Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SALIENCY USING TOPOGRAPHIC INDEPENDENT COMPONENT ANALYSIS

Understanding the underlying mechanisms that drive human visual attention is a topic of immense interest. Most of the work is focused on extracting manually selected features that might resemble the human visual processing pathway and using a combination of those features to train a classifier that learns to predict where humans look. In contrast, we will learn the features in an unsupervised way using a generalization of Independent Component Analysis (ICA), namely the topographic Independent Component Analysis (tICA). We will show that those learned features in combination with linear SVM outperform the hand-crafted ones. In addition, we propose a novel optimization scheme, which jointly optimizes for linear SVM and tICA pooling weights and show that it further improves the results.
Sensory representation abnormalities that parallel focal hand dystonia in a primate model

In our hypothesis of focal dystonia, attended repetitive behaviors generate aberrant sensory representations. Those aberrant representations interfere with motor control. Abnormal motor control strengthens sensory abnormalities. The positive feedback loop reinforces the dystonic condition. Previous studies of primates with focal hand dystonia have demonstrated multi-digit or hairy-glabrous responses at single sites in area 3b, receptive fields that average ten times larger than normal, and high receptive field overlap as a function of horizontal distance. In this study, we strengthen and elaborate these findings. One animal was implanted with an array of microelectrodes that spanned the border between the face and digits. After the animal developed hand dystonia, responses in the initial hand representation increasingly responded to low threshold stimulation of the face in a columnar substitution. The hand-face border that is normally sharp became patchy and smeared over 1 mm of cortex within 6 weeks. Two more trained animals developed a focal hand dystonia variable in severity across the hand. Receptive field size, presence of multi-digit or hairy-glabrous receptive fields, and columnar overlap covaried with the animal's ability to use specific digits. A fourth animal performed the same behaviors without developing dystonia. Many of its physiological measures were similar to the dystonic animals, but receptive field overlap functions were minimally abnormal, and no sites shared response properties that are normally segregated such as hairy-glabrous combined fields, or multi-digit fields. Thalamic mapping demonstrated proportionate levels of abnormality in thalamic representations as were found in cortical representations.
Structuring Spreadsheets with the “ Lish ” Data Model Conference or Workshop Item

A spreadsheet is remarkably flexible in representing various forms of structured data, but the individual cells have no knowledge of the larger structures of which they may form a part. This can hamper comprehension and increase formula replication, increasing the risk of error on both scores. We explore a novel data model (called the “lish”) that could form an alternative to the traditional grid in a spreadsheet-like environment. Its aim is to capture some of these higher structures while preserving the simplicity that makes a spreadsheet so attractive. It is based on cells organised into nested lists, in each of which the user may optionally employ a template to prototype repeating structures. These template elements can be likened to the marginal “cells” in the borders of a traditional worksheet, but are proper members of the sheet and may themselves contain internal structure. A small demonstration application shows the “lish” in operation.
Postirradiation otitis media with effusion in nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients treated by intensity‐modulated radiotherapy

Postirradiation otitis media with effusion (OME) is a common adverse otologic effect in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients treated by radiotherapy. The purpose of this study was to determine the long‐term incidence of postirradiation OME in NPC patients following intensity‐modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) and to evaluate the potential factors associated with the development of this otologic complication.
N-Linked Glycosylation Is Required for XC Cell-Specific Syncytium Formation by the R Peptide-Containing Envelope Protein of Ecotropic Murine Leukemia Viruses

ABSTRACT The XC cell line undergoes extensive syncytium formation after infection with ecotropic murine leukemia viruses (MLVs) and is frequently used to titrate these viruses. This cell line is unique in its response to the ecotropic MLV envelope protein (Env) in that it undergoes syncytium formation with cells expressing Env protein containing R peptide (R+ Env), which is known to suppress the fusogenic potential of the Env protein in other susceptible cells. To analyze the ecotropic receptor, CAT1, in XC cells, a mouse CAT1 tagged with the influenza virus hemagglutinin epitope (mCAT1-HA)-expressing retroviral vector was inoculated into XC and NIH 3T3 cells. The molecular size of the mCAT1-HA protein expressed in XC cells was smaller than that in NIH 3T3 cells due to altered N glycosylation in XC cells. Treatment of XC cells with tunicamycin significantly suppressed the formation of XC cell syncytia induced by the R+ Env protein but not that induced by the R− Env protein. This result indicates that N glycosylation is required for XC cell-specific syncytium formation by the R+ Env protein. The R+ Env protein induced syncytia in XC cells expressing a mutant mCAT1 lacking both of two N glycosylation sites, and tunicamycin treatment suppressed syncytium formation by R+ Env in those cells. This suggests that N glycosylation of a molecule(s) other than the receptor is required for the induction of XC cell syncytia by the R+ Env protein.
The ( Indispensable ) Middle Class in Developing Countries

Growth that is shared, broad-based, inclusive—there are various terms—is now widely embraced as the central economic goal for developing countries. A key contribution of the Commission on Growth and Development, chaired by Michael Spence, was its emphasis on shared growth. But the concept of shared or inclusive growth is not well defi ned in the development economics literature. Since the early 1990s (and probably best marked by the infl uential 1990 World Development Report of the World Bank), the focus has been primarily on pro-poor growth, with the “poor” defi ned as people living on less than $1 a day, or in some regions $2 a day. The idea of pro-poor growth emerged in the early 1990s as a counterpoint to a singular concern with growth alone, measured in increases in per
Multitask Learning for Reliable State Estimation

An ultimate goal of mobile robotics research is the ubiquitous deployment of intelligent platforms that are capable of undertaking a variety of tasks in everyday life for their users. Over the previous decade, robots have become more integrated into our daily lives, performing tasks in numerous environments including industrial settings such as in assembly and manufacturing, indoor scenarios such as home assistance and elderly care, as well as outdoor tasks such as lawn mowing and parcel delivery. Despite the significant strides achieved in the various application areas, reliably deploying robots in urban environments remains an open challenge due to the complex and highly dynamic nature of the environment that renders hand-crafted solutions infeasible. In order to attain the goal of ubiquitous robotic deployment, robots need to accurately estimate their position as well as the position of other pedestrians or agents in their vicinity in order to ensure safe operation. In my work, I have focused on addressing the challenging problem of reliable and accurate state estimation in urban environments by introducing techniques that leverage the abundantly rich semantic, structural and geometric information in the scene. In the following sections, I briefly describe some of the challenges, proposed solutions and future research directions in the domains of localization and motion prediction.
Where Do Activist Shareholders Trade ?

Before intervening in corporate governance, an activist needs to acquire a large ownership in a firm, and her information is private until she files Schedule 13D. We analyze how this large informed trader chooses between the lit exchange and the dark pool. We find that (1) the market share of the dark pool increases when an activist trades, (2) dark pool’s market share increases more when the activist’s value of information is higher, and (3) price discovery ahead of a Schedule 13D filing decreases with the activist’s value of information and the historical market share of the dark pool.
Economical Recovery of Fly Ash-Derived Magnetics and Evaluation for Coal Cleaning

The coal industry in Kentucky utilizes approximately 130,000 tons of magnetite annually. During recent years, China’s increased demand for magnetite has generated concerns about the long term availability and cost. Over the last 6 months, the delivered cost of magnetite has increased 2.5 times over 2001 prices. A supply shortage in the future would have a significant impact on the ability to supply clean coal to utilities. High density, magnetic material can be economically recovered from coal combustion ash and be effectively utilized to address the shortage of magnetite used as heavy media for efficient coal cleaning. While this concept has been attempted at the commercial scale numerous times in the past, each attempt was unsuccessful, not for technical reasons, but for economic reasons because there is simply an insufficient amount of magnetic material present in fly ash to economically justify recovering this material as a single product. The present evaluation focused on incorporating magnetite recovery into a process flowsheet that produces an additional product from combustion ash. Approximately 0.5 tons of magnetite was recovered and evaluated as a substitute for mineral magnetite in dense medium coal preparation. The separations achieved using the magnetic bottom ash particles in dense medium separation are comparable to those achieved through the use of conventional magnetite. Probable error values ranged from 0.02 at a medium density of 1.4RD to 0.06 at 1.7RD. For the bottom ash material used in this study, the upper medium density limit appears to be around 1.6RD. Above this value, medium viscosity appears to have a significant impact. Background Dense-medium separators (DMS) have become the predominate processes worldwide for the cleaning of coal coarser than 1 millimeter, accounting for as much as 65% of the processed coal in the U.S. 1 In Kentucky, about 117 million tons of run-ofmine coal are cleaned in DMS units. The popularity is directly due to their superior ability over other processes to achieve high energy recovery values over a wide range of clean coal qualities. To create the dense-medium, fine magnetite is added to water 2009 World of Coal Ash (WOCA) Conference May 4-7, 2009 in Lexington, KY, USA http://www.flyash. info/
Microfluidic culture and analysis of endothelial cells in relation to cardiovascular disease and cancer metastasis

Endothelial cells comprise the inner lining of the entire circulatory system and are key mediators in many aspects of vascular biology. The interaction of endothelial cells with blood-borne constituents and the mechanical forces due to blood flow regulate a broad range of diseases that originate at the vasculature. The challenges of studying endothelial cell biology in vivo is that it is highly invasive to access, experimentally manipulate, and/or observe changes inside of blood vessels. Furthermore, current in vitro-based systems do not faithfully recreate the mechanical and chemical cellular environments with the proper length scales seen in physiology. Here we show examples of using the tools of microfluidics and microfabrication in developing perfusion-based in vitro systems that mimic the in vivo environments of endothelial cells. We describe a novel, reconfigurable micro-pumping and valving system that enables the delivery of a wide range of mechanical shear stress to multiple endothelial cell compartments simultaneously. We also utilized this pumping and valving system to culture endothelial cells under continuous recirculation of sub-microliter amounts of fluid. Finally, we engineered a compartmentalized endothelium to model the intravascular adhesion events of circulating cancer cells with endothelium at metastatic and non-metastatic sites. We determined that the endothelium regulates site-specific adhesion of circulating cancer cells that is independent of the predicted metastatic abilities of the cancer cells. Collectively, these results confirm that microfluidic technology can be used to properly
Final Report AOARD 094160 Formal System Verification for Trustworthy Embedded Systems June Andronick and Gerwin

This paper proposes a generalized framework to build large, complex systems where security guarantees can be given for the overall system’s implementation. The work builds on the formally proven correct seL4 microkernel and on its fine-grained access control. This access control mechanism allows large untrusted components to be isolated in a way that prevents them from violating a defined security property, leaving only the trusted components to be formally verified. The first steps of the approach are illustrated by the formalisation of a multilevel secure access device and a proof in Isabelle/HOL that information cannot flow from one back-end network to another.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in adults

Abstract Objective. To examine available literature regarding attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adults. Methods. An electronic literature search of peer-reviewed English language articles using MEDLINE (without time limits) was undertaken. Results. Symptoms of ADHD in adults exert a substantial negative impact on daily life, including work, social life and relationships. Co-morbidities are common, further impairing quality of life. Diagnosis of adult ADHD can be difficult, as current criteria require evidence of symptom onset before the age of 7 years and impact on activities typically undertaken by children. Drug therapy is the first-line treatment for adult ADHD, particularly stimulant medication. However, methylphenidate (MPH) immediate-release tablets require three or more times daily dosing, which can impact on compliance, while demonstrating a loss of symptomatic benefit later in the day. Extended-release preparations of MPH, mixed amphetamine salts and dexamphetamine can provide symptom control for 6–12 h and the non-stimulant atomoxetine has demonstrated benefit in reducing ADHD symptoms. These therapies are generally well tolerated, but may be associated with adverse effects on the cardiovascular system, which need to be further assessed in controlled clinical trials. Psychological therapy may be beneficial in adults who continue to experience clinically significant symptoms while receiving pharmacotherapy. Conclusion. Further research in all areas of adult ADHD is urgently needed.
Exploring the Trends and Consequences of Religious Registration : A Global Overview

Religious groups often rely on a registration process to receive the legal status needed to operate openly. Yet, the registration process has become a recent source of controversy. This research uses case studies to understand the controversies surrounding the registration process, three global collections to chart the trends in the use and demands of the registration process, and multivariate models to explore the consequences of introducing registration requirements within a nation. Both the case studies and the descriptive overviews find that the use of religious registration is increasing and it is increasingly resulting in fewer religious freedoms. In the multivariate models we find that religious registration was a significant predictor of the government interfering with the right to religious worship, but was not a significant predicator when it came to the government protecting religious freedom. We conclude that registration can be benign, but it is often used as a tool to interfere or deny the activities of select religions, or all religions. A report prepared for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and the Office of International Religious Freedom (DRL/IRF), November 2015. This project was made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation. Please direct all correspondence to Roger Finke (rfinke@psu.edu).
Using Metamaterial structures with frequency agile basestations

The requirement for basestations that are more and more flexible and multiband capable leads to the need for multiband RF functional blocks and tunable filters. By presenting several examples like a coupler, a duplex filter and a balun it is shown that metamaterial structures can be of great advantage for frequency agile RF systems as they can be designed for multiband capability. Also electronic tuning of highly selective duplex filters becomes feasible through tunable Metamaterial structures leading to software defined duplex filters.
Induction and Evolution of Cytomegalovirus-Specific CD4+ T Cell Clonotypes in Rhesus Macaques1

CMV infection induces robust CD4+ T cell responses in immunocompetent hosts that orchestrate immune control of viral replication, dissemination, and disease. In this study, we characterized the clonotypic composition of CD4+ T cell populations specific for rhesus CMV (RhCMV) in chronically infected adult rhesus macaques (RM) and in juvenile RM undergoing primary RhCMV infection and subsequent secondary challenge with RhCMV. In adult RM with established chronic infection, RhCMV-specific CD4+ T cell populations exhibited stable, pauciclonal structures with skewed hierarchies dominated by two or three clonotypes. During primary infection, in contrast, the initial RhCMV-specific CD4+ T cell populations were highly polyclonal and progressive evolution to the chronic pattern manifest in adults occurred over the ensuing 2–3 years. Clear patterns of clonal succession were observed during this maturation process, such that clonotypes present in the acute phase were largely replaced over time. However, rechallenge with RhCMV expanded virus-specific CD4+ T cell clonotypes identified solely during acute infection. These findings indicate that, during persistent viral infection, substantial selection pressures and ongoing clonotype recruitment shape the specific CD4+ T cell repertoire and that rapidly exhausted or superseded clonotypes often remain within the memory T cell pool.
A Review of On-Demand Quality of Service ( QoS ) Routing Protocols in Mobile Ad hoc Networks

Abstract—Increasing pan globe mobility of human beings always draws attention of researchers of networking community and generates a requirement of infrastructure-less, quick deployable and self organizing network with mobile autonomous terminals. This category of networks is referred as mobile ad hoc network (MANET). As MANETs are gaining popularity it is becoming necessary to have an efficient routing with QoS support. QoS parameters differ from application to application like for military applications security and network availability are important on the other hand for multimedia applications bandwidth, jitter and end to end packet delay are important parameters. QoS provisioning for MANET can be done at each layer of protocol stack. The aim of this paper is to re-present contemporary on-demand QoS routing protocols for MANETs with the help of flowcharts and point out the observations.
The role of mitochondrial quality control in lumbar spinal cords of SOD 1G 93 A transgenic mice

Objective: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease that selectively affects the upper and lower motor neurons (MNs). Mitochondrial dysfunction plays an important role in ALS and it is a converging point of multiple pathological pathways in ALS. The mitochondrial quality control including mitochondrial fission and fusion as well as mitophagy is the major mechanism of repair or removal of damaged mitochondria. In the present study, we made efforts to explore possible factors for mitochondrial dysfunction through studying the mitochondrial quality control in ALS mice. Materials and methods: Transgenic hSOD1-G93A mice and their non-transgenic counterparts were divided into four groups: 60-day-old group, onset group, end stage group and control. Then each group was further equally divided into 4 subgroups with 3 mice in each subgroup. These 4 subgroups were used for protein analysis, immunohistochemical analysis, electronic microscopy study, and mitochondrial protein analysis, respectively. Results: The expression of Fis1 and p-Drp1ser616 that control mitochondrial fission revealed a gradual enhancement as the development of ALS. Conversely, the expression of OPA1 and Mfn1 that control mitochondrial fusion exhibited a gradual down-regulation in MNs of lumbar spinal cords in ALS mice. In addition, the abnormal clustering of OPA1-deficient mitochondria and the accumulation of mitochondria-containing autophagosomes in MNs of ALS mice were also observed. Intervention with rapamycin as an autophagy enhancer could obviously improve the excessive and imbalanced fission of mitochondria. Conclusion: These results indicated that impaired mitochondrial fission, fusion and mitophagy were the causes of ALS.
Daniel Nael Icarus – a Real-Time Strategy Game in Space

The thesis describes the development of a real-time strategy game in space called Icarus. It was made to offer variety in its corresponding computer game genre. An overview of its game design and implementation is given. The game design of Icarus was created in accordance to the basic principles of the real-time strategy genre and the field of game design. The game was playtested on potential players to find issues and assess its quality. Based on the test results several improvements were made after the playtesting and some were planned for the future development.
H/sub /spl infin// estimation for uncertain systems with multiple state delays

A delay-dependent robust Hinfin estimation technique is proposed for linear uncertain systems with multiple time-varying state delays. The uncertain parameters are supposed to reside in a polytope and the attention is focused on the design of robust filters which are dependent of the size of delay and guarantee a prescribed noise attenuation level. The admissible filters can be obtained from the solution of a convex optimization problem in terms of linear matrix inequalities, which can be solved via efficient interior-point algorithms. Two examples illustrate the feasibility of the proposed method, with the conclusion that it outperforms previous results in several aspects
The Nijmegen Breakage Syndrome Protein Is Essential for Mre11 Phosphorylation upon DNA Damage*

The Nijmegen breakage syndrome (NBS), a chromosomal instability disorder, is characterized in part by cellular hypersensitivity to ionizing radiation. Repair of DNA double-strand breaks by radiation is dependent on a multifunctional complex containing Rad50, Mre11, and the NBS1 gene product, p95 (NBS protein, nibrin). The role of p95 in these repair processes is unknown. Here it is demonstrated that Mre11 is hyperphosphorylated in a cell cycle-independent manner in response to treatment of cells with genotoxic agents including γ irradiation. This response is abrogated in two independently established NBS cell lines that have undetectable levels of the p95 protein. NBS cells are also deficient for radiation-induced nuclear foci containing Mre11, while those with Rad51 are unaffected. An analysis of the kinetic relationship between Mre11 phosphorylation and the appearance of its radiation-induced foci indicates that the former precedes the latter. Together, these data suggest that specific phosphorylation of Mre11 is induced by DNA damage, and p95 is essential in this process, perhaps by recruiting specific kinases.