PCI-AER interface for Neuro-inspired Spiking Systems

Address event representation (AER) is a neuromorphic interchip communication protocol that allows for real-time connectivity between huge number neurons located on different chips. By exploiting high speed digital communication circuits (nano-seconds), synaptic neural connections can be time multiplexed (mili-seconds). When building multi-chip muti-layered AER systems it is absolutely necessary to have a computer interface that allows: (a) to read AER interchip traffic; and (b) inject a sequence of events to the AER structure. This paper presents a PCI to AER interface, that dispatches a sequence of events with timing information. It is able to recovery the possible delays introduced by AER bus. It has been implemented in real time hardware using VHDL and tested in a PCI-AER board, developed by authors, that currently capable to send and receive events at a peak rate of 16 Mev/sec, and a typical rate of 10 Mev/secEuropean Commission IST-2001-34124Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIC-2003-08164-C03-0

Integrating Emotion Recognition with Speech Recognition and Speaker Diarisation for Conversations

Although automatic emotion recognition (AER) has recently drawn significant research interest, most current AER studies use manually segmented utterances, which are usually unavailable for dialogue systems. This paper proposes integrating AER with automatic speech recognition (ASR) and speaker diarisation (SD) in a jointly-trained system. Distinct output layers are built for four sub-tasks including AER, ASR, voice activity detection and speaker classification based on a shared encoder. Taking the audio of a conversation as input, the integrated system finds all speech segments and transcribes the corresponding emotion classes, word sequences, and speaker identities. Two metrics are proposed to evaluate AER performance with automatic segmentation based on time-weighted emotion and speaker classification errors. Results on the IEMOCAP dataset show that the proposed system consistently outperforms two baselines with separately trained single-task systems on AER, ASR and SD.Comment: Interspeech 202

Indeterminacy, Aggregate Demand, and the Real Business Cycle

We show that under indeterminacy aggregate demand shocks are able to explain not only aspects of actual °uctuations that standard RBC models predict fairly well, but also aspects of actual °uctuations that standard RBC models cannot explain, such as the hump-shaped, trend reverting impulse responses to transitory shocks found in US output (Cogley and Nason, AER, 1995); the large forecastable movements and comovements of output, consumption and hours (Rotemberg and Woodford, AER, 1996); and the fact that consumption appears to lead output and investment over the business cycle. Indeterminacy arises in our model due to capacity utilization and mild increasing returns to scale.

On the structure of the fibers of truncation morphisms

Let k be an algebraically closed field and let X be a separated scheme of finite type over k of pure dimension d. We study the structure of the fibres of the truncation morphisms from the arc space of X to jet spaces of X and also between jet spaces. Our results are generalizations of results of Denef, Loeser, Ein and Mustata. We will use them to find the optimal lower bound for the poles of the motivic zeta function associated to an arbitrary ideal.Comment: 18 pages, to appear in the Bulletin of the London Mathematical Societ

Mark E Josephson: Clinical Investigator

Mark E Josephson entered the world of clinical cardiac electrophysiology (EP) almost at its inception (1972); with so much to learn and so many directions one could take, he dived into the field with unbridled enthusiasm and an uncommon - perhaps almost unique - aptitude for asking questions and finding ways to answer them. Few aspects of EP escaped his indelible influence. In this short paper, I will attempt to touch on some of the high points of his astounding career as a clinical investigator

Brain natriuretic peptide is related to diastolic dysfunction whereas urinary albumin excretion rate is related to left ventricular mass in asymptomatic type 2 diabetes patients

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The aims of this study were to estimate the prevalence of left ventricular systolic (LVSD) and diastolic (LVDD) dysfunction, and to test if BNP and urinary albumin excretion rate (AER) are related to LVSD, LVD and left ventricular mass (LVM) in asymptomatic type 2 diabetes patients.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Presence of LVSD, LVDD and LVM, determined with echocardiography, was related to levels of BNP and AER in 153 consecutive asymptomatic patients with type 2 diabetes.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>LVSD was present in 6.1% of patients whereas 49% (29% mild, 19% moderate and 0.7% severe) had LVDD and 9.4% had left ventricular hypertrophy. Increasing age (P < 0.0001) was the only independent variable related to mild LVDD whereas increasing BNP (P = 0.01), systolic blood pressure (P = 0.01), age (P = 0.003) and female gender (P = 0.04) were independent determinants of moderate to severe LVDD. AER (P = 0.003), age (P = 0.01) and male gender (P = 0.006) were directly and independently related to LVM.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>About half of asymptomatic type 2 diabetes patients have LVDD. Of those, more than one third display moderate LVDD pattern paralleled by increases in BNP, suggesting markedly increased risk of heart failure, especially in females, whereas AER and male sex are related to LVM.</p

Exploration of alternative splicing events in ten different grapevine cultivars

Background: The complex dynamics of gene regulation in plants are still far from being fully understood. Among many factors involved, alternative splicing (AS) in particular is one of the least well documented. For many years, AS has been considered of less relevant in plants, especially when compared to animals, however, since the introduction of next generation sequencing techniques the number of plant genes believed to be alternatively spliced has increased exponentially. Results: Here, we performed a comprehensive high-throughput transcript sequencing of ten different grapevine cultivars, which resulted in the first high coverage atlas of the grape berry transcriptome. We also developed findAS, a software tool for the analysis of alternatively spliced junctions. We demonstrate that at least 44 % of multi-exonic genes undergo AS and a large number of low abundance splice variants is present within the 131.622 splice junctions we have annotated from Pinot noir. Conclusions: Our analysis shows that similar to 70 % of AS events have relatively low expression levels, furthermore alternative splice sites seem to be enriched near the constitutive ones in some extent showing the noise of the splicing mechanisms. However, AS seems to be extensively conserved among the 10 cultivars

Quantum Simulations of Extended Hubbard Models with Dipolar Crystals

In this paper we study the realization of lattice models in mixtures of atomic and dipolar molecular quantum gases. We consider a situation where polar molecules form a self-assembled dipolar lattice, in which atoms or molecules of a second species can move and scatter. We describe the system dynamics in a master equation approach in the Brownian motion limit of slow particles and fast phonons, which we find appropriate for our system. In a wide regime of parameters, the reduced dynamics of the particles leads to physical realizations of extended Hubbard models with tuneable long-range interactions mediated by crystal phonons. This extends the notion of quantum simulation of strongly correlated systems with cold atoms and molecules to include phonon-dynamics, where all coupling parameters can be controlled by external fields.Comment: 44 pages, 14 figure

Kontrola glikemii i jej zmienność głównymi czynnikami ryzyka mikroalbuminurii u dzieci chorych na cukrzycę typu 1

Introduction: To assess in a prospective study the course and the predictors of microalbuminuria in children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes.Material and methods: 438 children and adolescents who developed diabetes in the years 1985–2004 were followed for 9.2 ± 3.4 years from the diagnosis. Microalbuminuria was assessed on the basis of timed overnight urine collections performed once per year. Variability of glycated haemoglobin was expressed as a coefficient of variation (%) calculated by dividing standard deviation (adjusted for the number of measurements) by mean of HbA1c.Results: Microalbuminuria was noted in 99 patients (22.6%) after 8.27 ± 3.3 years of diabetes. In 29 individuals (6.6%), microalbuminuria was persistent. The prevalence of microalbuminuria was not dependent on the period of diabetes diagnosis. During followup, 17 (58.6%) patients with persistent MA reverted to normoalbuminuria. Children without any episodes of microalbuminuria had significantly lower HbA1c variability (8.44%; 95% CI 7.81–9.08%) than those with one (10.28% 95% CI 9.10–11.47%; p = 0.007). The difference of HbA1c variability between patients with and without microalbuminuria persisted after correction by mean HbA1c (p = 0.04). Risk factors for ever developing microalbuminuria during the observation period in multivariate analysis included: mean HbA1c (HR [95% CI]: 1.17 [1.00–1.37; p = 0.05]) and its variability (1.04 [1.00–1.07]; p = 0.05), insulin dose (HR per 0.1 unit*kg- 1*day–1: 0.87 [0.79–0.96]; p = 0.005), presence of arterial hypertension (1.63 [1.07–2.49]; p = 0.02), and age at onset of diabetes (1.15 [1.08–1.21]; p &lt; 0.0001).Conclusions: Children who develop microalbuminuria are characterised by poorer and more variable metabolic control, hinting at the importance of interventions aimed at both improvement and stabilisation of HbA1c levels. (Endokrynol Pol 2014; 65 (2): 83–89)Wstęp: Mikroalbuminuria jest wskaźnikiem wczesnej fazy nefropatii cukrzycowej i czynnikiem ryzyka jej progresji, równocześnie obserwuje się znaczny odsetek samoistnej normalizacji albuminurii. Celem wieloletniego prospektywnego badania była ocena historii naturalnej i czynników ryzyka rozwoju mikroalbuminurii u dzieci i młodzieży z cukrzycą typu 1.Materiał i metody: Przez 9,2 ± 3,4 lat od rozpoznania choroby obserwowano 438 dzieci, które zachorowały na cukrzycę w latach 1985–2005. Mikroalbuminurię oceniano w nocnych zbiórkach moczu wykonywanych każdego roku. Zmienność hemoglobiny glikowanej (HbA1c) wyrażono współczynnikiem zmienności (%) obliczonym jako iloraz odchylenia standardowego (adjustowanego do liczby pomiarów) i średniej HbA1c.Wyniki: Mikroalbuminurię stwierdzono u 99 (22,6%) chorych po 8,27 ± 3,3 latach cukrzycy. U 29 (6,6%) dzieci mikroalbuminuria była obecna przez co najmniej 2 kolejne lata. Częstość mikroalbumiurii nie zależała od okresu rozpoznania cukrzycy. W czasie dalszej obserwacji u 17 (58,6%) badanych albuminuria uległa normalizacji. U dzieci bez epizodu mikroalbuminurii wykazano znamiennie mniejszą zmienność HbA1c (8,44%; 95% CI 7,81–9,08%) w porównaniu z chorymi z mikroalbuminurią (10,28% 95% CI 9,10–11,47%; p = 0,007). Różnica ta była nadal obecna po uwzględnieniu średniej HbA1c (p = 0,04). Czynnikami ryzyka rozwoju mikroalbuminurii u dzieci w okresie wieloletniej obserwacji ujawnionymi w analizie wieloczynnikowej były: średnia HbA1c (HR [95% CI]: 1,17 [(1,00–1,37; p = 0,05]), zmienność HbA1c (1,04 [1,00–1,07]; p = 0,05), dawka insuliny (HR dla 0,1 j.*kg–1*day–1: 0,87 [0,79–0,96); p = 0,005), nadciśnienie tętnicze (1,63 [1,07–2,49]; p = 0,02) i wiek zachorowania na cukrzycę (1,15 [1,08–1,21]; p &lt; 0,0001).Wnioski: Dzieci, u których rozwinęła się mikroalbuminuria charakteryzowały się gorszą i bardziej zmienną kontrolą metaboliczną cukrzycy stąd w leczeniu należy zwrócić uwagę zarównano na poprawę jak i stabilizację HbA1c. (Endokrynol Pol 2014; 65 (2): 83–89

Pdlim7 is required for maintenance of the mesenchymal/epidermal Fgf signaling feedback loop during zebrafish pectoral fin development

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Vertebrate limb development involves a reciprocal feedback loop between limb mesenchyme and the overlying apical ectodermal ridge (AER). Several gene pathways participate in this feedback loop, including Fgf signaling. In the forelimb lateral plate mesenchyme, Tbx5 activates Fgf10 expression, which in turn initiates and maintains the mesenchyme/AER Fgf signaling loop. Recent findings have revealed that Tbx5 transcriptional activity is regulated by dynamic nucleocytoplasmic shuttling and interaction with Pdlim7, a PDZ-LIM protein family member, along actin filaments. This Tbx5 regulation is critical in heart formation, but the coexpression of both proteins in other developing tissues suggests a broader functional role.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Knock-down of Pdlim7 function leads to decreased pectoral fin cell proliferation resulting in a severely stunted fin phenotype. While early gene induction and patterning in the presumptive fin field appear normal, the pectoral fin precursor cells display compaction and migration defects between 18 and 24 hours post-fertilization (hpf). During fin growth <it>fgf24 </it>is sequentially expressed in the mesenchyme and then in the apical ectodermal ridge (AER). However, in <it>pdlim7 </it>antisense morpholino-treated embryos this switch of expression is prevented and <it>fgf24 </it>remains ectopically active in the mesenchymal cells. Along with the lack of <it>fgf24 </it>in the AER, other critical factors including <it>fgf8 </it>are reduced, suggesting signaling problems to the underlying mesenchyme. As a consequence of perturbed AER function in the absence of Pdlim7, pathway components in the fin mesenchyme are misregulated or absent, indicating a breakdown of the Fgf signaling feedback loop, which is ultimately responsible for the loss of fin outgrowth.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This work provides the first evidence for the involvement of Pdlim7 in pectoral fin development. Proper fin outgrowth requires <it>fgf24 </it>downregulation in the fin mesenchyme with subsequent activation in the AER, and Pdlim7 appears to regulate this transition, potentially through Tbx5 regulation. By controlling Tbx5 subcellular localization and transcriptional activity and possibly additional yet unknown means, Pdlim7 is required for proper development of the heart and the fins. These new regulatory mechanisms may have important implications how we interpret Tbx5 function in congenital hand/heart syndromes in humans.</p