bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Inner-shell excitation energy levels, and radiative and Auger transitions of B-like nitrogen
Authors: Chen Chao , Gou Bingcong , Zhang Chunmei
Published: July 2016

Inner-shell excitation energy levels, and radiative and Auger transitions of the 1s2s22p2, 1s2s22p3p, 1s2s2p3, 1s2p4, and 1s2p33p 2,4L (L = S, P, D) resonances for B-like nitrogen are calculated using the saddle-point variation and saddle-point complex-rotation methods. The first-order perturbation theory is used to calculate relativistic and mass polarization corrections. Present autoionization energy levels, radiative transition rates and wavelengths, Auger rates, and Auger electron energies for these resonances agree well with theoretical and experimental data available in the literature, and will provide valuable background data for astrophysics and plasma physics in future.
αs analyses from hadronic tau decays with OPAL and ALEPH data
Authors: Boito Diogo , Golterman Maarten , Maltman Kim , Peris Santiago
Published: July 2016

Recently, we extracted the strong coupling, [Formula: see text], from the revised ALEPH data for non-strange hadronic tau decays. Our analysis is based on a method previously used for the determination of the strong coupling from OPAL data. In our strategy, we employ different moments of the spectral functions both with and without pinching, including duality violations, in order to obtain fully self-consistent analyses that do not rely on untested assumptions (such as the smallness of higher dimension contributions in the operation product expansion (OPE)). Here we discuss the [Formula: see text] values obtained from the ALEPH and the OPAL data, the robustness of the analysis, as well as non-perturbative contributions from DVs and the OPE. We show that, although the [Formula: see text] determination is sound, non-perturbative effects limit the accuracy with which one can extract the strong coupling from tau decay data. Finally, we discuss the compatibility of the data sets and the possibility of a combined analysis.
Road to Paris: The Changed and Unchanged in International Responsibility System
Authors: PAN Jiahua , WANG Mou , ZHANG Yongxiang , LIU Zhe , WU Xiaodan
Published: July 2016

Since the conclusion of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992, a number of adjustments have been made in the patterns of international economy, trade, emissions, etc. Developing countries have increased rapidly in their share in global economy, trade as well as emissions, which led to some Parties to the Convention, mainly developed country Parties, faltering on their recognition of the responsibility system of the global response to climate change, and requiring developing countries to undertake responsibility for emission reduction and even financial assistance, intending to transfer obligations and costs in coping with climate change to developing countries. In fact, although the share of developing countries has increased in global economy, trade and emissions, the basic pattern that developed countries account for the absolute majority in cumulative CO2 emissions and control the international financial, trading, technology, and standard systems has not changed. The international responsibility system to deal with climate change has not changed fundamentally, either. Developed countries should continue to lead the global climate initiative, and provide financial and technical assistance to developing countries; developing countries should also take the path of low-carbon development while actively making full use of support from the international community in poverty alleviation and development process. At the Paris Climate Change Conference, Parties should participate in the negotiations with a constructive attitude, actively make planning and implement emission reduction actions, as well as build a fair and efficient financial mechanism, to promote climate-friendly technologies worldwide, establish an open and cooperative international trading system, and jointly facilitate the international cooperation on tackling climate change as a new momentum for global economic growth, so as to protect global climate security.
DisCo
Authors: Jo Kensei , Gupta Mohit , Nayar Shree K.
Published: July 2016

We present DisCo, a novel display-camera communication system. DisCo enables displays and cameras to communicate with each other while also displaying and capturing images for human consumption. Messages are transmitted by temporally modulating the display brightness at high frequencies so that they are imperceptible to humans. Messages are received by a rolling shutter camera that converts the temporally modulated incident light into a spatial flicker pattern. In the captured image, the flicker pattern is superimposed on the pattern shown on the display. The flicker and the display pattern are separated by capturing two images with different exposures. The proposed system performs robustly in challenging real-world situations such as occlusion, variable display size, defocus blur, perspective distortion, and camera rotation. Unlike several existing visible light communication methods, DisCo works with off-the-shelf image sensors. It is compatible with a variety of sources (including displays, single LEDs), as well as reflective surfaces illuminated with light sources. We have built hardware prototypes that demonstrate DisCo’s performance in several scenarios. Because of its robustness, speed, ease of use, and generality, DisCo can be widely deployed in several applications, such as advertising, pairing of displays with cell phones, tagging objects in stores and museums, and indoor navigation.
HCloud
Authors: Delimitrou Christina , Kozyrakis Christos
Published: July 2016

Cloud computing promises flexibility and high performance for users and cost efficiency for operators. To achieve this, cloud providers offer instances of different sizes, both as long-term reservations and short-term, on-demand allocations. Unfortunately, determining the best provisioning strategy is a complex, multi-dimensional problem that depends on the load fluctuation and duration of incoming jobs, and the performance unpredictability and cost of resources. We first compare the two main provisioning strategies (reserved and on-demand resources) on Google Compute Engine (GCE) using three representative workload scenarios with batch and latency-critical applications. We show that either approach is suboptimal for performance or cost. We then present HCloud, a hybrid provisioning system that uses both reserved and on-demand resources. HCloud determines which jobs should be mapped to reserved versus on-demand resources based on overall load, and resource unpredictability. It also determines the optimal instance size an application needs to satisfy its Quality of Service (QoS) constraints. We demonstrate that hybrid configurations improve performance by 2.1x compared to fully on-demand provisioning, and reduce cost by 46% compared to fully reserved systems. We also show that hybrid strategies are robust to variation in system and job parameters, such as cost and system load.
SpaceJMP
Authors: El Hajj Izzat , Merritt Alexander , Zellweger Gerd , Milojicic Dejan , Achermann Reto , Faraboschi Paolo , Hwu Wen-mei , Roscoe Timothy , Schwan Karsten
Published: July 2016

Memory-centric computing demands careful organization of the virtual address space, but traditional methods for doing so are inflexible and inefficient. If an application wishes to address larger physical memory than virtual address bits allow, if it wishes to maintain pointer-based data structures beyond process lifetimes, or if it wishes to share large amounts of memory across simultaneously executing processes, legacy interfaces for managing the address space are cumbersome and often incur excessive overheads. We propose a new operating system design that promotes virtual address spaces to first-class citizens, enabling process threads to attach to, detach from, and switch between multiple virtual address spaces. Our work enables data-centric applications to utilize vast physical memory beyond the virtual range, represent persistent pointer-rich data structures without special pointer representations, and share large amounts of memory between processes efficiently.

We describe our prototype implementations in the DragonFly BSD and Barrelfish operating systems. We also present programming semantics and a compiler transformation to detect unsafe pointer usage. We demonstrate the benefits of our work on data-intensive applications such as the GUPS benchmark, the SAMTools genomics workflow, and the Redis key-value store.
The Computational Sprinting Game
Authors: Fan Songchun , Zahedi Seyed Majid , Lee Benjamin C.
Published: July 2016

Computational sprinting is a class of mechanisms that boost performance but dissipate additional power. We describe a sprinting architecture in which many, independent chip multiprocessors share a power supply and sprints are constrained by the chips' thermal limits and the rack's power limits. Moreover, we present the computational sprinting game, a multi-agent perspective on managing sprints. Strategic agents decide whether to sprint based on application phases and system conditions. The game produces an equilibrium that improves task throughput for data analytics workloads by 4-6× over prior greedy heuristics and performs within 90% of an upper bound on throughput from a globally optimized policy.
Interference Management for Distributed Parallel Applications in Consolidated Clusters
Authors: Han Jaeung , Jeon Seungheun , Choi Young-ri , Huh Jaehyuk
Published: July 2016

Consolidating multiple applications on a system can improve the overall resource utilization of data center systems. However, such consolidation can adversely affect the performance of some applications due to interference caused by resource contention. Despite many prior studies on the interference effects in single-node systems, the interference behaviors of distributed parallel applications have not been investigated thoroughly. With distributed applications, a local interference in a node can affect the whole execution of an application spanning many nodes. This paper studies an interference modeling methodology for distributed applications to predict their performance under interference effects in consolidated clusters. This study first characterizes the effects of interference for various distributed applications over different interference settings, and analyzes how diverse interference intensities on multiple nodes affect the overall performance. Based on the characterization, this study proposes a static profiling-based model for interference propagation and heterogeneity behaviors. In addition, this paper presents use case studies of the modeling method, two interference-aware placement techniques for consolidated virtual clusters, which attempt to maximize the overall throughput or to guarantee the quality-of-service.
Dirigent
Authors: Zhu Haishan , Erez Mattan
Published: July 2016

Latency-critical applications suffer from both average performance degradation and reduced completion time predictability when collocated with batch tasks. Such variation forces the system to overprovision resources to ensure Quality of Service (QoS) for latency-critical tasks, degrading overall system throughput. We explore the causes of this variation and exploit the opportunities of mitigating variation directly to simultaneously improve both QoS and utilization. We develop, implement, and evaluate Dirigent, a lightweight performance-management runtime system that accurately controls the QoS of latency-critical applications at fine time scales, leveraging existing architecture mechanisms. We evaluate Dirigent on a real machine and show that it is significantly more effective than configurations representative of prior schemes.
Sidewinder
Authors: Liaqat Daniyal , Jingoi Silviu , de Lara Eyal , Goel Ashvin , To Wilson , Lee Kevin , De Moraes Garcia Italo , Saldana Manuel
Published: July 2016

Applications that perform continuous sensing on mobile phones have the potential to revolutionize everyday life. Examples range from medical and health monitoring applications, such as pedometers and fall detectors, to participatory sensing applications, such as noise pollution, traffic and seismic activity monitoring. Unfortunately, current mobile devices are a poor match for continuous sensing applications as they require the device to remain awake for extended periods of time, resulting in poor battery life. This paper presents Sidewinder, a new approach towards offloading sensor data processing to a low-power processor and waking up the main processor when events of interest occur. This approach differs from other heterogeneous architectures in that developers are presented with a programming interface that lets them construct application specific wake-up conditions by linking together and parameterizing predefined sensor data processing algorithms. Our experiments indicate performance that is comparable to approaches that provide fully programmable offloading, but do so with a much simpler programming interface that facilitates deployment and portability.
PIFT
Authors: Yoon Man-Ki , Salajegheh Negin , Chen Yin , Christodorescu Mihai
Published: July 2016

Phones today carry sensitive information and have a great number of ways to communicate that data. As a result, malware that steal money, information, or simply disable functionality have hit the app stores. Current security solutions for preventing undesirable data leaks are mostly high-overhead and have not been practical enough for smartphones. In this paper, we show that simply monitoring just some instructions (only memory loads and stores) it is possible to achieve low overhead, highly accurate information flow tracking. Our method achieves 98% accuracy (0% false positive and 2% false negative) over DroidBench and was able to successfully catch seven real-world malware instances that steal phone number, location, and device ID using SMS messages and HTTP connections.
Prudent Memory Reclamation in Procrastination-Based Synchronization
Authors: Prasad Aravinda , Gopinath K.
Published: July 2016

Procrastination is the fundamental technique used in synchronization mechanisms such as Read-Copy-Update (RCU) where writers, in order to synchronize with readers, defer the freeing of an object until there are no readers referring to the object. The synchronization mechanism determines when the deferred object is safe to reclaim and when it is actually reclaimed. Hence, such memory reclamations are completely oblivious of the memory allocator state. This induces poor memory allocator performance, for instance, when the reclamations are ill-timed. Furthermore, deferred objects provide hints about the future that inform memory regions that are about to be freed. Although useful, hints are not exploited as deferred objects are not visible to memory allocators. We introduce Prudence, a dynamic memory allocator, that is tightly integrated with the synchronization mechanism to ensure visibility of deferred objects to the memory allocator. Such an integration enables Prudence to (i) identify the safe time to reclaim deferred objects' memory, (ii) have an inclusive view of the allocated, free and about-to-be-freed objects, and (iii) exploit optimizations based on the hints about the future during important state transitions. Our evaluation in the Linux kernel shows that Prudence integrated with RCU performs 3.9X to 28X better in micro-benchmarks compared to SLUB, a recent memory allocator in the Linux kernel. It also improves the overall performance perceptibly (4%-18%) for a mix of widely used synthetic and application benchmarks. Further, it performs better (up to 98%) in terms of object hits in caches, object cache churns, slab churns, peak memory usage and total fragmentation, when compared with the SLUB allocator.
An Energy-interference-free Hardware-Software Debugger for Intermittent Energy-harvesting Systems
Authors: Colin Alexei , Harvey Graham , Lucia Brandon , Sample Alanson P.
Published: July 2016

Energy-autonomous computing devices have the potential to extend the reach of computing to a scale beyond either wired or battery-powered systems. However, these devices pose a unique set of challenges to application developers who lack both hardware and software support tools. Energy harvesting devices experience power intermittence which causes the system to reset and power-cycle unpredictably, tens to hundreds of times per second. This can result in code execution errors that are not possible in continuously-powered systems and cannot be diagnosed with conventional debugging tools such as JTAG and/or oscilloscopes. We propose the Energy-interference-free Debugger, a hardware and software platform for monitoring and debugging intermittent systems without adversely effecting their energy state. The Energy-interference-free Debugger re-creates a familiar debugging environment for intermittent software and augments it with debugging primitives for effective diagnosis of intermittence bugs. Our evaluation of the Energy-interference-free Debugger quantifies its energy-interference-freedom and shows its value in a set of debugging tasks in complex test programs and several real applications, including RFID code and a machine-learning-based activity recognition system.
Analyzing Behavior Specialized Acceleration
Authors: Nowatzki Tony , Sankaralingam Karthikeyan
Published: July 2016

Hardware specialization has become a promising paradigm for overcoming the inefficiencies of general purpose microprocessors. Of significant interest are Behavioral Specialized Accelerators (BSAs), which are designed to efficiently execute code with only certain properties, but remain largely configurable or programmable. The most important strength of BSAs -- their ability to target a wide variety of codes -- also makes their interactions and analysis complex, raising the following questions: can multiple BSAs be composed synergistically, what are their interactions with the general purpose core, and what combinations favor which workloads? From a methodological standpoint, BSAs are also challenging, as they each require ISA development, compiler and assembler extensions, and either simulator or RTL models.

To study the potential of BSAs, we propose a novel modeling technique called the Transformable Dependence Graph (TDG) - a higher level alternative to the time-consuming traditional compiler+simulator approach, while still enabling detailed microarchitectural models for both general cores and accelerators. We then propose a multi-BSA organization, called ExoCore, which we model and study using the TDG. A design space exploration reveals that an ExoCore organization can push designs beyond the established energy-performance frontiers for general purpose cores. For example, a 2-wide OOO processor with three BSAs matches the performance of a conventional 6-wide OOO core, has 40% lower area, and is 2.6x more energy efficient.
High-Density Image Storage Using Approximate Memory Cells
Authors: Guo Qing , Strauss Karin , Ceze Luis , Malvar Henrique S.
Published: July 2016

This paper proposes tailoring image encoding for an approximate storage substrate. We demonstrate that indiscriminately storing encoded images in approximate memory generates unacceptable and uncontrollable quality degradation. The key finding is that errors in the encoded bit streams have non-uniform impact on the decoded image quality. We develop a methodology to determine the relative importance of encoded bits and store them in an approximate storage substrate. The storage cells are optimized to reduce error rate via biasing and are tuned to meet the desired reliability requirement via selective error correction. In a case study with the progressive transform codec (PTC), a precursor to JPEG XR, the proposed approximate image storage system exhibits a 2.7x increase in density of pixels per silicon volume under bounded error rates, and this achievement is additive to the storage savings of PTC compression.
Mechanisms Involved in Persistent Facilitation of Neuromuscular Synapses inAplysia
Authors: Fox Lyle E. , Lloyd Philip E.
Published: July 2016

Synaptic plasticity can last from a fraction of a second to weeks depending on how it was induced. The mechanisms that underlie short-, intermediate-, and long-term plasticity have been intensively studied at central synapses of both vertebrates and invertebrates; however, peripheral plasticity has not received as much attention. In this study, we investigated the mechanisms that contribute to a persistent form of plasticity at neuromuscular synapses in buccal muscle I3a of Aplysia.These synapses are reversibly facilitated by the small cardioactive peptide (SCP), a peptide cotransmitter that is intrinsic to the motor neurons, and persistently facilitated by serotonin (5HT) released from modulatory neurons that are extrinsic to the motor circuit. Many of the short-term effects of 5HT and SCP are mediated by the cAMP pathway, but little is known about the mechanisms that underlie persistent modulation. We were able to eliminate several possible mechanisms. One of these was the possibility that the apparent reversal of SCP's effects was due to desensitization of the SCP receptor. Superfusion for longer periods or with higher concentrations of SCP indicate that the SCP receptors do not desensitize. We also determined that new protein synthesis is not required for the persistent facilitation of EJPs. Another possibility was that 5HT was taken up and slowly re-released. Our results suggest that this mechanism is also unlikely. Activation of the cAMP pathway does not appear to mediate persistent effects; however, 5HT as well as SCP does cause persistent increases in cAMP levels that can prime I3a synapses and increase the effectiveness of activators of the cAMP pathway. Instead, the persistent effects of 5HT are mimicked by phorbol, suggesting that protein kinase C or an Aplysia homologue of unc13 may mediate these effects. These results, in combination with results from experiments on the sensory neurons that contribute to withdrawal reflexes in Aplysia, suggest that the mechanisms for intermediate- and long-term facilitation may reside in all of the synapses involved in the sensory to motor response reflex.
Purkinje Cells of the Cerebellar Dorsal Vermis: Simple-Spike Activity During Pursuit and Passive Whole-Body Rotation
Authors: Shinmei Yasuhiro , Yamanobe Takanobu , Fukushima Junko , Fukushima Kikuro
Published: July 2016

To track a slowly moving object during whole body rotation, smooth-pursuit and vestibularly induced eye movements must interact to maintain the accuracy of eye movements in space (i.e., gaze), and gaze movement signals must eventually be converted into eye movement signals in the orbit. To understand the role played by the cerebellar vermis in pursuit-vestibular interactions, in particular whether the output of the vermis codes gaze-velocity or eye-velocity, we examined simple-spike activity of 58 Purkinje (P-) cells in lobules VI–VII of head-stabilized Japanese monkeys that were trained to elicit smooth-pursuit eye movements and cancel their vestibuloocular reflex (VOR) during passive whole body rotation around horizontal, vertical, or oblique axes. All pursuit-sensitive vermal P-cells also responded during VOR cancellation, and the majority of them had peak modulation near peak stimulus velocity. The directions of maximum modulation during these two tasks were distributed in all directions with a downward preponderance. Using standard criteria, 40% of pursuit-sensitive vermal P-cells were classified as gaze-velocity. Other P-cells were classified either as eye/head-velocity group I (36%) that had similar preferred directions during pursuit and VOR cancellation but that had larger responses during VOR ×1 when gaze remained stationary, or as eye/head-velocity group II (24%) that had oppositely directed or orthogonal eye and head movement sensitivity during pursuit and VOR cancellation. Eye/head-velocity group I P-cells contained cells whose activity was correlated with eye velocity. Modulation of many P-cells of the three groups during VOR ×1 could be accounted for by the linear addition of their modulations during pursuit and VOR cancellation. When monkeys fixated a stationary target, over half of the P-cells tested, including gaze-velocity P-cells, discharged in proportion to the velocity of retinal motion of a second spot. These observations are in a striking contrast to our previous results for floccular vertical P-cells. Because we used identical tasks, these differences suggest that the two cerebellar regions are involved in very different kinds of processing of pursuit-vestibular interactions.
Coherent Electrical Activity Between Vibrissa Sensory Areas of Cerebellum and Neocortex Is Enhanced During Free Whisking
Authors: O'Connor Sean M. , Berg Rune W. , Kleinfeld David
Published: July 2016

We tested if coherent signaling between the sensory vibrissa areas of cerebellum and neocortex in rats was enhanced as they whisked in air. Whisking was accompanied by 5- to 15-Hz oscillations in the mystatial electromyogram, a measure of vibrissa position, and by 5- to 20-Hz oscillations in the differentially recorded local field potential (∇LFP) within the vibrissa area of cerebellum and within the ∇LFP of primary sensory cortex. We observed that only 10% of the activity in either cerebellum or sensory neocortex was significantly phase-locked to rhythmic motion of the vibrissae; the extent of this modulation is in agreement with the results from previous single-unit measurements in sensory neocortex. In addition, we found that 40% of the activity in the vibrissa areas of cerebellum and neocortex was significantly coherent during periods of whisking. The relatively high level of coherence between these two brain areas, in comparison with their relatively low coherence with whisking per se, implies that the vibrissa areas of cerebellum and neocortex communicate in a manner that is incommensurate with whisking. To the extent that the vibrissa areas of cerebellum and neocortex communicate over the same frequency band as that used by whisking, these areas must multiplex electrical activity that is internal to the brain with activity that is that phase-locked to vibrissa sensory input.
Electrical Stimulation of a Denervated Muscle Promotes Selective Reinnervation by Native Over Foreign Motoneurons
Authors: Zealear David L. , Rodriguez Ricardo J. , Kenny Thomas , Billante Mark J. , Cho Young , Billante Cheryl R. , Garren Kurt C.
Published: July 2016

The effect of electrical stimulation of the denervated posterior cricoarytenoid (PCA) muscle on its subsequent reinnervation was explored in the canine. Eight animals were implanted with a planar array of 36 electrodes for chronic stimulation and recording of spontaneous and evoked electromyographic (EMG) potentials across the entire fan-shaped surface of a muscle pair. Normative EMG data were recorded from each electrode site before unilateral nerve section, and from the innervated partner after nerve section. After randomizing the animals to experimental and control groups, the right recurrent laryngeal nerve innervating the PCA abductor muscle and its adductor antagonists was sectioned and reanastomosed. The PCA muscle in four experimental animals was continuously stimulated during the 11-mo experiment, using a 1-s, 30-pps, biphasic pulse train composed of 1-ms pulses 2–6 mA in amplitude and repeated every 10 s. The remaining four animals served as nonstimulated controls. Appropriate reinnervation by native inspiratory motoneurons was indexed behaviorally by the magnitude of vocal fold opening and electromyographically by the potential across all electrode sites. Inappropriate reinnervation by foreign adductor motoneurons was quantitated by recording EMG potentials evoked reflexly by stimulation of sensory afferents of the laryngeal mucosa. All four experimental animals showed a greater level of correct PCA muscle reinnervation ( P < 0.0064) and a lesser level of incorrect reinnervation ( P < 0.0084) than the controls. Direct muscle stimulation also appeared to enhance the overall magnitude of reinnervation, but the effect was not as strong ( P < 0.113). These findings are consistent with a previous report and suggest that stimulation of a mammalian muscle may profoundly affect its receptivity to reinnervation by a particular motoneuron type.
HSV-1 Helper Virus 5dl1.2 Suppresses Sodium Currents in Amplicon-Transduced Neurons
Authors: White Benjamin H. , Cummins Theodore R. , Wolf Daniel H. , Waxman Stephen G. , Russell David S. , Kaczmarek Leonard K.
Published: July 2016

The Herpes Simplex Virus-1 (HSV-1) amplicon system is one of several viral-based strategies currently being developed for gene delivery into mammalian neurons for experimental or therapeutic purposes. Amplicon-containing viruses contain no HSV-1 genes and are amplified in titer relative to the helper viruses used to package them. In this way, they are designed to have a minimal impact on the physiology of transduced neurons. We show here, however, that amplicon preparations made using the 5dl1.2 helper virus selectively suppress sodium currents in cultured neurons by approximately 80% within 2 days of transduction and reduce average spike frequency in response to depolarization from 23 ± 4 to 0.4 ± 0.4 Hz. We observe similar suppression of Na+currents in cells treated with the 5dl1.2 helper virus alone, indicating that the helper virus retains the ability of wild-type HSV-1 to inhibit these currents potently. Staining amplicon-transduced neurons with anti-HSV antibodies, we find that 80% of the neurons express viral proteins, indicating that helper virus typically co-infects these cells. We conclude that Na+current suppression by the amplicon preparation results from the preferential coinfection of transduced neurons by the 5dl1.2 helper virus.
Characterization and Comparison of the NR3A Subunit of the NMDA Receptor in Recombinant Systems and Primary Cortical Neurons
Authors: Sasaki Yasnory F. , Rothe Thomas , Premkumar Louis S. , Das Saumya , Cui Jiankun , Talantova Maria V. , Wong Hon-Kit , Gong Xiandi , Chan Shing Fai , Zhang Dongxian , Nakanishi Nobuki , Sucher Nikolaus J. , Lipton Stuart A.
Published: July 2016

Recently, we cloned and began to characterize a new N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) subunit, NR3A. Here we extend our earlier findings by showing that recombinantly expressed NR3A in COS cells is biochemically associated with both NR1 and NR2 subunits. In the oocyte or HEK 293 cell expression systems, co-injection of NR3A with NR1/NR2 subunits acts in a dominant-interfering manner, resulting in a decrease in NMDAR unitary conductance, decrease in Ca2+ permeability, decrease in Mg2+ sensitivity, and slight increase in mean open time compared with NR1/NR2 channels. The smaller unitary conductance channel has also been observed in primary cortical neurons cultured from wild-type rodent on postnatal day 8( P8) and similarly found to be relatively insensitive to Mg2+ block. Consistent with these findings, whole cell NMDA-evoked currents are larger in NR3A-deficient mice compared with wild-type mice, and this effect follows a developmental pattern similar to that of NR3A protein expression on Western blots, with peak expression at P8. Finally, a new longer splice variant of NR3A has been cloned and found to be expressed in rodent cortical neurons by single-cell RT-PCR and in situ hybridization.
Desensitization of Group I Metabotropic Glutamate Receptors in Rat Sympathetic Neurons
Authors: Kammermeier Paul J. , Ikeda Stephen R.
Published: July 2016

Desensitization of heterologously expressed metabotropic glutamate receptor 5a (mGluR5a) was examined in rat sympathetic neurons. Calcium currents in cells expressing mGluR5a exhibited substantial inhibition in response to glutamate exposure. In the continued presence of glutamate, inhibition attenuated rapidly over the course of about a minute. Desensitization was eliminated when a nonhydrolyzable ATP analogue was substituted for ATP in the pipette solution, suggesting that desensitization was mediated by a phosphorylation event. Next, pharmacological agents were used to investigate the nature of the kinase involved in desensitization. Desensitization was sensitive to the nonspecific kinase inhibitor, staurosporine, but not H-7, another nonspecific kinase inhibitor. Inhibitors of myosin light chain kinase and calmodulin-dependent kinase were without effect on desensitization. However, desensitization was sensitive to the protein kinase C inhibitor bisindolymaleimide. In contrast, Gö6976, a selective inhibitor of conventional protein kinase C isoforms, was without effect. In addition, desensitization persisted in the presence of 10 mM intracellular bis-( o-aminophenoxy)- N,N,N′,N′-tetraacetic acid, a fast Ca2+chelator. Finally, overexpression of wild-type calmodulin, which can bind mGluR5 and inhibit phosphorylation, did not alter mGluR desensitization. Two Ca2+-binding-deficient calmodulin mutants were also without effect. These data indicate a role for nonconventional protein kinase C isoforms as a mediator of mGluR5 desensitization and that the phosphorylation of mGluR5a that competes with calmodulin binding does not mediate desensitization.
Physiological Correlates of Perceptual Learning in Monkey V1 and V2
Authors: Ghose Geoffrey M. , Yang Tianming , Maunsell John H. R.
Published: July 2016

Performance in visual discrimination tasks improves with practice. Although the psychophysical parameters of these improvements have suggested the involvement of early areas in visual cortex, there has been little direct study of the physiological correlates of such perceptual learning at the level of individual neurons. To examine how neuronal response properties in the early visual system may change with practice, we trained monkeys for more than 6 mo in an orientation discrimination task in which behaviorally relevant stimuli were restricted to a particular retinal location and oriented around a specific orientation. During training the monkeys' discrimination thresholds gradually improved to much better than those of naive monkeys or humans. Although this improvement was specific to the trained orientation, it showed little retinotopic specificity. The receptive field properties of single neurons from regions representing the trained location and a location in the opposite visual hemifield were measured in V1 and V2. In most respects the receptive field properties in the representations of the trained and untrained regions were indistinguishable. However, in the regions of V1 and V2 representing the trained location, there were slightly fewer neurons whose optimal orientation was near the trained orientation. This resulted in a small but significant decrease in the V1 population response to the trained orientation at the trained location. Consequently, the observed neuronal populations did not exhibit any orientation-specific biases sufficient to explain the orientation specificity of the behavioral improvement. Pooling models suggest that the behavioral improvement was accomplished with a task-dependent and orientation-selective pooling of unaltered signals from early visual neurons. These data suggest that, even for training with stimuli suited to the selectivities found in early areas of visual cortex, behavioral improvements can occur in the absence of pronounced changes in the physiology of those areas.
Central Sensitization of Nociceptive Neurons in Trigeminal Subnucleus Oralis Depends on Integrity of Subnucleus Caudalis
Authors: Chiang Chen Yu , Hu Bo , Hu James W. , Dostrovsky Jonathan O. , Sessle Barry J.
Published: July 2016

Our recent studies have shown that application to the tooth pulp of the inflammatory irritant mustard oil (MO) produces a prolonged (>40 min) “central sensitization” reflected in neuroplastic changes in the mechanoreceptive field (RF) and response properties of nociceptive brain stem neurons in subnuclei oralis (Vo) and caudalis (Vc) of the trigeminal spinal tract nucleus. In view of the previously demonstrated ascending modulatory influence of Vc on Vo, our aim was to determine whether the Vo neuroplastic changes induced by MO application to the tooth pulp depend on an ascending influence from Vc. In chloralose/urethan-anesthetized rats, MO application to the pulp produced significant increases in Vo nociceptive neuronal orofacial RF size and responses to mechanical noxious stimuli that lasted as long as 40–60 min. These changes were not affected by vehicle (saline) microinjected into Vc at 20 min after MO application, but 0.3 μl of a 5 mM CoCl2 solution microinjected into the ipsilateral Vc produced a reversible blockade of the MO-induced Vo neuroplastic changes. A similar volume and concentration of CoCl2 solution injected into subnucleus interpolaris of the trigeminal spinal tract nucleus did not affect the MO-induced neuroplastic changes in Vo. These findings indicate that inflammatory pulp-induced central sensitization in Vo is dependent on the functional integrity of Vc.
Directional Selectivity for FM Sweeps in the Suprageniculate Nucleus of the Mustached Bat Medial Geniculate Body
Authors: O'Neill William E. , Brimijoin W. Owen
Published: July 2016

Mustached bats emit echolocation and communication calls containing both constant frequency (CF) and frequency-modulated (FM) components. Previously we found that 86% of neurons in the ventral division of the external nucleus of the inferior colliculus (ICXv) were directionally selective for linear FM sweeps and that selectivity was dependent on sweep rate. The ICXv projects to the suprageniculate nucleus (Sg) of the medial geniculate body. In this study, we isolated 37 single units in the Sg and measured their responses to best excitatory frequency (BEF) tones and linear 12-kHz upward and downward FM sweeps centered on the BEF. Sweeps were presented at durations of 30, 12, and 4 ms, yielding modulation rates of 400, 1,000, and 3,000 kHz/s. Spike count versus level functions were obtained at each modulation rate and compared with BEF controls. Sg units responded well to both tones and FM sweeps. BEFs clustered at 58 kHz, corresponding to the dominant CF component of the sonar signal. Spike count functions for both tones and sweeps were predominantly non-monotonic. FM directional selectivity was significant in 53–78% of the units, depending on modulation rate and level. Units were classified as up-selective (52%), down-selective(24%), or bi-directional ( non-selective, 16%); a few units (8%) showed preferences that were either rate-or level-dependent. Most units showed consistent directional preferences at all SPLs and modulation rates tested, but typically showed stronger selectivity at lower sweep rates. Directional preferences were attributable to suppression of activity by sweeps in the non-preferred direction (∼80% of units) and/or facilitation by sweeps in the preferred direction (∼20–30%). Latencies for BEF tones ranged from 4.9 to 25.7 ms. Latencies for FM sweeps typically varied linearly with sweep duration. Most FM latency-duration functions had slopes ranging from 0.4 to 0.6, suggesting that the responses were triggered by the BEF. Latencies for BEF tones and FM sweeps were significantly correlated in most Sg units, i.e., the response to FM was temporally related to the occurrence of the BEF in the FM sweep. FM latency declined relative to BEF latency as modulation rate increased, suggesting that at higher rates response is triggered by frequencies in the sweep preceding the BEF. We conclude that Sg and ICXv units have similar, though not identical, response properties. Sg units are predominantly upsweep selective and could respond to either or both the CF and FM components in biosonar signals in a number of echolocation scenarios, as well as to a variety of communication sounds.
Research on Self-Monitoring Method for Anomalies of Satellite Atomic Clock
Authors: Feng Lei , Li Guotong
Published: July 2016

Atomic clock is the core component of navigation satellite payload, playing a decisive role in the realization of positioning function. So the monitoring for anomalies of the satellite atomic clock is very important. In this paper, a complete autonomous monitoring method for the satellite clock is put forward, which is, respectively, based on Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) and statistical principle. Our methods focus on anomalies in satellite clock such as phase and frequency jumping, instantaneous deterioration, stability deterioration, and frequency drift-rate anomaly. Now, method based on PLL has been used successfully in China’s newest BeiDou navigation satellite.
A Wave Energy Extraction System in Experimental Flume
Authors: Guodong Qin , Quanru Pang , Zhongxian Chen
Published: July 2016

Ocean wave energy is a high energy density and renewable resource. High power conversion rate is an advantage of linear generators to be the competitive candidates for ocean wave energy extraction system. In this paper, the feasibility of a wave energy extraction system by linear generator has been verified in an experimental flume. Besides, the analytical equations of heaving buoy oscillating in vertical direction are proposed, and the analytical equations are proved conveniently. What is more, the active power output of linear generator of wave energy extraction system in experimental flume is presented. The theoretical analysis and experimental results play a significant role for future wave energy extraction system progress in real ocean waves.
Theoretical Study of Phosphoethanolamine: A Synthetic Anticancer Agent with Broad Antitumor Activity
Authors: Lorenzo Vitor Prates , Mendonça Júnior Francisco Jaime Bezerra , Filho José Maria Barbosa , Scotti Luciana , Scotti Marcus Tullius
Published: July 2016

Cancer is a major public health problem with limited success of available treatments, pointing to the need for new strategies to be developed. Phosphoethanolamine exhibits broad antitumor activity in a variety of tumor cells and potent inhibitor effects on tumor progressin vivo. Once-used organophosphates inhibit acetylcholinesterase (AChE), resulting in toxic effects to the user. As this group is present in phosphoethanolamine, we perform prediction of thein silicometabolism of phosphoethanolamine and submit this series to a docking study on AChE. A total of 10 metabolites were indicated by the prediction, including ammonia and hydroxylamine, which were not included in the study. Using a group of 8 organophosphorus whose pIC50values ranged from 5.92 to 9.47 as template, we observed that no compound present in the phosphoethanolamine series had a binding energy lower than that of organophosphorus, suggesting that the series has low inhibitory power on AChE. In light of this, we conclude that phosphoethanolamine and its predicted metabolites do not significantly inhibit AChE to cause a cholinergic crisis. This finding highlights the importance of investigating this compound as lead for potential anticancer agents.
Association of Psychological Characteristics and Functional Dyspepsia Treatment Outcome: A Case-Control Study
Authors: Chen Yiping , Wang Caihua , Wang Jinyu , Zheng Leilei , Liu Weibo , Li Huichun , Yu Shaohua , Pan Bin , Yu Hualiang , Yu Risheng
Published: July 2016

This study was to investigate the association of psychological characteristics and functional dyspepsia treatment outcome. 109 patients who met the criteria for FD were enrolled. Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), Symptom Checklist 90 (SCL90), and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) were used to measure personality, psychological symptoms, and sleep quality in our patients. Leeds Dyspepsia Questionnaire (LDQ) was used to assess dyspeptic symptoms at baseline and after eight weeks of treatment. The LDQ scores change after therapy, and the degraded rate of LDQ was used to assess the prognosis of patients. Logistic regression model was used to assess the effect of the personality, psychological symptoms, and sleep quality on the prognosis of patients. Our result revealed that poor sleep quality (OR=7.68, 95% CI 1.83–32.25) and bad marriage status (OR=1.22, 95% CI 1.10–1.36) had the negative effect on the prognosis of FD, while extroversion in personality traits (OR=0.86, 95% CI 0.76–0.96) had positive effect on the prognosis of FD. We should pay attention to the sleep quality, the personality, and the marriage status of FD patients; psychological intervention may have benefit in refractory FD.
Virological and Immunological Status of the People Living with HIV/AIDS Undergoing ART Treatment in Nepal
Authors: Ojha Chet Raj , Shakya Geeta , Dumre Shyam Prakash
Published: July 2016

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) has increased the life span of the people living with HIV (PLHIV), but their virological and immunological outcomes are not well documented in Nepal. The study was conducted at a tertiary care center including 826 HIV-1 seropositive individuals undergoing ART for at least six months. Plasma viral load (HIV-1 RNA) was detected by Real Time PCR and CD4+T-lymphocyte (CD4+) counts were estimated by flow cytometry. The mean CD4+count of patients was 501 (95% CI = 325–579) cells/cumm, but about 35% of patients had CD4+T cell counts below 350 cells/cumm. With increasing age, average CD4+count was found to be decreasing (p=0.005). Of the total cases, 82 (9.92%) were found to have virological failure (viral load: >1000 copies/ml). Tenofovir/Lamivudine/Efavirenz (TDF/3TC/EFV), the frequently used ART regimen in Nepal, showed virological failure in 11.34% and immunological failure in 37.17% of patients. Virological failure rate was higher among children < 15 years (14.5%) (p=0.03); however, no association was observed between ART outcomes and gender or route of transmission. The study suggests there are still some chances of virological and immunological failures despite the success of highly active ART (HAART).
Detection of Phenols from Industrial Effluents Using Streptomyces Mediated Gold Nanoparticles
Authors: Mazhari Bi Bi Zainab , Agsar Dayanand
Published: July 2016

Extracellular gold nanoparticles synthesized by Streptomyces tuirus DBZ39 were explored for the detection of phenols in the effluent of fertilizer and distillery industries. An average size of 27–56 nm gold nanoparticles was produced and confirmed by UV-vis absorption spectrum, scanning electron microscopy, and energy dispersive X-ray analysis. In the present investigation visual detection of phenols in the effluent samples by gold nanoparticles is enhanced by sodium sulphate. The detection is achieved successfully within 2 min, with change in color of the effluent samples. Use of biologically originated gold nanoparticles along with salt for the detection of phenols from industrial effluents is a novel approach.
Lax Triples for Integrable Surfaces in Three-Dimensional Space
Authors: Cieśliński Jan L. , Kobus Artur
Published: July 2016

We study Lax triples (i.e., Lax representations consisting of three linear equations) associated with families of surfaces immersed in three-dimensional Euclidean spaceE3. We begin with a natural integrable deformation of the principal chiral model. Then, we show that all deformations linear in the spectral parameterλare trivial unless we admit Lax representations in a larger space. We present an explicit example of triply orthogonal systems with Lax representation in the groupSpin(6). Finally, the obtained results are interpreted in the context of the soliton surfaces approach.