Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intra-ventral tegmental area injection of rat cocaine and amphetamine-regulated transcript peptide 55-102 induces locomotor activity and promotes conditioned place preference.

Cocaine- and amphetamine-regulated transcript (CART) is a novel mRNA that has been reported to be increased by acute psychostimulant administration, and that may be involved in the effects of psychostimulants. In this study, we examined the effect of centrally administered CART peptides on locomotor activity and conditioned place preference in the rat. CART peptide fragments were bilaterally injected into the ventral tegmental area. CART 55-102 (0.2-5.0 microg/side), an endogenously occurring peptide, dose dependently increased locomotor activity, whereas CART 1-26 (0.1-2.5 microg/side; not found endogenously) did not. The locomotor effects of CART 55-102 were dose dependently blocked by the dopamine D(2) receptor antagonist haloperidol (0.03-1.0 mg/kg i.p.). Four injections of 1.0 microg/side CART 55-102 induced a significant place preference, suggesting that CART 55-102 is reinforcing. Increases in locomotor activity after each of these CART 55-102 injections were similar and did not show tolerance or sensitization. This treatment regimen of CART 55-102 also did not produce sensitization to locomotor activity after a subsequent challenge with cocaine or amphetamine. When CART 55-102 (0.2-1.0 microg/side) was injected into the substantia nigra, no significant change in motor activity was observed. However, a higher dose of CART 55-102 (5.0 microg/side) induced a delayed increase in motor activity, suggesting a possible diffusion from the substantia nigra into the ventral tegmental area. Our findings suggest that CART 55-102 is behaviorally active and may be involved in the actions of psychostimulants. This is the first demonstration of the psychostimulant-like effects of CART peptides.
Video database system for studying animal behavior

Classification of farm animal behaviors are based upon oral or written descriptions of the activity that an animal is engaged in. The quantification of animal behavior for research requires that an individual recognize and code the behavior of the animal under study. The classification of these behaviors can be subjective and may differ among observers. Illustrated guides to animal behavior do not convey the motion associated with most behaviors. Video based guides offer a subjective method of quantifying behaviors with real time demonstrations of the components that make up a behavior. In this paper, we propose an animal behavior video database system which can automatically extract animal motion information from the input animal activity video clip by a multi-object tracking and reasoning system. The extracted information is then analyzed and described using a set of standard animal behavior terms we are developing. The behavior description is used to automatically annotate the given video clip, and serves as the content-based index. The user of the system is able to use a keywork description of the behavior to retrieve the corresponding video object. The intended applications of the system are animal and veterinary science education, and animal behavior research. The prototype system is built for swine and will be extended to other farm animal species.
Terahertz imaging based on optical coherence tomography

Three dimensional (3D) terahertz (THz) imaging or THz tomography has recently proven to be useful for non-destructive testing of industrial materials and structures. In place of previous imaging techniques such as THz pulse radar, we propose a THz optical coherence tomography (OCT) using two kinds of THz sources such as incoherent noise and frequency-swept sources, and demonstrate 3D imaging in the frequency regions from 300 GHz to 800 GHz.
Structuration automatique de flux télévisuels

L'augmentation du nombre de documents multimedias disponibles rend necessaire la mise en place de methodes de structuration automatique capables de faciliter l'acces a l'information contenue dans les documents, tout en etant suffisamment generiques pour pouvoir structurer des documents tout-venants. Dans ce cadre, nous proposons deux types de structuration, lineaire et hierarchique, s'appuyant sur les transcriptions automatiques de la parole prononcee dans les documents. Ces transcriptions, independantes du type des documents consideres, sont exploitees par le biais de methodes issues du traitement automatiques des langues (TAL). Les deux techniques de structuration, ainsi que la phase de segmentation thematique sur laquelle elles reposent, donnent lieu a plusieurs contributions originales. Tout d'abord, la methode de segmentation thematique employee, originellement developpee pour du texte ecrit, est adaptee aux particularites des transcriptions automatiques de videos professionnelles - erreurs de transcription, faible nombre de repetitions de vocabulaire. Le critere de cohesion lexicale sur lequel elle se fonde est, en effet, sensible a ces specificites, ce qui penalise fortement les performances de l'algorithme. Cette adaptation est mise en place, d'une part grâce a la prise en compte, lors du calcul de la cohesion lexicale, de connaissances linguistiques et d'informations issues de la reconnaissance automatique de la parole et du signal (relations semantiques, prosodie, mesures de confiance), et d'autre part grâce a des techniques d'interpolation de modeles de langue. A partir de cette etape de segmentation thematique, nous proposons une methode de structuration thematique lineaire permettant de mettre en relation des segments abordant des thematiques similaires. La methode employee, fondee sur une technique issue du domaine de la recherche d'information, est adaptee aux donnees audiovisuelles grâce a des indices prosodiques, qui permettent de favoriser les mots proeminents dans le discours, et des relations semantiques. Finalement, nous proposons un travail plus exploratoire examinant differentes pistes pour adapter un algorithme de segmentation thematique lineaire a une tâche de segmentation thematique hierarchique. Pour cela, l'algorithme de segmentation lineaire est modifie - ajustement du calcul de la cohesion lexicale, utilisation de chaines lexicales - pour prendre en compte la distribution du vocabulaire au sein du document a segmenter. Les experimentations menees sur trois corpora composes de journaux televises et d'emissions de reportages, transcrits manuellement et automatiquement, montrent que les approches proposees conduisent a une amelioration des performances des methodes de structuration developpees.
Two distinct regions of deletion on chromosome 13q in primary nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is rare in most parts of the world, but prevalent in Southern China. Although this disease poses a serious health problem in our population, the genetic alterations that lead to the development of NPC have yet to be defined. In a comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) study on NPC by our group, loss of the long arm of chromosome 13 has been identified as a frequent event. To investigate further the involvement of this genetic alteration in NPC tumorigenesis, we examined 31 primary NPC tumours by LOH analysis with a panel of 13 microsatellite polymorphic markers distributed along the long arm of chromosome 13. It was found that 19/31 tumours (60%) showed LOH for markers on chromosome 13q. The highest frequency of LOH was found at loci D13S133 (53.6%) on 13q14.3 and D13S796 (38.5%) on 13q32‐34. Two distinct smallest deletion regions were delineated: the first region between D13S133 and D13S119 at 13q14.3‐22, and the second region between D13S317 and D13S285 at 13q31‐34. Our findings show that LOH of 13q is a common event in NPC and that at least 2 putative tumour‐suppressor loci may be present on 13q. Mapping of the critical regions of these loci suggests that some candidate tumour‐suppressor genes on 13q, other than Rb and BRCA2, may be involved in the development of NPC. Int. J. Cancer 83:305–308, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Comparing alcohol consumption in central and eastern Europe to other European countries.

AIMS To give an overview of the volume of alcohol consumption, beverage preference, and patterns of drinking among adults (people 15 years and older) in central and eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia) and to compare it to southern and western Europe, Russia and Ukraine. METHODS Secondary data analysis. Consumption and preferred beverage type data for the year 2002 were taken from the WHO Global Status Report on Alcohol and the WHO Global Alcohol Database. RESULTS Average consumption in central and eastern Europe is high with a relatively large proportion of unrecorded consumption ranging from one litre in Czech Republic and Estonia to 10.5 l in Ukraine. The proportion of heavy alcohol consumption (more than 40 g of pure alcohol per day) among men was the lowest in Bulgaria (25.8%) and the highest in Czech Republic (59.4%). Among women, the lowest proportion of heavy alcohol consumption was registered in Estonia (4.0%) and the highest in Hungary (16.0%). Patterns of drinking are detrimental with a high proportion of binge drinking, especially in the group of countries traditionally drinking vodka. In most countries, beer is now the most prevalent alcoholic beverage. CONCLUSIONS Other studies suggest that the population drinking levels found in central and eastern Europe are linked with higher levels of detrimental health outcomes. Known effective and cost-effective programs to reduce levels of risky drinking should, therefore, be implemented, which may, in turn, lead to a reduction of alcohol-attributable burden of disease.
Management of shock and acute renal failure in casualties suffering from the crush syndrome.

Widespread muscle crush injury is often associated with profound hemodynamic shock and myoglobinuric acute renal failure (ARF). The main reason for the shock is rapid uptake by the injured muscles of a substantial portion of extracellular fluid. The shock is aggravated by NO-dependent vasodilation in the injured muscles and by hyperkalemia and hypocalcemia, which suppress the entire cardiovascular tree. Treatment consists of early massive volume replacement and forced alkaline solute (mannitol) diuresis. With this regimen it is possible to increase survival of life and limbs, and prevent myoglobinuric ARF. Our preliminary experience suggests that i.v. hypertonic mannitol is protective also to the injured muscle and can be used as a noninvasive adjunct in the management of compartment syndrome in man. Moreover, by preserving muscular integrity, mannitol can conceivable reduce leakage of the nephrotoxic myoglobin and urate and thus further defend kidney function.
Amitriptyline eliminates calculi through urinary tract smooth muscle relaxation.

BACKGROUND We investigated the effects of amitriptyline in the urinary tract smooth muscle and urolithiasis. METHODS Cats presenting with obstructive acute renal failure (ARF) received amitriptyline, and renal function and survival rates were analyzed. Isometric contractions and membrane potentials of rat, pig, or human isolated urinary tract smooth muscle were recorded in the presence or absence of amitriptyline. RESULTS Twenty cats with obstructive ARF caused by urethral plugs received amitriptyline. In all cases, plugs were completely eliminated, and renal function returned to normal, with a 100% survival rate in the follow-up. Amitriptyline produced potent relaxations in rat urethral strips, accompanied by significant reductions in urethral ring membrane potential. This effect was prevented by pretreatment of urethral rings with 4-aminopyridine (4-AP), a voltage-dependent potassium channel blocker. Amitriptyline abolished in a reversible manner acetylcholine-, bradykinin-, and KCl-induced contractions in rat isolated bladder, and this effect was also prevented by 4-AP. Of interest, spontaneous and KCl-induced contractions of pig and human isolated ureter were also blocked by amitriptyline. CONCLUSION Our results indicate that amitriptyline is an effective and potent relaxant of urinary tract smooth muscle and this effect is mediated by opening of voltage dependent-potassium channels. We suggest that amitriptyline administration may help to promote elimination of urinary calculi.
The Effects of Extended Play on Professional Baseball Pitchers

The purpose of this study was to investigate kinematic and kinetic changes as a result of extended play in baseball pitching. Seven major league baseball pitchers were videotaped with high-speed (120 Hz) cameras during multiple innings of the same game. For each athlete, two fastballs (one thrown during the initial inning of play and one from the final inning) were chosen for analysis. Twenty-one physical landmarks were manually digitized from the video data. Kinematic and kinetic parameters were subsequently calculated relative to four phases of the pitching motion: windup, cocking, acceleration, and follow-through. Paired t-tests revealed that seven parameters changed significantly between early and late innings. These included decreases in maximum external rotation of the shoulder, knee angle at ball release, ball velocity, maximum distraction force at both the shoulder and elbow, and horizontal adduction torque at both release and its maximum value. Ultimately, a decline in performance was evident by a 2 m/s (5 mph) drop in ball speed. It is unclear whether the kinematic and kinetic changes occurred because of fatigue or if protective mechanisms were adopted.
Minimização do Impacto do Problema de Desvio de Conceito por Meio de Acoplamento em Ambiente de Aprendizado Sem Fim

Machine Learning (ML) is a research subarea of Artificial Intelligence that aims to develop computer programs that can evolve with new experiences. Among the many ML goals, the endless learning, i.e., methods that would enable computer systems to autonomously improve their own performance, based on previously learnt information, is of particular interest in the research described in this paper. In the framework of endless learning this paper investigates semi-supervised ML techniques which would minimize the impact of a problem known as concept drift.
Bone turnover across the menopause transition: correlations with inhibins and follicle-stimulating hormone.

CONTEXT Longitudinal clinical studies demonstrate that increases in bone turnover that occur in perimenopausal women correlate better with elevated serum FSH than with changes in serum estradiol (E2). This perimenopausal rise in FSH is due to a selective decrease in ovarian inhibin B (InhB). Our previous demonstration that inhibins suppress both osteoblast and osteoclast development suggests that changes in serum inhibins may regulate osteoblast and osteoclast differentiation and thereby bone turnover, independent of changes in sex steroids. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to determine whether decreased serum inhibin A (InhA) and InhB levels correlate with increases in markers of bone turnover in women across the menopause transition and to evaluate serum inhibins as better predictors of bone turnover markers across the menopause transition than FSH or bioavailable E2. DESIGN We studied a cross-sectional age-stratified population sample of 188 pre- and postmenopausal women not using oral contraceptives or hormone replacement therapy (age, 21-85 yr). RESULTS Serum InhA and InhB levels significantly correlated inversely with markers of bone formation and bone resorption in pre- and perimenopausal women and with markers of bone formation in postmenopausal women (InhA only). FSH was not significantly correlated with bone turnover in either pre- or postmenopausal women; however, FSH was significantly correlated with bone resorption (C-terminal collagen I cross-link) in perimenopausal women (age, 45-54 yr). Using multivariate analyses, serum InhA better predicted bone formation and resorption markers in premenopausal women than either FSH or bioavailable E2. CONCLUSIONS Decreases in inhibin levels across the menopause transition are associated with increasing bone turnover, regardless of changes in sex steroids or FSH.
Fuzzy control of piezoelectric actuator with inverse compensation

The hysteresis characteristic of piezoelectric actuator seriously affects its tracking precision, even leads to instability of the closed-loop control system. To solve this issue, this paper employs the classical Preisach model to describe the hysteresis characteristic of piezoelectric actuator, and then compensates for the hysteresis by using inverse Preisach model. Moreover, a new fuzzy PID controller is designed to realize a fuzzy feedback control system of the piezoelectric actuator with inverse-based feedforward compensation. Simulation investigations show that fuzzy PID control achieves significant improvements in terms of response time, overshoot, and steady-state error as compared with traditional PID control. In addition, some open problem which is still need to be solved in the control of piezoelectric actuator and its future development are also discussed.
The Differential Disinhibition Effect of Marijuana Use on Violent Behavior

Abstract The following Kaplan/Damphouse hypothesis was tested and cross validated: The use of marijuana either predicts to or has a greater effect on increasing the degree of violent behavior for a group that is low on delinquent behavior, than it does for a group that scores high on these behaviors. For the conventional, non-delinquent subgroup, a higher degree of significant relationship between degree of marijuana use and degree of violent behavior was found, compared to the degree of this type of relationship than was found for either cocaine/crack use, amphetamine use, or tranquilizer/sedative use. For example, for the commission of the offense of Attempted Homicide/Reckless Endangerment: for the conventional, non-delinquent group there was a highly significant relationship to the degree of marijuana use; but there was a non-significant relationship between this type of offense and the degree of use of each of the other types of drugs. Thus, this special disinhibition effect was found only for marijuana, and not for other drugs, regardless of whether they were stimulant types of drugs, or were sedative drugs.
A New Method of Oral Drug Provocation Testing for Determining Safe Alternatives for Patients with Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug Intolerance: The Triple Test

Background: Although some of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are reported to be safe for NSAID-intolerant patients, they should not be suggested before confirming the safety by single-blind oral drug provocation tests. Various test protocols are used in different allergy centers. The aim of this survey was to find out if testing three drugs a day could be a safe, time-saving and cost-effective method. Methods: We have enrolled 84 patients into this survey between September 1, 2002, and July 31, 2004. Results: Their mean age was 37.3 ± 11.0 years; 63 (75%) patients were female. By reliable history, the NSAID most commonly causing intolerance was aspirin (46.4%), and the most common reaction to analgesic intolerance was angioedema (60.7%). Eighty-seven tests were performed with meloxicam, rofecoxib, celecoxib, benzydamine, azapropazone, codeine and paracetamol in various triple combinations. Seventeen of the triple tests were positive, and one of them was suspiciously positive. After repeating these 18 tests with the same analgesics in the same order on 54 separate days, we have determined the responsible analgesics for 14 of the triple tests. There were no reactions when four of the triple tests were repeated on separate days (two of the triple tests demonstrated urticaria and the other two angioedema). Five patients had nausea and vomiting, and 2 had abdominal pain and other dyspeptic complaints during the tests. If we had performed the tests by the classical method, 264 days would have elapsed instead of 148 days (including the extra tests that we have performed after positive triple tests and gastrointestinal symptoms). Conclusion: The triple oral drug provocation testing seems to be a safe, time-/manpower-saving and cost-effective method for determining safe alternatives for NSAID-intolerant patients.
Multiple-Gate CMOS Thin-Film Transistor With Polysilicon Nanowire

An ultimately scaled multiple-gate CMOS thin-film transistor with a polysilicon (poly-Si) nanowire demonstrates feasibility for vertical integration using multiple active layers for application in the terabit memory era. The short-channel effects are suppressed using a multiple gate to wrap around the nanowire in devices with a size of a few tenths of a nanometer. The switching and output characteristics show high device performance without a crystallization process for the poly-Si nanowire.
A $D$ -Band CMOS Amplifier With a New Dual-Frequency Interstage Matching Technique

A new interstage matching technique has been proposed and successfully applied to a <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${D}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-band amplifier in a 65-nm CMOS technology. The proposed technique is based on a simultaneous conjugate matching at the interstages of multistage amplifiers at two frequencies, resulting in an increased bandwidth. The six-stage amplifier designed based on this technique shows a peak gain of 13.8 dB at 113.7 GHz with a 3-dB bandwidth of 11.2 GHz (110.6–121.8 GHz) without balun loss compensation, while consuming a dc power of 40 mW. Measured noise figure shows a minimum value of 10.8 dB at 115 GHz. The output <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$P_{1\,\text {dB}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and the saturation output power <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$P_{\mathrm{ sat}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> are −14 and −3 dBm, respectively. The circuit occupies an area of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$1100 \times 550~\mu \text{m}^{2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>.
Shopping in the Electronic Marketplace

Abstract:The concept of an electronic marketplace is introduced whereby consumers may browse through a structured database giving product offerings and local supply outlets. We consider the nature of software to facilitate the shopping process developing a concept of similarity between generic products using a semantic net structure. The search is guided by specified user preferences. A prototype implementation, using Prolog, is described.