Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Low Complexity MIMO Precoder Design with LDLH Channel Decomposition

We present a new MIMO precoding scheme using the LDL^H channel decomposition. The proposed method is verified to have lower complexity and better bit error rate (BER) performance than that of the conventional singular value decomposition (SVD). SVD is commonly used in decomposing the MIMO channel into parallel eigen-modes. However, the large variation of the singular values often leads to ill-conditioned channel and degraded error performance. Lately, two SVDbased decomposition schemes which aim to improve such subchannel gains uniformity are developed. They are geometric mean decomposition (GMD) and uniform channel decomposition (UCD). Albeit the error performance of the GMD and UCD are optimized, both of them require relatively higher complexity than that of SVD with power allocation. In this paper, we present a scheme with moderate subchannel gains uniformity while exhibits the lowest complexity compared with that of SVD, GMD and UCD. Simulations also show that LDL^H can outperform all aforementioned schemes as channel estimation errors become severe.
Teaching sign language to a chimpanzee.

Speciation often involves the evolution of incompatible gene interactions that cause sterility or lethality in hybrids between populations. These so-called hybrid incompatibilities occur between two or more functionally divergent loci. We show that the nucleoporin 160kDa (Nup160) gene of the fruitfly Drosophila simulans is incompatible with one or more factors on the D. melanogaster X chromosome, causing hybrid lethality. Nup160 encodes a nuclear pore complex protein and shows evidence of adaptive evolution. Furthermore, the protein encoded by Nup160 directly interacts with that of another hybrid lethality gene, Nup96, indicating that at least two lethal hybrid incompatibility genes have evolved as byproducts of divergent coevolution among interacting components of the Drosophila nuclear pore complex.
Comparative Cost-Effectiveness of Two-Tiered Testing Strategies for Serodiagnosis of Lyme Disease with Noncutaneous Manifestations

ABSTRACT The mainstay of laboratory diagnosis for Lyme disease is two-tiered serological testing, in which a reactive first-tier enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) or an immunofluorescence assay is supplemented by separate IgM and IgG immunoblots. Recent data suggest that the C6 ELISA can be substituted for immunoblots without a reduction in either sensitivity or specificity. In this study, the costs of 4 different two-tiered testing strategies for Lyme disease were compared using the median charges for these tests at 6 commercial diagnostic laboratories in 2012. The study found that a whole-cell sonicate ELISA followed by the C6 ELISA was the most cost-effective two-tiered testing strategy for Lyme disease with acute-phase serum samples. We conclude that the C6 ELISA can substitute for immunoblots in the two-tiered testing protocol for Lyme disease without a loss of sensitivity or specificity and is less expensive.
Prediction of Neurological Outcome Using Bispectral Index Monitoring in Patients with Severe Ischemic-Hypoxic Brain Injury Undergoing Emergency Surgery

Background:Predicting outcome from ischemic-hypoxic brain injury can be difficult in patients rushed to the operating room for time-critical emergency surgery. The authors chose to evaluate the prognostic ability of bispectral index (BIS) in this setting. Methods:Twenty-five critically ill, unconscious patients with ischemic-hypoxic brain injury undergoing emergency surgery were prospectively studied. Clinical evaluation, laboratory investigations, BIS, and burst suppression ratio were recorded before and during surgery. Neurologic outcome of the patients was measured according to the Glasgow outcome scale at 30 days after injury, with poor neurologic outcome defined as severe disability or death. Results:The incidence of poor neurologic outcome was 68%. Neither clinical judgment (P = 0.40) nor pupillary responses (P = 0.21) were predictive of neurologic outcome after surgery. An abnormal BIS trace was strongly associated with poor neurologic outcome, positive likelihood ratio 6.6 (95% CI 1.7–36.4; exact test P = 0.002). Some BIS values were significantly different when comparing patients with and without poor outcome: c-statistics for the average BIS and maximal electroencephalographic burst-suppression were 0.80 (95% CI 0.62–0.98; P = 0.017) and 0.84 (95% CI 0.68–0.99; P = 0.007), respectively. A normal BIS (P < 0.0005) but not clinical judgment (P = 0.16) could identify a group of patients more likely to survive with a good neurologic outcome. Conclusions:BIS, when compared with clinical judgment and routine laboratory tests, provides useful information that may identify patients with a good chance of recovery after ischemic-hypoxic brain injury requiring emergency surgery.
Mesocyclops brevisetosus (Cyclopoida: Cyclopoidae) as a Potential Biological Control Agent against Mosquito Larvae In Indonesia1

ABSTRACT Mesocyclops brevisetosus Dussart and Sarnita, an indigenous copepod in Indonesia, was evaluated as a potentially useful biological control agent against larval Aedes (Stegomyia). In the laboratory, female M. brevisetosus were found to readily consume mosquito larvae of species from 3 genera (Aedes aegypti, Culex quinquefaciatus, and Anopheles farauti). Mesocyclops brevisetosus preferentially fed on larvae of Ae. aegypti (mean 95% consumed), followed by Cx. quinquefasciatus (71%) and An. farauti (54%) during a 24-h period. An individual copepod consumed up to 43 1st and 2nd instars of Ae. aegypti within a 24-h period. In the field, a density of 25 adult copepods/400 ml of water in an artificial container prevented the establishment of Aedes mosquitoes by 98% compared to the control container (without copepods). A density of 50 copepods/400 ml of water completely prevented infestation with Aedes. Over a 12-wk period, evaluation of M. brevisetosus–treated ovitraps reduced Ae. aegypti by 38–100% compared to ovitraps without copepods. The introduced gravid copepods increased 2.5–6.7 times over the original cohort. Mesocyclops brevisetosus showed high fecundity in culture, with a mean of 58 nauplii produced per individual gestation cycle.
A New Approach to Random Access: Reliable Communication and Reliable Collision Detection

This paper applies information theoretic analysis to packet-based random multiple access communication systems. A new channel coding approach is proposed for coding within each data packet with built-in support for bursty traffic properties, such as message underflow, and for random access properties, such as packet collision detection. The coding approach does not require joint communication rate determination either among the transmitters or between the transmitters and the receiver. Its performance limitation is characterized by an achievable region defined in terms of communication rates, such that reliable packet recovery is supported for all rates inside the region and reliable collision detection is supported for all rates outside the region. For random access communication over a discrete-time memoryless channel, it is shown that the achievable rate region of the introduced coding approach equals the Shannon information rate region without a convex hull operation. Further connections between the achievable rate region and the Shannon information rate region are developed and explained.
Microstructure Analysis and Thermoelectric Properties of Melt-Spun Bi-Sb-Te Compounds

In order to realize high-performance thermoelectric materials, a way to obtain small grain size is necessary for intensification of the phonon scattering. Here, we use a melt-spinning-spark plasma sintering process for making p-type Bi0.36Sb1. 64Te3 thermoelectric materials and evaluate the relation between the process conditions and thermoelectric performance. We vary the Cu wheel rotation speed from 1000 rpm (~13 ms−1) to 4000 rpm (~52 ms−1) during the melt spinning process to change the cooling rate, allowing us to control the characteristic size of nanostructure in melt-spun Bi0.36Sb1. 64Te3 ribbons. The higher wheel rotation speed decreases the size of nanostructure, but the grain sizes of sintered pellets are inversely proportional to the nanostructure size after the same sintering condition. As a result, the ZT values of the bulks fabricated from 1000–3000 rpm melt-spun ribbons are comparable each other, while the ZT value of the bulk from the 4000 rpm melt-spun ribbons is rather lower due to reduction of grain boundary phonon scattering. In this work, we can conclude that the smaller nanostructure in the melt spinning process does not always guarantee high-performance thermoelectric bulks, and an adequate following sintering process must be included.
Intraoperative Fluorescence-Guided Resection of High-Grade Malignant Gliomas Using 5-Aminolevulinic Acid–Induced Porphyrins: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Prospective Studies

Background We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to address the (added) value of intraoperative 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA)-guided resection of high-grade malignant gliomas compared with conventional neuronavigation-guided resection, with respect to diagnostic accuracy, extent of tumor resection, safety, and survival. Methods and Findings An electronic database search of Medline, Embase, and the Cochrane Library was undertaken. The review process followed the guidelines of the Cochrane Collaboration. 10 studies matched all selection criteria, and were thus used for qualitative synthesis. 5-ALA-guided resection demonstrated an overall sensitivity of 0.87 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.81–0.92), specificity of 0.89 (95% CI, 0.79–0.94), positive likelihood ratio (LR) of 7.62 (95% CI, 3.87–15.01), negative LR of 0.14 (95% CI, 0.09–0.23), and diagnostic odds ratio (OR) of 53.06 (95% CI, 18.70–150.51). Summary receiver operating characteristic curves (SROC) showed an area under curve (AUC) of 94%. Contrast-enhancing tumor was completely resected in patients assigned 5-ALA as compared with patients assigned white light. Patients in the 5-ALA group had higher 6-month progression free survival and overall survival than those in the white light group. Conclusion Based on available literature, there is level 2 evidence that 5-ALA-guided surgery is more effective than conventional neuronavigation-guided surgery in increasing diagnostic accuracy and extent of tumor resection, enhancing quality of life, or prolonging survival in patients with high-grade malignant gliomas.
Histone H5—chromatin interactions in situ are strongly modulated by H5 C‐terminal phosphorylation

We used linker histone‐depleted normal human fibroblast nuclei as templates to study how phosphorylation affects histone H5 binding to chromatin in situ. Permeabilized cells were treated with 0.7 M NaCl to extract the native linker histones. Histone H5 was purified from chicken erythrocytes and phosphorylated in vitro by recombinant cdk5/p35 kinase. High performance capillary electrophoresis (HPCE) showed that the phosphorylated protein contained a mixture of multiply phosphorylated forms. Control experiments, using mass spectrometry, revealed that up to five SPXK motifs in the C terminus were phosphorylated, but also that about 10% of the protein contained one phosphoserine in the N‐terminus. Reconstitution of H1‐depleted fibroblast nuclei with nonphosphorylated or phosphorylated H5 was performed at physiological ionic strength. The bound H5 was then extracted using NaCl concentrations in the range of 0.15 to 0.7 M. The release of the H5 molecules was monitored by DAPI staining and image cytofluorometry. Our results show that H5 phosphorylation substantially reduced its affinity for chromatin in situ, which support previous observations indicating that C‐terminal phosphorylation may be essential for the biological functions of linker histones. © 2012 International Society for Advancement of Cytometry
Host-Defense Peptides with Therapeutic Potential from Skin Secretions of Frogs from the Family Pipidae

Skin secretions from frogs belonging to the genera Xenopus, Silurana, Hymenochirus, and Pseudhymenochirus in the family Pipidae are a rich source of host-defense peptides with varying degrees of antimicrobial activities and cytotoxicities to mammalian cells. Magainin, peptide glycine-leucine-amide (PGLa), caerulein-precursor fragment (CPF), and xenopsin-precursor fragment (XPF) peptides have been isolated from norepinephrine-stimulated skin secretions from several species of Xenopus and Silurana. Hymenochirins and pseudhymenochirins have been isolated from Hymenochirus boettgeri and Pseudhymenochirus merlini. A major obstacle to the development of these peptides as anti-infective agents is their hemolytic activities against human erythrocytes. Analogs of the magainins, CPF peptides and hymenochirin-1B with increased antimicrobial potencies and low cytotoxicities have been developed that are active (MIC < 5 μM) against multidrug-resistant clinical isolates of Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Acinetobacter baumannii, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia and Klebsiella pneumoniae. Despite this, the therapeutic potential of frog skin peptides as anti-infective agents has not been realized so that alternative clinical applications as anti-cancer, anti-viral, anti-diabetic, or immunomodulatory drugs are being explored.
Terminal osseous dysplasia with pigmentary defects; Case and brief review of filamin A‐related disorders

Terminal osseous dysplasia with pigmentary defects (TOD) is an extremely rare X‐linked dominant disorder, which is characterised by cutaneous digital fibromas, pigmentary skin defects and skeletal abnormalities. A single mutation in the last nucleotide of exon 31 of the filamin A gene (FLNA) has recently been identified as a cause of the disease. We describe a case of an 18‐month‐old girl with the clinical phenotype of TOD and the disease‐specific FLNA mutation confirmed by genetic testing. This report highlights the importance of recognising this distinct phenotype that can present to a wide variety of health‐care professionals, and reviews the spectrum of filamin A disorders.
Neurons : A Macroscopic Model of Spreading Depression Generation of Sustained Field Potentials by Gradients of Polarization Within

[PDF] [Abstract] , October 1, 2008; 14 (5): 422-433. Neuroscientist F. Frohlich, M. Bazhenov, V. Iragui-Madoz and T. J. Sejnowski Potassium Dynamics in the Epileptic Cortex: New Insights on an Old Topic [PDF] [Full Text] [Abstract] , February 1, 2009; 101 (2): 1016-1032. J Neurophysiol M. Fischer, J. Reuter, F. J. Gerich, B. Hildebrandt, S. Hagele, D. Katschinski and M. Muller Syndrome Enhanced Hypoxia Susceptibility in Hippocampal Slices From a Mouse Model of Rett [PDF] [Full Text] [Abstract] , May 1, 2009; 101 (5): 2395-2410. J Neurophysiol F. Funke, M. Kron, M. Dutschmann and M. Muller Hypoxia Infant Brain Stem Is Prone to the Generation of Spreading Depression During Severe [PDF] [Full Text] [Abstract] , June 24, 2009; 29 (25): 8225-8235. J. Neurosci. G. A. B. Armstrong, C. I. Rodgers, T. G. A. Money and R. M. Robertson NO/cGMP/PKG Pathway Suppression of Spreading Depression-Like Events in Locusts by Inhibition of the [PDF] [Full Text] [Abstract] , May 1, 2010; 103 (5): 2446-2457. J Neurophysiol J. Makarova, V. A. Makarov and O. Herreras Neurons: A Macroscopic Model of Spreading Depression Generation of Sustained Field Potentials by Gradients of Polarization Within Single
Use of lidocaine patch 5% for chronic low back pain: a report of four cases.

OBJECTIVE To describe the use of the lidocaine patch 5% (Lidoderm), a targeted peripheral analgesic, in treatment of patients with chronic low back pain. DESIGN This retrospective case series examines four patients with pain secondary to spinal degeneration and complications from failed back surgery syndrome, who were prescribed the lidocaine patch as an add-on to their analgesic regimen. SETTING Bay Area Pain Medical Associates, Mill Valley, California. PATIENTS Patients (age range: 33-64 years) were all complicated cases in which multiple analgesics had been prescribed with varying degrees of success. Intervention. Lidocaine patch 5%. RESULTS The addition of the lidocaine patch helped relieve varying characteristics of pain, including general pain, shooting pain, burning pain, and allodynia, and had a significant impact on the quality of life of all patients. Some patients were able to reduce or altogether stop some medications. No adverse events were reported from the lidocaine patch. CONCLUSIONS Based on our experience with the four cases presented here and with other patients in our clinic, we believe that addition of the lidocaine patch 5% to the analgesic regimen in chronic low back pain may be beneficial. Prospective, controlled clinical trials are planned to further evaluate the efficacy and safety of the lidocaine patch for treatment of chronic low back pain with or without a neuropathic component.
Predicting Search Task Difficulty at Different Search Stages

Knowing, in real time, whether a current searcher in an information retrieval system finds the search task difficult can be valuable for tailoring the system's support for that searcher. This study investigated searcher's behaviors at different stages of the search process; they are: 1) first-round point at the beginning of the search, right before searchers issued their second query; 2) middle point, when searchers proceeded to the middle of the search process, and 3) end point, when searchers finished the whole task. We compared how the behavioral features calculated at these three points were different between difficult and easy search tasks, and identified behavioral features during search sessions that can be used in real-time to predict perceived task difficulty. In addition, we compared the prediction performance at different stages of search process. Our results show that a number of user behavioral measures at all three points differed between easy and difficult tasks. Query interval time, dwell time on viewed documents, and number of viewed documents per query were important predictors of task difficulty. The results also indicate that it is possible to make relatively accurate prediction of task difficulty at the first query round of a search. Our findings can help search systems predict task difficulty which is necessary in personalizing support for the individual searcher.
Assessment of Urinary Betaine as a Marker of Diabetes Mellitus in Cardiovascular Patients

Abnormal urinary excretion of betaine has been demonstrated in patients with diabetes or metabolic syndrome. We aimed to identify the main predictors of excretion in cardiovascular patients and to make initial assessment of its feasibility as a risk marker of future diabetes development. We used data from 2396 patients participating in the Western Norway B-vitamin Intervention Trial, who delivered urine and blood samples at baseline, and in the majority at two visits during follow-up of median 39 months. Betaine in urine and plasma were measured by liquid-chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. The strongest determinants of urinary betaine excretion by multiple regression were diabetes mellitus, age and estimated glomerular filtration rate; all p<0.001. Patients with diabetes mellitus (n = 264) had a median excretion more than three times higher than those without. We found a distinct non-linear association between urinary betaine excretion and glycated hemoglobin, with a break-point at 6.5%, and glycated hemoglobin was the strongest determinant of betaine excretion in patients with diabetes mellitus. The discriminatory power for diabetes mellitus corresponded to an area under the curve by receiver-operating characteristics of 0.82, and betaine excretion had a coefficient of reliability of 0.73. We also found a significant, independent log-linear relation between baseline betaine excretion and the risk of developing new diabetes during follow-up. The good discriminatory power for diabetes, high test-retest stability and independent association with future risk of new diabetes should motivate further investigation on the role of betaine excretion in risk assessment and long-term follow-up of diabetes mellitus.
Table detection in heterogeneous documents

Detecting tables in document images is important since not only do tables contain important information, but also most of the layout analysis methods fail in the presence of tables in the document image. Existing approaches for table detection mainly focus on detecting tables in single columns of text and do not work reliably on documents with varying layouts. This paper presents a practical algorithm for table detection that works with a high accuracy on documents with varying layouts (company reports, newspaper articles, magazine pages, .). An open source implementation of the algorithm is provided as part of the Tesseract OCR engine. Evaluation of the algorithm on document images from publicly available UNLV dataset shows competitive performance in comparison to the table detection module of a commercial OCR system.
A low power preamplifier latch based comparator using 180nm CMOS technology

Design of high speed low power comparators are required to build an efficient analog to digital converters (ADCs). This paper mainly focuses on the preamplifier positive feedback latch based comparator for Asynchronous Successive Approximation Register ADC (ASAR ADC). The main components of such comparator are the preamplifier and latch circuit. Preamplifier is used for removing the kickback noise and the dc offset voltage while the latch is required for the comparison. The proposed architecture operates on three phases which are non overlapping and dissipates 70μWpower when operated on a single 1V supply voltage. The latch is basically a back to back connected inverter circuit which is activated only during the second phase. This specialty credits to the least power dissipation in the circuitry which was designed in 180nm CMOS technology.
Design and analysis of CMOS broad-band compact high-linearity modulators for gigabit microwave/millimeter-wave applications

CMOS broad-band compact high-linearity binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) and IQ modulators are proposed and analyzed in this paper. The modulators are constructed utilizing a modified reflection-type topology with the transmission lines implemented on the thick SiO/sub 2/ layer to avoid the lossy silicon substrate. The monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) chips were fabricated using standard bulk 0.13-/spl mu/m MS/RF CMOS process and demonstrated an ultracompact layout with more than 80% chip size reduction. The broadside couplers and 180/spl deg/ hybrid for the modulators in the CMOS process are broad-band designs with low phase/amplitude errors. The dc offset and imbalance for the proposed topology are investigated and compared with the conventional reflection-type modulators. The measured dc offset was improved by more than 10 dB. Both BPSK and IQ modulators feature a conversion loss of 13 dB, a modulation bandwidth of wider than 1 GHz, and second- and third-order spur suppressions of better than -30 dBc. The IQ modulator shows good sideband suppression with high local-oscillator suppression from 20 to 40 GHz. The modulators are also evaluated with a digital modulation signal and demonstrate excellent modulator quality and adjacent channel power ratio.