques of PUEA and provide better solutions to defend against PUEA.
Indentation hardness: Fifty years on a personal view

Abstract This introductory paper is a brief revised account of basic studies carried out between 1940 and 1946 on the meaning of indentation hardness. Using very simple concepts, it shows that the indentation hardness of metals is directly related to the uniaxial yield stress as augmented by the deformation and work hardening produced by the indentation process itself. The work originally carried out on metals is applicable to many other solids, particularly if they have a crystalline structure. The paper concludes with a short review of current studies in the field of microhardness and nanohardness.
Nanogranular SnO2 Layers for Gas Sensing Applications by In Situ Deposition of Nanoparticles Produced by the Karlsruhe Microwave Plasma Process

To improve the performance of the central element of the Karlsruhe Micronose—a gas-sensor microarray—the gas sensitive layer is modified toward a highly porous nanogranular layer. To synthesize those layers, the Karlsruhe Microwave Plasma Process which is in its native form a precursor-based process to produce nanoparticles with diameters below 10 nm, was modified for in situ tin-dioxide layer deposition. The produced layers have due to their structure a very large active surface area. The process parameters were optimized to generate thin layers with high surface homogeneity. This was mostly established by significantly reducing the precursor feed and therefore reducing the primary particle size to below 2 nm. The layers were analyzed for their mechanical stability, structural, and chemical properties. It is shown that the precursor residue can be completely removed by applying a default annealing step. The structure of the layers reminds of little clubs starting on top of the substrate growing wider toward the surface. Prototype sensors were fabricated and tested for their gas sensory properties in comparison to a standard gas-sensor microarray with a sputtered tin-dioxide layer. The gas-sensor microarrays with nanogranular layer show an increased signal response of up to one order of magnitude to isopropanol. The time of response is equal in both sensor systems while the time of recovery is nearly doubled for the sensors with nanogranular layer due to increased surface area and gas absorption.
CloudStream: Delivering high-quality streaming videos through a cloud-based SVC proxy

Existing media providers such as YouTube and Hulu deliver videos by turning it into a progressive download. This can result in frequent video freezes under varying network dynamics. In this paper, we present CloudStream: a cloud-based video proxy that can deliver high-quality streaming videos by transcoding the original video in real time to a scalable codec which allows streaming adaptation to network dynamics. The key is a multi-level transcoding parallelization framework with two mapping options (Hallsh-based Mapping and Lateness-first Mapping) that optimize transcoding speed and reduce the transcoding jitters while preserving the encoded video quality. We evaluate the performance of CloudStream on our campus cloud testbed.
Correlation of Oxidative and Antioxidative Processes in the Blood of Patients with Cervical Spinal Cord Injury

The effect of cervical spinal cord injury (CSCI) on oxidative stress parameters was assessed. The study was conducted in 42 patients with CSCI (studied group), 15 patients with cerebral concussion, without CSCI (Control II), and 30 healthy volunteers (Control I). Blood was taken from the basilic vein: before and seven days after the spinal cord decompression surgery (mean time from CSCI to surgery: 8 hours) in the studied group and once in the controls. Thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) and conjugated dienes (CD) concentrations, and glutathione peroxidase (GPx), catalase (CAT), and creatine kinase (CK) activities before the surgery were higher in the studied group than in the controls. Reduced glutathione concentration was similar in all groups. Superoxide dismutase (SOD) in the studied group was 16% lower (P ≤ 0.001) than in Control I. Lipid peroxidation products, and GPx and CAT activities in erythrocytes seven days after the surgery were lower (P ≤ 0.001), while SOD was 25% higher (P ≤ 0.001) than before the surgery. CK in blood plasma after the surgery was 34% lower (P ≤ 0.001) than before it. CSCI is accompanied by oxidative stress. Surgical and pharmacological treatment helps to restore the oxidant-antioxidant balance.
Can one generate stable hyaline cartilage from adult mesenchymal stem cells? A developmental approach

Chondrogenically differentiating bone marrow‐derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) display signs of chondrocyte hypertrophy, such as production of collagen type X, MMP13 and alkaline phosphatase (ALPL). For cartilage reconstructions this is undesirable, as terminally differentiated cartilage produced by BMSCs mineralizes when implanted in vivo. Terminal differentiation is not restricted to BMSCs but is also encountered in chondrogenic differentiation of adipose‐derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) as well as embryonic stem cells, which by definition should be able to generate all types of tissues, including stable cartilage. Therefore, we propose that the currently used culture conditions may drive the cells towards terminal differentiation. In this manuscript we aim to review the literature, supplemented by our own data to answer the question, is it possible to generate stable hyaline cartilage from adult MSCs? We demonstrate that recently published methods for inhibiting terminal differentiation (through PTHrP, MMP13 or blocking phosphorylation of Smad1/5/8) result in cartilage formation with reduction of hypertrophic markers, although this does not reach the low level of stable chondrocytes. A set of hypertrophy markers should be included in future studies to characterize the phenotype more precisely. Finally, we used what is currently known in developmental biology about the differential development of hyaline and terminally differentiated cartilage to provide thought and insights to change current culture models for creating hyaline cartilage. Inhibiting terminal differentiation may not result in stable hyaline cartilage if the right balance of signals has not been created from the start of culture onwards. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Estimation of the switching activity in shift-and-add based computations

In this work, we propose a switching activity model for constant multipliers. The model can also be used for other architectures that are composed by full adders. Hence, the proposed model is suitable to be used in power consumption aware design algorithms. An important category is algorithms for the multiple-constant multiplication (MCM) problem. The model is shown to agree well with simulations, especially for carry-save arithmetic.
Strain Scanning Using a Neutron Guide Based Diffractometer

A high-resolution focusing neutron diffraction arrangement optimized for strain/stress scanning has been tested on neutron diffractometer POLDI installed at the end of the thermal neutron guide of the medium resolution FRG-1 reactor in GKSS Geesthacht. Basic properties of such an arrangement using the method of Bragg Diffraction Angle Analysis (BDAA) and exploiting Bragg diffraction optics are introduced. It is demonstrated that contrary to a widespread distrust, good luminosity of the strain scanner with a sufficiently high-resolution necessary for effective strain measurements can be done even though it is installed on the guide tube of the medium-power reactor.
Sensitivity to naloxone of the behavioral signs of morphine withdrawal and c‐Fos expression in the rat CNS: A quantitative dose‐response analysis

Several studies have used c‐Fos expression to delineate the neural substrate underlying naloxone‐precipitated morphine withdrawal (MW). However, because behavioral manifestations of MW depend on both the degree of dependence and the doses of naloxone (NAL), a comprehensive study would require examining c‐Fos expression in relation with the degree of MW. Here, changes in behavior and in c‐Fos–like immunoreactivity (FLI) were studied in the same rats after injection of three doses of NAL to precipitate various degrees of MW. Fifteen established signs of MW were examined for 1 hour after NAL injection, and FLI was quantified in 52 regions of the brain and in the lumbosacral spinal cord. Linear regression analyses were used to examine changes in numbers of signs and FLI neurons with the doses of NAL, and data were considered dose‐related for a statistical level of significance of P < 0.05. In summary, autonomic signs of MW increased in a dose‐related manner, whereas somatomotor signs did not. After MW, 33 central nervous system regions exhibited significant increases in FLI and were, thus, considered as important neural correlates of MW. Twenty of them displayed dose‐related increases in c‐Fos expression and correspond to regions related to autonomic functions. Low c‐Fos expression was detected in some regions involved in motor control or in reward, suggesting either their minor role in MW or a limitation of the technique. This dose‐response analysis suggests that the increase in the severity of autonomic manifestations of MW is associated with a gradual activation of major structures of the autonomic nervous system. J. Comp. Neurol. 433:272–297, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Highlighting Current Trends in Volunteered Geographic Information

Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) is a growing area of research. This Special Issue aims to capture the main trends in VGI research based on 16 original papers, and distinguishes between two main areas, i.e., those that deal with the characteristics of VGI and those focused on applications of VGI. The topic of quality assessment and assurance dominates the papers on VGI characteristics, whereas application-oriented work covers three main domains: human behavioral analysis, natural disasters, and land cover/land use mapping. In this Special Issue, therefore, both the challenges and the potentials of VGI are addressed.
All‐Cellulose Composites

Monocomponent cellulose-based composite materials known as all-cellulose composites (ACCs) have emerged as an exciting class of ultrahigh strength biocomposite materials. In principle, ACCs have the potential to overcome the problem of fiber-matrix incompatibility through the use of chemically similar components. Thus, the main interest in ACCs pivots around their potential for improving load transfer to the fibers, and thereby unlocking the full potential of cellulose microfibrils for the creation of high strength, sustainable, lightweight materials. This article summarizes this field of unique biocomposites by bringing together the current state of knowledge found throughout the composites and biomolecular science and engineering literature. Keywords: all-cellulose; monocomponent composites; processing; properties; aerocellulose