Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Left ventricular geometry during unloading and the end-systolic pressure volume relationship: Measurement with a modified real-time MRI-based method in normal sheep

The left ventricular (LV) end-systolic (ES) pressure volume relationship (ESPVR) is the cornerstone of systolic LV function analysis. We describe a 2D real-time (RT) MRI-based method (RTPVR) with separate software tools for 1) semi-automatic level set segmentation (LSSM) of the LV, 2) generation of synchronized pressure area loops and 3) calculation of the ESPVR. We used the RTPVR method to measure ventricular geometry, ESPAR and ESPVR during vena cava occlusion (VCO) in normal sheep. 10 adult sheep were anesthetized and 2D cross sectional RTMRI performed at apex, mid-ventricle and base levels during separate VCOs. The Dice similarity coefficient was used to compare LSSM and manual image segmentation and thus determine LSSM accuracy. LV cross-sectional area, major and minor axis length, axis ratio, major axis orientation angle and ESPAR were measured at each LV level. ESPVR was calculated with a modified Simpson’s rule method. The Dice similarity coefficient between LSSM compared and manual segmentation by two readers was 87.31±2.51% and 88.13±3.43% respectively. All cross sections became more elliptical during VCO. The major axis orientation shifted during VCO but remained in the septo-lateral direction. LV chamber obliteration at the apical level occurred during VCO in 7 of 10 sheep. ESPAR was non-linear at all levels. Finally, ESPVR was non-linear because of apical collapse. LSSM segmentation of 2D RT MRI images is accurate and allows calculation of LV geometry, ESPAR and ESPVR during VCO. In the future, RTPVR will facilitate determination of regional systolic material parameters underlying ESPVR.
Primate cognition test battery in parrots

Systematic, broad phylogenetic comparisons of diverse cognitive abilities are essential to understand cognitive evolution. Few studies have examined multiple skills comparatively, using identical tasks across species. Previous research centered on primates, but recent evidence suggests that complex cognition may have evolved in distantly related taxa. We administered the tasks of the primate cognition test battery (PCTB) to 4 parrot species for a first direct comparison with primates. The parrots did not perform significantly worse than the previously tested primates in all but one of the test scales, but remained at chance levels throughout. Chimpanzees outperformed them in the physical but not the social domain. No differences between the domains nor across the parrot species were detected. It remains questionable whether the chance level performance reflects the parrots’ cognitive capacity or results from task constraints, which would limit the suitability of PCTB for phylogenetic comparisons. Possible implications for the field are discussed.
Exploring Alternative Antiviral Therapeutic Strategies Through Immunomodulation and Learning Novel Innate Immune Responses Against Rotavirus Infection

Rotavirus infections are associated with outbreaks of acute gastroenteritis. Non-dividing highly differentiated enterocytes, located at the tips of small intestinal villi, are the primary targets of rotavirus infection. Infants or young children infected with Rotavirus may develop severe diarrhea, become dehydrated and require hospitalization. Despite the broad uses of rotavirus vaccines, rotavirus infections are still one of the leading causes of death among infants and young children nowadays. Host initiates its innate immune responses through pattern recognition receptors (PPRs) after detects rotavirus invasion. Interferons (IFNs) are considered to be one of the most essential mediators, and serve as the first frontline defense against viral infections. Our lab activated the innate immunity through a bacterial-derived activator, flagellin, and in turn, the immediate immune responses were able to prevent and eliminate rotavirus infection. Interesting, flagellinmediated antiviral protection was neither dependent on interferon signaling nor adaptive immunity but rather elicited by secretion of interleukin (IL)-22 and IL-18, through activation of Toll-like receptor 5 (TLR5) and NOD-like receptor C4 (NLRC4) signaling, respectively. IL-22 promoted overall turnover (proliferation, migration and extrusion) rate of the intestinal epithelial cells (IEC), therefore, the extrusion process expelled the highly differentiated IEC that would preferentially succumb to rotavirus invasion. Meanwhile, IL-18 induced the programmed cell death among cells were infected by rotavirus, thus directly ceased the RV replication cycle. Understanding this novel antiviral mechanism will be essential for the exploration of prophylactic and therapeutic immunomodulatory strategy to substantiate existing medical intervention towards the treatment of viral infectious disease. INDEX WORDS: Rotavirus, Toll-like receptor 5 (TLR5), NOD-like receptor C4 (NLRC4), Flagellin, Interleukin 22 (IL-22), Interleukin 18 (IL-18). EXPLORING ALTERNATIVE ANTIVIRAL THERAPEUTIC STRATEGIES THROUGH IMMUNOMODULATION AND LEARNING NOVEL INNATE IMMUNE RESPONSES AGAINST ROTAVIRUS INFECTION
Behavioral Determinants of Food Waste; the Case of Çorum Province

Gida israfi ve kaybi ekolojik, ekonomik ve sosyal bir problemdir. Birlesmis Milletler Gida ve Tarim Orgutu, insan tuketimi icin uretilen tum yenilebilir yiyeceklerin yaklasik ucte birinin, israf edildigini veya hasat sonrasi kaybedildigini ifade etmektedir. Bu calismanin amaci tuketicilerin gida israf davranisina etki eden faktorleri ortaya koymaktir. Bu amaca ulasmak icin Corum ilinde 2018 yili Kasim ve Aralik aylarinda 583 kisi ile anket yapilmistir. Elde edilen veriler Yapisal Esitlik Modelleri araciligiyla analiz edilmis ve aciklanmaya calisilmistir. Yapilan Acimlayici Faktor Analizi sonucunda toplam varyansin %76,612’sini aciklayan 5 faktorlu bir yapi elde edilmistir. Bu faktorler; norm, niyet, sonuc farkindaligi, satin alma davranisi ve planlama olarak isimlendirilmistir. Elde edilen bu faktorlerin gecerlilik, guvenilirlik, yapi tutarliligina sahip oldugu belirlenmistir. Ayrica Dogrulayici Faktor Analizi araciligi ile faktorlerin uyum endeks degerlerine uygun olup olmadigi arastirilmistir. Yapilan Dogrulayici Faktor Analizi sonucunda, elde edilen faktorlerin uyum endeks degerlerini karsiladigi tespit edilmistir. Faktorlerin birbiri ile iliskisi ve israf davranisi uzerindeki etkisi yol analizleri ile olculmustur. Bu calismanin sonucunda, tuketicilerin sonuc farkindaligi, niyet ve normlar bakimindan olumlu ifadeler sergilemelerine karsin planlama ve satin alma asamasinda kararsiz davrandiklari belirlenmistir. Ayrica israf davranislarinda niyet ve sonuc farkindaliginin dogrudan etkisinin olmasina karsin, planlama ve normlarin dolayli etkisinin oldugu tespit edilmistir. Niyetin satin alma davranisi uzerinde en etkili faktor oldugu goz onunde tutuldugunda toplumda sonuc farkindaligi yaratacak etkinliklere agirlik verilmelidir.
Fast evaluation of digital switching noise for synthesis of mixed-signal applications

This paper presents a novel symbolic analysis method for transient analysis of digital switching noise (DSN). The method relies on symbolic techniques to express the voltage variations at the power pins of analog blocks depending on the DSN at the switching digital blocks. The paper discusses the modeling of DSN propagation including the representation of the substrate coupling, contacts to the power supplies and power buses. Experiments support the correctness of the method and showed significant speed-ups of simulation time as related to SPICE simulation.
Measurement and modeling of WWW traffic in a LAN environment

The Internet is growing to play a core role in people's daily lives. Network traffic control and QoS guarantees are highly demanded in multiservice network's performance; this can only be achieved by measuring and analyzing network traffic. This paper describes how software based on the Winpcap library has been developed and used to measure the most popular Internet application, World Wide Web (WWW) traffic, on a typical Ethernet LAN. We demonstrate how to measure and analyze the interarrival time and size of HTTP packets and derive statistical parameters from them. Analytical traffic models are developed based on the measurement results.
Neural and computational mechanisms of analogical reasoning

High-level cognition inevitably involves multiple component processes, which are difficult to distinguish at the neural level. We apply model-guided componential analysis to disaggregate components of verbal analogical reasoning, a hallmark of human intelligence. This approach integrates a sequential task design with representational and encoding analyses of fMRI data. The analyses were guided by three computational models of lexical and relation semantics that vary in the specificity of their relation representations. Word2vec-concat is nonrelational (based solely on individual word meanings); Word2vec-diff computes the generic relation between any word pair; and BART derives relational similarity from a set of learned abstract semantic relations (e.g., synonym, antonym, cause-effect). The predictions derived from BART, based on its learned relations, showed the strongest correlation with neural activity in regions including the left posterior parietal cortex (during both relation representation and relation comparison) and rostrolateral prefrontal cortex (during relation comparison). Model-guided componential analysis shows promise as an approach to discovering the neural basis of propositional thought.
Generating Alternative Hypotheses in AQ Learning

In many areas of application of machine learning and data mining, it is desirable to generate alternative inductive hypotheses from the given data. The A-ALT or, briefly, ALT method, presented in this paper, generates alternative hypotheses in two phases. The first phase proceeds according to the standard A algorithm, but each star generation process produces not just one best complex, but rather a collection of complexes, called the elite. This phase ends when the union of best complexes constitutes a complete and consistent cover of the target set, called the primary hypothesis. The second phase derives alternative hypotheses by multiplying out the disjunctions of symbols representing complexes in each elite, and creating an irredundant DNF expression. Individual terms in this expression determine alternative hypotheses. These hypotheses are ranked according to a given hypothesis evaluation criterion, LEFh, and the alt best hypotheses are selected, where alt is a parameter provided to the program. The method is extended to inconsistent covering problem by introducing an event membership probability function. The selected hypotheses can be used as alternative generalizations of data, or arranged into an ensemble of classifiers to perform a form of boosting. The ALT method is general, and can thus be employed not only in concept learning, but also for generating alternative solutions to any general covering problem.
Line-of-sight indoor radio communication using circular polarized waves

This paper presents an anti-multipath fading scheme employing a circular polarized wave for line-of-sight (LOS) indoor radio communications. The circular polarized wave transmission/reception significantly mitigates the multipath fading caused by reflections from walls, ceiling, and floor since the energies of single-bounce reflected waves do not appear at the receiver, thereby resulting in significant amplitude fade and delay spread reduction. The received signal intensity variations and delay spread are investigated numerically using a 14-path propagation model and the usefulness is confirmed by comparing with a linear polarized wave transmission/reception under a same LOS condition. >
Iterative design of structured uncertainty models and robust controllers for linear systems

In safety-critical applications guaranteed stability and performance against all disturbances and changes in the system’s dynamics are expected. In the robust control theory of linear time-invariant (LTI) systems the notion of uncertain system has been introduced. An uncertain system is defined by a set of unknown systems with bounded H∞ norm. The uncertain system is described by the feedback interconnection of a nominal model and an unknown system. The unknown system can be unstructured consisting of a full LTI system matrix or a structured block-diagonal matrix each block belonging to some system classes. The more details of the real plant can be taken into account the smaller can be the resulting model set and so the conservatism of the controller. In the dissertation, the notion of uncertainty is meant for both the set of neglected LTI dynamics and the set of deterministic disturbances. Usually, the structured uncertainty model is constructed based on physical assumptions. The sizes of disturbances and uncertainty blocks are characterized by frequency-dependent weighting functions. Their choice strongly influences the robustness of the designed system, since too small weights may lead to instability or too large ones to poor performance. The design of weighting functions involves much experimenting and heuristic solutions based on deep engineering insight. In the dissertation a method is presented that automatically designs structured uncertainty models based on measurement data and that improves robust performance by taking the performance specifications into account. In the first thesis an iterative algorithm is elaborated for LTI systems with the aim of optimizing robust performance by shaping uncertainty models and designing skew-ľ controllers. Advantageous properties are the handling of unstable experiments and the validation-based improvement of robust performance. In the second thesis the proposed algorithm is elaborated for linear parameter-varying (LPV) nominal models using integral quadratic constraints (IQCs). In the last thesis a control strategy, including the process of modelling, identification, uncertainty modelling and robust control design, is elaborated for steering a vehicle by using the electronic brake system. The proposed method can be applied in emergency situations.
Cold-Inducible RNA-binding protein (CIRBP) adjusts clock gene expression and REM sleep recovery following sleep deprivation

Sleep depriving mice affects clock gene expression, suggesting that these genes partake in sleep homeostasis. The mechanisms linking wakefulness to clock gene expression are, however, not well understood. We propose CIRBP because its rhythmic expression is i) sleep-wake driven and ii) necessary for high-amplitude clock gene expression in vitro. We therefore expect Cirbp knock-out (KO) mice to exhibit attenuated sleep-deprivation (SD) induced changes in clock gene expression, and consequently to differ in their sleep homeostatic regulation. Lack of CIRBP indeed blunted the SD-incurred changes in cortical expression of the clock gene Rev-erbα whereas it amplified the changes in Per2 and Clock. Concerning sleep homeostasis, KO mice accrued only half the extra REM sleep wild-type (WT) littermates obtained during recovery. Unexpectedly, KO mice were more active during lights-off which was accompanied by an acceleration of theta oscillations. Thus, CIRBP adjusts cortical clock gene expression after SD and expedites REM sleep recovery.
Improved coded transceivers for personal and mobile communications

In this work, the performance of trellis coded modulation with improved non-coherent receivers is examined for application to personal and mobile satellite communications. The schemes are analyzed and evaluated in additive white Gaussian noise, Rayleigh, Rician and shadowed channels. Evaluations have shown that the improved non-coherent receivers are capable of providing considerable improvement in performance as compared to the conventional differential receivers.
CODED MODULATION WITH ITERATIVE DECODING (BICM-ID) USING SIGNAL SPACE DIVERSITY (SSD) OVER NON-ORTHOGONAL AMPLIFY-AND-FORWARD (NAF) RELAY CHANNELS

Diversity is a powerful technique to improve the reliability of digital communications systems over wireless channels. In this thesis, the error performance and precoder design of a bandwidth-efficient bit-interleaved coded modulation with iterative decoding (BICM-ID) system over a non-orthogonal amplify-and-forward (NAF) half-duplex single-relay channel is investigated to effectively combine cooperative, time and modulation diversities. At first, a tight union bound on the asymptotic bit error probability (BEP) of the NAFBICM-ID system employing signal space diversity (SSD) via a precoder is derived for an arbitrary cooperative block length of 2N . This bound provides a useful tool to predict the error performance without the need of time-consuming simulations. A design criterion that characterizes the effect of the precoder to the performance is then developed, which gives an insight on how to obtain a good precoder to fully exploit diversity. Attention is then paid to the NAF-BICM-ID system using a 2 × 2 precoder, where a closed-form expression of the bound is obtained. Based on this expression, the optimal class of 2 × 2 precoders is developed. Different from the optimal precoders designed for uncoded systems, the derived precoder indicates that the source terminal only needs to send the superposition of the first symbol and the rotated version of the second one in the first time slot, while being silent in the remaining slot to achieve the best asymptotic performance. For a good convergence property, it is further shown that a rotation angle that maximizes the minimum Euclidean distance of the superposition constellation should be used. Optimal rotation angles are then analytically determined for various modulation schemes. The usefulness of the proposed precoder is verified by both the error bound and simulation results. Finally, based on extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) charts, both the convergence property and the asymptotic performance of the system using optimal precoders are analyzed when different code rates are used. Analytical and simulation results show that the proposed precoders not only exploit full cooperative diversity but also offer significant coding gains for a wide range of code rates over the optimal precoders for uncoded NAF systems.
Compensatory mechanisms render Tcf7l1a dispensable for eye formation despite its cell-autonomous requirement in eye field specification

The vertebrate eye originates from the eyefield, a domain of cells specified by a small number of transcription factors. In this study, we show that Tcf7la is one such transcription factor that acts cell-autonomously to specify the eye field in zebrafish. Despite the much reduced eyefield in tcf7l1a mutants, these fish develop normal eyes revealing a striking ability of the eye to recover from a severe early phenotype. This robustness is not mediated through compensation by paralogous genes; instead, the smaller optic vesicle of tcf7l1a mutants shows delayed neurogenesis and continues to grow until it achieves approximately normal size. Although the developing eye is robust to the lack of Tcf7l1a function, it is sensitised to the effects of additional mutations. In support of this, a forward genetic screen identified mutations in hesx1, cct5 and gdf6a, which give synthetically enhanced eye specification or growth phenotypes when in combination with the tcf7l1a mutation.
Inonotus obliquus Extract as An Inhibitor of α-MSH-Induced Melanogenesis in B16F10 Mouse Melanoma Cells

Melanogenesis is a biosynthetic pathway that produces the pigment melanin in human skin. The catalyzation of the key enzyme tyrosinase is the first step in melanogenesis, and the downregulation of tyrosinase enzyme activity is the most reported method for inhibiting melanogenesis. Hyperpigmentation is an important issue in the cosmetic industry, and there is great demand for melanogenesis inhibitors. In the present study, we demonstrated the anti-melanogenic effect of Inonotus obliquus in alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone (α-MSH)-induced B16F10 mouse melanoma cells and identified it as a new melanogenesis inhibitor. Comparing the B16F10 cells treated with the control and the Inonotus obliquus extract, we identified the melanin contents, mRNA and protein expression of tyrosinase, tyrosinase activity, and microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (Mitf) activity using a constructed plasmid. Through these experiments, we confirmed that Inonotus obliquus extract inhibits melanin synthesis by downregulating the activity and expression of tyrosinase. Furthermore, we revealed that tyrosinase expression is regulated by Inonotus obliquus extract via the repression of Mitf transcriptional activity. Thus, in this study, we found that Inonotus obliquus extract has anti-melanogenic effects via the suppression of melanin synthesis. Taken together, we demonstrated that Inonotus obliquus extract is a good potential candidate for use as a natural source for the therapeutic treatment of hyperpigmentation and for applications in whitening cosmetic products.
Study of Sterilization Effects on Marine Vibrio sp. using Interaction of Cavitation with Shock Wave in a Narrow Water Chamber

When underwater shock waves are generated by an electric discharge in a narrow water chamber, the instant release of a great amount of energy causes the propagation of a shear wave in wall material with the deformation of the chamber wall. The shear waves produce decompression in water and result in the growth of bubble nuclei. Subsequently, those oscillating cavitation bubbles are exposed to the shock pressures, and thus free radicals and rebound shock waves are generated due to their violent collapses. Eventually, marine bacteria around them are inactivated by these productions. In the present study, we investigate the sterilization effects of these oscillating bubbles and cavitation-shock interaction by bio-experiments, respectively. Furthermore, the chemical action of free radicals on marine bacteria is discussed. The generation of the OH radicals is clarified by measuring the concentration of the H2O2. To estimate the generation condition of the OH radicals, a bubble dynamic model consisting of an oscillation model for the growth of bubble nuclei and an impact model to describe the cavitation-shock interaction is developed. Finally, the theoretical estimation by the bubble dynamic model is discussed under the conditions of the present experiments.
Say What?! L2 Sociopragmatic Competence in CMC: Skill Transfer and Development.

More so than any other type of learner error, pragmatic mistakes interfere with the ability to communicate (Bardovi-Harlig & Dornyei, 1998), yet there is relatively little understanding of how pragmatic competence develops in the language classroom or how best to teach it, and whether relevant skills may transfer from the L1 (Eisenchlas, 2011; Kasper, 2001; Rose & Kasper, 2001). Pragmatics research has also primarily focused on learners’ ability to produce native-like language forms, specifically speech acts, often elicited via discourse completion tasks (Jeon & Kaya, 2006). To supplement such research, the present study used ethnography of communication (Saville-Troike, 2002) to examine whether and how 17 second-semester learners of German developed sociopragmatic competence by participating in computer-mediated communication. Based on the findings, some pragmatic “targets” are identified for different levels of instruction.