Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Homogeneous Systolic Pyramid Automata with n-Dimensional Layers

Cellular automata were investigated not only in the viewpoint of formal language theory, but also in the viewpoint of pattern recognition. Cellular automata can be classified into some types. A systolic pyramid automata is also one parallel model of various cellular automata. A homogeneous systolic pyramid automaton with n-dimensional layers (n-HSPA) is a pyramid stack of n-dimensional arrays of cells in which the bottom n-dimensional layer (level 0) has size an (a≥1), the next lowest (a-1)n, and so forth, the (a-1)st n-dimensional layer (level (a-1)) consisting of a single cell, called the root. Each cell means an identical finite-state machine. The input is accepted if and only if the root cell ever enters an accepting state. An n-HSPA is said to be a real-time n-HSPA if for every n-dimensional tape of size a n (a≥1) it accepts the n-dimensional tape in time a-1. Moreover, a 1- way n-dimensional cellular automaton (1-nCA) can be considered as a natural extension of the 1-way two- dimensional cellular automaton to n-dimension. The initial configuration is accepted if the last special cell reaches a final state. A 1-nCA is said to be a real- time 1-nCA if when started with n-dimensional array of cells in nonquiescent state, the special cell reaches a final state. In this paper, we propose a homogeneous systolic automaton with n-dimensional layers (n-HSPA), and investigate some properties of real-time n-HSPA. Specifically, we first investigate a relationship between the accepting powers of real-time n-HSPA’s and real-time 1-nCA’s. We next show the recognizability of n-dimensional connected tapes by real-time n-HSPA’s.
Influence of bovine serum albumin pre-incubation on toxicity and ER stress-apoptosis gene expression in THP-1 macrophages exposed to ZnO nanoparticles

Abstract When entering a biological environment, proteins could be adsorbed onto nanoparticles (NPs), which can potentially influence the toxicity of NPs. This study used bovine serum albumin (BSA) as the model for serum protein and investigated its interactions with three different types of ZnO NPs, coded as XFI06 (pristine NPs of 20 nm), NM110 (pristine NPs of 100 nm) and NM111 (hydrophobic NPs of 130 nm). Atomic force microscope indicated the adsorption of BSA to ZnO NPs, leading to the increase of NP diameters. Pre-incubation with BSA did not significantly affect hydrodynamic size but decreased Zeta potential of NM110 and NM111. The fluorescence and synchronous fluorescence of BSA were quenched after pre-incubation with ZnO NPs, and the quenching effects were more obvious for XFI06 and NM110. Exposure to all types of ZnO NPs significantly induced cytotoxicity and lysosomal destabilization, which was slightly alleviated when NPs were pre-incubated with BSA. However, ZnO NPs with or without pre-incubation of BSA resulted in comparable intracellular Zn ions, glutathione and reactive oxygen species in THP-1 macrophages. Exposure to ZnO NPs promoted the expression of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress markers (DDIT3 and XBP-1s) and apoptosis genes (CASP9 and CASP12). Pre-incubation with BSA had minimal impact on ER stress gene expression but decreased apoptosis gene expression. Combined, these results suggested that pre-incubation with BSA could modestly alleviate the cytotoxicity and reduce ER stress related apoptosis gene expression in THP-1 macrophages after ZnO NP exposure.
Detection of coronary artery disease by reduced features and extreme learning machine

Objective Cardiovascular diseases generate the highest mortality in the globe population, mainly due to coronary artery disease (CAD) like arrhythmia, myocardial infarction and heart failure. Therefore, an early identification of CAD and diagnosis is essential. For this, we have proposed a new approach to detect the CAD patients using heart rate variability (HRV) signals. This approach is based on subspaces decomposition of HRV signals using multiscale wavelet packet (MSWP) transform and entropy features extracted from decomposed HRV signals. The detection performance was analyzed using Fisher ranking method, generalized discriminant analysis (GDA) and binary classifier as extreme learning machine (ELM). The ranking strategies designate rank to the available features extracted by entropy methods from decomposed heart rate variability (HRV) signals and organize them according to their clinical importance. The GDA diminishes the dimension of ranked features. In addition, it can enhance the classification accuracy by picking the best discerning of ranked features. The main advantage of ELM is that the hidden layer does not require tuning and it also has a fast rate of detection. Methodology For the detection of CAD patients, the HRV data of healthy normal sinus rhythm (NSR) and CAD patients were obtained from a standard database. Self recorded data as normal sinus rhythm (Self_NSR) of healthy subjects were also used in this work. Initially, the HRV time-series was decomposed to 4 levels using MSWP transform. Sixty two features were extracted from decomposed HRV signals by non-linear methods for HRV analysis, fuzzy entropy (FZE) and Kraskov nearest neighbour entropy (K-NNE). Out of sixty-two features, 31 entropy features were extracted by FZE and 31 entropy features were extracted by K-NNE method. These features were selected since every feature has a different physical premise and in this manner concentrates and uses HRV signals information in an assorted technique. Out of 62 features, top ten features were selected, ranked by a ranking method called as Fisher score. The top ten features were applied to the proposed model, GDA with Gaussian or RBF kernal + ELM having hidden node as sigmoid or multiquadric. The GDA method transforms top ten features to only one feature and ELM has been used for classification. Results Numerical experimentations were performed on the combination of datasets as NSR-CAD and Self_NSR- CAD subjects. The proposed approach has shown better performance using top ten ranked entropy features. The GDA with RBF kernel + ELM having hidden node as multiquadric method and GDA with Gaussian kernel + ELM having hidden node as sigmoid or multiquadric method achieved an approximate detection accuracy of 100% compared to ELM and linear discriminant analysis (LDA)+ELM for both datasets. The subspaces level-4 and level-3 decomposition of HRV signals by MSWP transform can be used for detection and analysis of CAD patients.
Reproductive Interval in Indonesian Native Laying Hens by Losing Brooding Characteristics

Brooding behavior in Indonesian native chicken is a characteristic under hormone stimulation due to high concentration of prolactin hormone. This characteristic delays egg production causing low reproductive efficiency. The objective of this research was to evaluate the physiological status detected in body temperature (F) and reproductive interval indicated by brooding period (day) and resting period of egg production (day) after brooding treated with different levels of acetaminoven in a paracetamol tablet. This research was conducted at Matali village, East Kotamobagu district, North Sulawesi province of Indonesia, involving 40 female birds at 10 months old with the average of 1.5 kg live weight (LW) and 10 male birds at 1 year old (ratio of 1:5). Each flock of ten female birds was raised in a fencing house size of 500x400x200 cm and fed ration ad libitum. This trial was arranged in a completely randomized design consisted of four treatments and ten replication at each treatment. All eggs of the female birds were taken when they were showing brooding behavior. Study was conducted in birds showing brooding behavior using treatments as follows: first, the female birds were not fed acetaminoven as traditional management (A0); second, the female birds were fed acetaminoven orally with level of 40 mg/kg LW/day (A40); third, the female birds were fed acetaminoven orally with level of 60 mg/kg LW/day (A60); and forth, the female birds were fed acetaminoven orally with level of 80 mg/kg LW/day (A80). The results showed that body temperature averages at egg production were 105 F. However, those temperature at brooding period increased significantly (P<0.01) from 106 to 109 F among treatments of acetaminoven leves. Brooding periods were significantly different (P<0.01) among four treatments, where the treatments of A0, A40, A60, and A80 were 38 days, 11 days, 7 days, and 4 days, respectively. The resting periods of egg production after brooding periods were not significantly different (P>0.05) among four treatments, ranging from 7 days to 8 days. Therefore, inhibition of prolactin hormone of brooding period by treatments of acetaminoven levels of 40 to 80 mg per kg LW reduced brooding behavior period of 70% to 91% without changing the resting period of egg production and reduce consequently the reproductive interval from 46 days to 11 days.
Robotic Path Planning for High-Level Tasks in Discrete Environments

This thesis proposes two techniques for solving high-level multi-robot motion planning problems with discrete environments. We focus on an important class of problems that require an allocation of spatially distributed tasks to robots, along with a set of efficient paths for the robots to visit their task locations. The first technique, SAT-TSP, models the problem with a framework that allows a natural coupling between the allocation problem and the path planning problem. The allocation problem is encoded as a Boolean Satisfiability problem (SAT) and the path planning problem is encoded as a Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP). In addition, this framework can handle complex constraints such as battery life limitations, robot carrying capacities, and robot-task incompatibilities. We propose an algorithm that leverages recent advances in Satisfiability Modulo Theory to combine state-of-the-art SAT and TSP solvers. We characterize the correctness of our algorithm and evaluate it in simulation on a series of patrolling, periodic routing, and multi-robot sample collection problems. The results show that our algorithm outperforms a state-of-the-art mathematical programming solver on a majority of the problems in our benchmark, especially the more difficult problems. The second technique, Γ-Clustering, is used to reduce the computational effort of finding good solutions for metric discrete path planning problems. This technique can be used on the set of allocation path planning problems that do not have ordering constraints (ordering only affects the cost of the solution, not its feasibility). To obtain the computational savings, we find Γ-Clusters within the problem’s environment and then restrict how feasible paths visit these clusters. We prove that solutions found using this approach are within a constant factor of the optimal. By increasing the parameter Γ we can improve the quality of the bound but we do so with less computational savings. We provide a simple polynomial-time algorithm for finding the optimal Γ-Clustering and show that for a given Γ the clustering is unique. We provide two methods for using Γ-Clusters on path planning problems, a coupled method and a hierarchical method. We demonstrate the effectiveness of these methods on travelling salesman instances, sample collection problems, and period routing problems. The results show that for many instances we obtain significant reductions in computation time with little to no reduction in solution quality. Comparing these methods to a standard integer programming approach reveals that as the problems become more difficult, the solution quality of the two methods degrade at a slower rate than the standard approach, thus for more difficult instances we can use Γ-Clustering to find higher quality solutions.
Post-stroke visual neglect affects goal-directed locomotion in different perceptuo-cognitive conditions and on a wide visual spectrum.

BACKGROUND Unilateral spatial neglect (USN), a highly prevalent and disabling post-stroke deficit, has been shown to affect the recovery of locomotion. However, our current understanding of USN role in goal-directed locomotion control, and this, in different cognitive/perceptual conditions tapping into daily life demands, is limited. OBJECTIVES To examine goal-directed locomotion abilities in individuals with and without post-stroke USN vs. healthy controls. METHODS Participants (n = 45, n = 15 per group) performed goal-directed locomotion trials to actual, remembered and shifting targets located 7 m away at 0° and 15° right/left while immersed in a 3-D virtual environment. RESULTS Greater end-point mediolateral displacement and heading errors (end-point accuracy measures) were found for the actual and the remembered left and right targets among those with post-stroke USN compared to the two other groups (p < 0.05). A delayed onset of reorientation to the left and right shifting targets was also observed in USN+ participants vs. the other two groups (p < 0.05). Results on clinical near space USN assessment and walking speed explained only a third of the variance in goal-directed walking performance. CONCLUSION Post-stroke USN was found to affect goal-directed locomotion in different perceptuo-cognitive conditions, both to contralesional and ipsilesional targets, demonstrating the presence of lateralized and non-lateralized deficits. Beyond neglect severity and walking capacity, other factors related to attention, executive functioning and higher-order visual perceptual abilities (e.g. optic flow perception) may account for the goal-directed walking deficits observed in post-stroke USN+. Goal-directed locomotion can be explored in the design of future VR-based evaluation and training tools for USN to improve the currently used conventional methods.
Quelles stratégies mettre en œuvre pour relancer une marque historique ? La gestion d’une marque, de son héritage et de son capital marque

Dans ce memoire, les strategies a mettre en œuvre dans la gestion d’une marque, de son heritage et de son capital sont etudiees de sorte a donner les cles de leur perennisation. Plus particulierement, nous nous interessons au cas de la reprise d’une marque ayant connu une periode de forte notoriete mais actuellement en perte de vitesse. Cet affaiblissement peut avoir differentes origines, notamment la reprise d’une marque ayant subi l’echec d’une premiere strategie de reprise inappropriee (Onagrine), le rachat d’une marque ayant ete negligee (Roger & Gallet) et le rachat d’une marque donnant lieu a l’elargissement de sa cible (Mixa), tous en vue de les perenniser. Ces cas reels sont traites en seconde partie de ce memoire. Avant l’analyse de ces strategies liees a l’heritage des marques citees en exemples, nous nous attacherons a revoir tous les outils permettant de faire une analyse, un etat des lieux de la marque et de son heritage. Cette analyse a pour but de degager l’essence de chaque marque sur laquelle il faut capitaliser tout en perpetuant innovation et modernisation continue de la marque et ses produits ; cela de facon a conserver une image de marque ancree dans son temps et dynamique. Pour ce faire, les elements centraux sur lesquels il faut se concentrer sont le nom de la marque et sa conservation, ses evocations pour le consommateur actuel ainsi que le capital marque qu’elle represente, particulierement strategique dans les negociations avec les distributeurs. L’autre dimension strategique a prendre en consideration est l’heritage de son passe : est-il une force au point d’y faire reference dans le discours commercial ? Faut-il changer le territoire de la marque et/ou ses codes de communication (logo, charte graphique) ? Dans le cas particulier d’une marque qui a vieilli, nous verrons qu’en plus des choix et decisions strategiques citees ci-dessus, l’innovation et les lancements de nouveaux produits representent un levier fondamental pour la reussite de la reprise d’une marque historique.
Microscopic aspects of wetting using classical density functional theory

Wetting is a rather efficient mechanism for nucleation of a phase (typically liquid) on the interface between two other phases (typically solid and gas). In many experimentally accessible cases of wetting, the interplay between the substrate structure, and the fluid–fluid and fluid–substrate intermolecular interactions brings about an entire ‘zoo’ of possible fluid configurations, such as liquid films with a thickness of a few nanometers, liquid nanodrops and liquid bridges. These fluid configurations are often associated with phase transitions occurring at the solid–gas interface and at lengths of just several molecular diameters away from the substrate. In this special issue article, we demonstrate how a fully microscopic classical density-functional framework can be applied to the efficient, rational and systematic exploration of the rich phase space of wetting phenomena. We consider a number of model prototype systems such as wetting on a planar wall, a chemically patterned wall and a wedge. Through density-functional computations we demonstrate that for these simply structured substrates the behaviour of the solid–gas interface is already highly complex and non-trivial.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells differ in their capacity to recognize infected macrophages

Containment of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infection requires T cell recognition of infected macrophages. Mtb has evolved to tolerate, evade, and subvert host immunity. Despite a vigorous and sustained CD8+ T cell response during Mtb infection, CD8+ T cells make limited contribution to protection. Here, we ask whether the ability of Mtb-specific T cells to restrict Mtb growth is related to their capacity to recognize Mtb-infected macrophages. We derived CD8+ T cell lines that recognized the Mtb immunodominant epitope TB10.44-11 and compared them to CD4+ T cell lines that recognized Ag85b240-254 or ESAT63-17. While the CD4+ T cells recognized Mtb-infected macrophages and inhibited Mtb growth in vitro, the TB10.4-specific CD8+ T cells neither recognized Mtb-infected macrophages nor restricted Mtb growth. TB10.4-specific CD8+ T cells recognized macrophages infected with Listeria monocytogenes expressing TB10.4. However, over-expression of TB10.4 in Mtb did not confer recognition by TB10.4-specific CD8+ T cells. Importantly, CD8+ T cells recognized macrophages pulsed with irradiated Mtb, indicating that macrophages can efficiently cross-present the TB10.4 protein and raising the possibility that viable bacilli might suppress cross-presentation. Importantly, polyclonal CD8+ T cells specific for Mtb antigens other than TB10.4 recognized Mtb-infected macrophages in a MHC-restricted manner. As TB10.4 elicits a dominant CD8+ T cell response that poorly recognizes Mtb-infected macrophages, we propose that TB10.4 acts as a decoy antigen. Moreover, it appears that this response overshadows subdominant CD8+ T cell response that can recognize Mtb-infected macrophages. The ability of Mtb to subvert the CD8+ T cell response may explain why CD8+ T cells make a disproportionately small contribution to host defense compared to CD4+ T cells. The selection of Mtb antigens for vaccines has focused on antigens that generate immunodominant responses. We propose that establishing whether vaccine-elicited, Mtb-specific T cells recognize Mtb-infected macrophages could be a useful criterion for preclinical vaccine development.
Wild GWAS—association mapping in natural populations

The increasing affordability of sequencing and genotyping technologies has transformed the field of molecular ecology in recent decades. By correlating marker variants with trait variation using association analysis, large‐scale genotyping and phenotyping of individuals from wild populations has enabled the identification of genomic regions that contribute to phenotypic differences among individuals. Such “gene mapping” studies are enabling us to better predict evolutionary potential and the ability of populations to adapt to challenges, such as changing environment. These studies are also allowing us to gain insight into the evolutionary processes maintaining variation in natural populations, to better understand genotype‐by‐environment and epistatic interactions and to track the dynamics of allele frequency change at loci contributing to traits under selection. Gene mapping in the wild using genomewide association scans (GWAS) do, however, come with a number of methodological challenges, not least the population structure in space and time inherent to natural populations. We here provide an overview of these challenges, summarize the exciting methodological advances and applications of association mapping in natural populations reported in this special issue and provide some guidelines for future “wild GWAS” research.
α‐Synuclein activates innate immunity but suppresses interferon‐γ expression in murine astrocytes

Glial activation and neuroinflammation contribute to pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases, linked to neuron loss and dysfunction. α‐Synuclein (α‐syn), as a metabolite of neuron, can induce microglia activation to trigger innate immune response. However, whether α‐syn, as well as its mutants (A53T, A30P, and E46K), induces astrocyte activation and inflammatory response is not fully elucidated. In this study, we used A53T mutant and wild‐type α‐syns to stimulate primary astrocytes in dose‐ and time‐dependent manners (0.5, 2, 8, and 20 μg/ml for 24 hr or 3, 12, 24, and 48 hr at 2 μg/ml), and evaluated activation of several canonical inflammatory pathway components. The results showed that A53T mutant or wild‐type α‐syn significantly upregulated mRNA expression of toll‐like receptor (TLR)2, TLR3, nuclear factor‐κB and interleukin (IL)‐1β, displaying a pattern of positive dose–effect correlation or negative time–effect correlation. Such upregulation was confirmed at protein levels of TLR2 (at 20 μg/ml), TLR3 (at most doses), and IL‐1β (at 3 hr) by western blotting. Blockage of TLR2 other than TLR4 inhibited TLR3 and IL‐1β mRNA expressions. By contrast, interferon (IFN)‐γ was significantly downregulated at mRNA, protein, and protein release levels, especially at high concentrations of α‐syns or early time‐points. These findings indicate that α‐syn was a TLRs‐mediated immunogenic agent (A53T mutant stronger than wild‐type α‐syn). The stimulation patterns suggest that persistent release and accumulation of α‐syn is required for the maintenance of innate immunity activation, and IFN‐γ expression inhibition by α‐syn suggests a novel immune molecule interaction mechanism underlying pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases.
VRpursuits: interaction in virtual reality using smooth pursuit eye movements

Gaze-based interaction using smooth pursuit eye movements (Pursuits) is attractive given that it is intuitive and overcomes the Midas touch problem. At the same time, eye tracking is becoming increasingly popular for VR applications. While Pursuits was shown to be effective in several interaction contexts, it was never explored in-depth for VR before. In a user study (N=26), we investigated how parameters that are specific to VR settings influence the performance of Pursuits. For example, we found that Pursuits is robust against different sizes of virtual 3D targets. However performance improves when the trajectory size (e.g., radius) is larger, particularly if the user is walking while interacting. While walking, selecting moving targets via Pursuits is generally feasible albeit less accurate than when stationary. Finally, we discuss the implications of these findings and the potential of smooth pursuits for interaction in VR by demonstrating two sample use cases: 1) gaze-based authentication in VR, and 2) a space meteors shooting game.