Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Asynchronous Distributed Downlink Beamforming and Power Control in Multi-Cell Networks

In this paper, we consider a multi-cell network where every base station (BS) serves multiple users with an antenna array. Each user is associated with only one BS and has a single antenna. Assume that only long-term channel state information (CSI) is available in the system. The objective is to minimize the network downlink transmission power needed to meet the users' signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) requirements. For this objective, we propose an asynchronous distributed beamforming and power control algorithm, which provides the same optimal solution as given by centralized algorithms. To design the algorithm, the power minimization problem is formulated mathematically as a non-convex problem. For distributed implementation, the non-convex problem is cast into the dual decomposition framework. Resorting to the theory about matrix pencil, a novel asynchronous iterative method is proposed for solving the dual of the non-convex problem. The methods for beamforming and power control are obtained by investigating the primal problem. Finally, simulation results are provided to demonstrate the convergence and performance of the algorithm.
Sustainability assessment of phase-change solvents for CO2 capture

Carbon Capture and Storage has been suggested as a crucial tool to reduce carbon dioxide emission from industry and power plant using fossil fuel. The benchmark carbon capture process absorb CO2 contain in flue gases through chemical absorption in a solution of monoethanolamine (MEA). To recover the absorbed CO2 an expensive and energy consuming regeneration step is needed. Reducing CCS energy requirement is crucial in order to make CCS commercially viable. Multiple studies have been conducted in order to find more efficient solvents. A new amine solvent family called phase change solvent has demonstrated very promising energetic performance. According to research they could reduce the reboiler duty from 3.7 GJ/tCO2 for MEA process to 2-2.5 GJ/tCO2. However most of the studies lead on phase change solvent focused on energy requirement only. Another important aspect to take into account is the sustainability of such processes. Indeed, phase-change carbon capture processes can be energetically more beneficial that traditional CCS using MEA however their overall impact on environment and humans should be at least equal or lower. Thus, it is important to assess their sustainability and the influential factors. The goal of this work was to develop an LCA framework for phase-change CO2 capture processes. The framework was applied to a reference system modelled on Aspen Plus v8.8 using a solution of N-methylcyclohexylamine (MCA) as solvent. The developed LCA takes into consideration, additionally to the traditional energy and material flow related factors a first level of degradation product and their treatment, aerosols formation and wash water treatment (e.g the formation of ammonia and its treatment by wash water). The three metrics considered are the Cumulative Energy Demand (CED), the Global Warming Potential (GWP) and the aggregated environmental score ReCiPe. Six scenarios were considered in order to assess the impact of degradation products, aerosols formation and threshold emission of non-conventional amine. The results presented in this thesis show a total heating requirement similar to the one in literature of 2.6 GJ/tCO2 but with a different distribution, spending considerably less energy in the stripper reboiler and accordingly more energy in the preheating of the rich CO2 stream that is fed to the stripper. This result needs to be further investigated by more accurate thermodynamic equilibrium properties estimation. The Life Cycle Impact Assessment demonstrates that MCA emission threshold has more impact on LCA metrics total value than degradation scenarios and that the most influential parameter is the amount of aerosol form in the absorber. The large proportion of loss due to MCA volatility and aerosol, which are directly linked to the volatility, explain that solvent make-up appears as a big contributor for each metrics and scenarios.
Liver Fibrosis in Asymptomatic Polyvinyl Chloride Workers

This study was designed to determine whether vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) exposure is associated with liver fibrosis. A total of 347 workers with occupational exposure to VCM were systemically examined using liver ultrasonography and routine liver function tests. Vinyl chloride monomer cumulative dose (ppm-month) was estimated by summing the products of air VCM concentration levels and months of employment. Liver fibrosis was defined in subjects with precirrhosis and cirrhosis of liver diagnosed using ultrasonography. Significantly increased risks of developing liver fibrosis were found in workers who had history of high exposure jobs (odds ratio 5.5, 95% confidence interval 1.7–25.4) when compared with workers who did not have history of high exposure jobs. We concluded that there was an increased risk of developing liver fibrosis in PVC workers who had high exposure to VCM.
Fast Computation of Wideband Beam Pattern for Designing Large-Scale 2-D Arrays

For real-time and high-resolution 3-D ultrasound imaging, the design of sparse distribution and weights of elements of a large-scale wideband 2-D array is needed to reduce hardware cost and achieve better directivity. However, due to the high time consumption of computing the wideband beam pattern, the design methods that need massive iterations have rarely been applied to design large-scale wideband 2-D arrays by directly computing the wideband beam pattern. In this paper, a fast method is proposed to realize the computation of a wideband beam pattern of arbitrary 2-D arrays in the far field in order to design large-scale wideband 2-D arrays. The proposed fast method exploits two important techniques: 1) nonuniform fast Fourier transform (FFT) and 2) short inverse FFT. Compared with the commonly used ultrasound simulator Field II, two orders of magnitude improvement in computation speed is achieved with comparable accuracy. The proposed fast method enables massive iterations of direct wideband beam pattern computation of arbitrary large-scale 2-D arrays. A design example in this paper demonstrates that the proposed fast method can help achieve better performance in designing large-scale wideband 2-D arrays.
Deoxyribonucleic Acid Polymerase Activities in Normal and Leukovirus-Infected Chicken Embryo Cells

Chicken embryo cells normally contain, in addition to deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)-dependent DNA (D-DNA) polymerases, a novel “R-DNA-polymerase” which specifically copies polyriboadenylic acid strands. This R-DNA polymerase cannot copy natural ribonucleic acid or polyribocytidylic acid strands to a significant extent. Infection of cells with the leukovirus RAV-2 leads to the intracellular formation of large amounts of the viral RNA-dependent DNA polymerase whose properties differ from the cell R-DNA polymerase. Chicken cells transformed by a Rous sarcoma virus mutant which produce noninfectious alpha-type Rous sarcoma virus (f), a leukovirus known to be deficient in the viral RNA-dependent DNA polymerase, do not contain detectable viral RNA-dependent DNA polymerase, whereas the cellular R-DNA polymerase is found in normal amounts. There seems to be no relationship between the cellular R-DNA polymerase and the RNA-dependent DNA polymerase of the avian leukoviruses.
Long-term follow-up of Helicobacter pylori serology after successful eradication.

OBJECTIVE To determine the Helicobacter pylori IgG serology pattern 12-21 months after successful organism eradication and to assess the usefulness of IgG serology in the long-term follow-up of patients. METHODS We recruited patients from our 1990-91 study on IgG serology after H. pylori treatment. Forty-three of 45 patients (93%) agreed to participate. They had all been cured of H. pylori infection after triple antibiotic therapy and remained H. pylori negative at 1 yr posttreatment. H. pylori IgG antibody concentrations were measured in serum samples taken at 3-month intervals between 12 and 21 months posttreatment. [13C]-urea breath test was done at each blood draw to ensure continued eradication. Serology was determined by ELISA (Pylori Stat, BioWhittaker, Inc) and expressed as absorbance. RESULTS All 43 patients (100%) continued to be free of H. pylori and demonstrated a decline in their H. pylori IgG concentration compared with baseline. The overall decline in serology among all 43 patients was approximately 50%. Forty of 43 patients (93%) had a decline of more than 20% in H. pylori IgG concentration compared with baseline. However, 28 of 43 patients (65%) remained seropositive for more than 1 yr after successful H. pylori eradication. CONCLUSION We conclude that a 20% decline in IgG concentration has an overall sensitivity of 93% for determining H. pylori eradication 12-21 months after H. pylori treatment. Serology is an attractive alternative to endoscopy or urea breath tests in monitoring patients after H. pylori treatment, but serum IgG levels should not be expected to reach seronegative range after successful H. pylori eradication.
NG2 Is a Major Chondroitin Sulfate Proteoglycan Produced after Spinal Cord Injury and Is Expressed by Macrophages and Oligodendrocyte Progenitors

Several extracellular matrix (ECM) molecules have been identified as potent inhibitors of neurite outgrowth in vitro and are believed to limit axonal growth after CNS injury. Recent studies have shown that different members of the chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan (CSPG) class of putatively inhibitory ECM molecules are expressed after a number of CNS injuries. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relative amounts of individual CSPGs expressed after spinal cord injury (SCI) and identify their cells of origin. Evaluation of total soluble CSPGs 2 weeks after dorsal column lesion in the rat demonstrated that NG2 is highly upregulated and is a major CSPG species. Immunocytochemical analysis further demonstrated that NG2 expression is upregulated within 24 hr of injury, peaks at 1 week, and remains elevated for at least an additional 7 weeks. NG2 expression results from a multicellular response to injury, including both reactive macrophages and oligodendrocyte progenitors; astrocytes were not identified as a major source of NG2. Immunocytochemical analysis of other CSPG family members 7 d after injury showed moderate upregulation of versican, brevican, and neurocan, and downregulation of phosphacan. Axonal tracing experiments demonstrated dense NG2 labeling adjacent to the forward processes of transected corticospinal tract axons in a spatial profile that could restrict axonal growth. Thus, NG2 is a major component of this putatively inhibitory class of ECM molecules expressed at sites of SCI and may restrict axonal regeneration.
An Improved FCM Medical Image Segmentation Algorithm Based on MMTD

Image segmentation plays an important role in medical image processing. Fuzzy c-means (FCM) is one of the popular clustering algorithms for medical image segmentation. But FCM is highly vulnerable to noise due to not considering the spatial information in image segmentation. This paper introduces medium mathematics system which is employed to process fuzzy information for image segmentation. It establishes the medium similarity measure based on the measure of medium truth degree (MMTD) and uses the correlation of the pixel and its neighbors to define the medium membership function. An improved FCM medical image segmentation algorithm based on MMTD which takes some spatial features into account is proposed in this paper. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is more antinoise than the standard FCM, with more certainty and less fuzziness. This will lead to its practicable and effective applications in medical image segmentation.
Chromosomal instability triggers cell death via local signalling through the innate immune receptor Toll

Chromosomal instability (CIN) is a hallmark of cancer and has been implicated in cancer initiation, progression and the development of resistance to traditional cancer therapy. Here we identify a new property of CIN cells, showing that inducing CIN in proliferating Drosophila larval tissue leads to the activation of innate immune signalling in CIN cells. Manipulation of this immune pathway strongly affects the survival of CIN cells, primarily via JNK, which responds to both Toll and TNFα/Eiger. This pathway also activates Mmp1, which recruits hemocytes to the CIN tissue to provide local amplification of the immune response that is needed for effective elimination of CIN cells.
Shock deformation confirms the impact origin for the Cerro do Jarau, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, structure

Cerro do Jarau is a conspicuous, circular morpho‐structural feature in Rio Grande do Sul State (Brazil), with a central elevated core in the otherwise flat “Pampas” terrain typical for the border regions between Brazil and Uruguay. The structure has a diameter of approximately 13.5 km. It is centered at 30o12′S and 56o32′W and was formed on basaltic flows of the Cretaceous Serra Geral Formation, which is part of the Paraná‐Etendeka Large Igneous Province (LIP), and in sandstones of the Botucatu and Guará formations. The structure was first spotted on aerial photographs in the 1960s. Ever since, its origin has been debated, sometimes in terms of an endogenous (igneous) origin, sometimes as the result of an exogenous (meteorite impact) event. In recent years, a number of studies have been conducted in order to investigate its nature and origin. Although the results have indicated a possible impact origin, no conclusive evidence could be produced. The interpretation of an impact origin was mostly based on the morphological characteristics of the structure; geophysical data; as well as the occurrence of different breccia types; extensive deformation/silicification of the rocks within the structure, in particular the sandstones; and also on the widespread occurrence of low‐pressure deformation features, including some planar fractures (PFs). A detailed optical microscopic analysis of samples collected during a number of field campaigns since 2007 resulted in the disclosure of a large number of quartz grains from sandstone and monomict arenite breccia from the central part of the structure with PFs and feather features (FFs), as well as a number of quartz grains exhibiting planar deformation features (PDFs). While most of these latter grains only carry a single set of PDFs, we have observed several with two sets, and one grain with three sets of PDFs. Consequently, we here propose Cerro do Jarau as the seventh confirmed impact structure in Brazil. Cerro do Jarau, together with Vargeão Dome (Santa Catalina state) and Vista Alegre (Paraná State), is one of very few impact structures on Earth formed in basaltic rocks.
Neural network approximation of piecewise continuous functions: application to friction compensation

A new neural network (NN) structure is given for approximation of piecewise continuous (PC) functions of the sort that appear in friction, deadzone, backlash and other motion control actuator nonlinearities. The NN consists of neurons having a special class of nonsmooth activation functions termed 'jump approximation basis functions'. This 'jump approximation' NN plus a NN based on standard smooth sigmoidal activation functions can approximate any piecewise continuous function with discontinuities at a finite number of known points. Industrial motion device actuator nonlinearities are in this class of functions, therefore, the new NN structure is ideal for motion control applications in robotics and other industrial systems.
Reducing the uncertainty of parameters controlling seasonal carbon and water fluxes in Chinese forests and its implication for simulated climate sensitivities

Reducing parameter uncertainty of process‐based terrestrial ecosystem models (TEMs) is one of the primary targets for accurately estimating carbon budgets and predicting ecosystem responses to climate change. However, parameters in TEMs are rarely constrained by observations from Chinese forest ecosystems, which are important carbon sink over the northern hemispheric land. In this study, eddy covariance data from six forest sites in China are used to optimize parameters of the ORganizing Carbon and Hydrology In Dynamics EcosystEms TEM. The model‐data assimilation through parameter optimization largely reduces the prior model errors and improves the simulated seasonal cycle and summer diurnal cycle of net ecosystem exchange, latent heat fluxes, and gross primary production and ecosystem respiration. Climate change experiments based on the optimized model are deployed to indicate that forest net primary production (NPP) is suppressed in response to warming in the southern China but stimulated in the northeastern China. Altered precipitation has an asymmetric impact on forest NPP at sites in water‐limited regions, with the optimization‐induced reduction in response of NPP to precipitation decline being as large as 61% at a deciduous broadleaf forest site. We find that seasonal optimization alters forest carbon cycle responses to environmental change, with the parameter optimization consistently reducing the simulated positive response of heterotrophic respiration to warming. Evaluations from independent observations suggest that improving model structure still matters most for long‐term carbon stock and its changes, in particular, nutrient‐ and age‐related changes of photosynthetic rates, carbon allocation, and tree mortality.
Opportunistic nonorthogonal amplify-and-forward cooperative communications

The first opportunistic cooperative communications scheme based upon nonorthogonal transmission, namely the opportunistic nonorthogonal amplify-and-forward scheme, is proposed. It is proved that the proposed scheme can achieve a superior diversity- multiplexing trade-off performance bound than the existing opportunistic relaying schemes. Simulation results validate the proof.
Incomplete contracts: Where do we stand?

The paper takes stock of the advances and directions for research on the incomplete contracting front. It first illustrates some of the main ideas of the incomplete contract literature through an example. It then offers methodological insights on the standard approach to modeling incomplete contracts; in particular it discusses a tension between two assumptions made in the literature, namely rationality and the existence of transaction costs. Last, it argues that, contrary to what is commonly argued, the complete contract methodology need not be unable to account for standard institutions such as authority and ownership; and it concludes with a discussion of the research agenda.
RBF networks for nonlinear models subject to linear constraints

In this work, we present a study of nonlinear modelings based on RBF networks. The incorporation of prior knowledge in modelings is our specific concern for adding transparency and improving the performance of the networks. We focus on the prior knowledge within the class of linear constraints, which includes both linear equality and linear inequality constraints. Different with other existing modeling approaches using Lagrange multiplier technique, we propose a sub-model using the same RBF network configuration to impose the constraints. Two benefits are gained from this modeling approach in comparison with the conventional RBF networks. First, the transparency is added through a structural way with a higher degree of explicitness than an algorithm means. Second, on linear equality constraint problems, the proposed approach is able to obtain the learning solutions directly without involving iteration processes. Numerical results from three benchmark examples confirm the beneficial aspects on the proposed modeling approach.
DENSE IRON EJECTA AND CORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVA EXPLOSION IN THE YOUNG SUPERNOVA REMNANT G11.2–0.3

We present the results of near-infrared spectroscopic observations of dense (≳103 cm−3) iron ejecta in the young core-collapse supernova remnant G11.2–0.3. Five ejecta knots projected to be close to its center show a large dispersion in their Doppler shifts: two knots in the east are blueshifted by more than 1000 km s-1, while three western knots have relatively small blueshifts of 20–60 km s-1. This velocity discrepancy may indicate that the western knots have been significantly decelerated or that there exists a systematic velocity difference among the knots. One ejecta filament in the northwestern boundary, on the other hand, is redshifted by ≳200 km s-1, while opposite filament in the southeastern boundary shows a negligible radial motion. Some of the knots and filaments have secondary velocity components, and one knot shows a bow shock-like feature in the velocity structure. The iron ejecta appear to be devoid of strong emission from other heavy elements, such as S, which may attest to the α-rich freezeout process in the explosive nucleosynthesis of the core-collapse supernova explosion close to its center. The prominent bipolar distribution of the Fe ejecta in the northwestern and southeastern direction, along with the elongation of the central pulsar wind nebula in the perpendicular direction, is consistent with the interpretation that the supernova exploded primarily along the northwestern and southeastern direction.
Penetrating keratoplasty versus deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty: comparison of optical and visual quality outcomes

Purpose To evaluate and compare visual and optical performance outcomes by means of analysis of the contrast sensitivity function (CSF) and ocular higher order aberrations (HOA) in patients with keratoconus who had deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty (DALK) or penetrating keratoplasty (PK). Methods In this prospective, randomised case series, 174 eyes of 140 consecutive patients with moderate to advanced keratoconus were included. The big-bubble technique was attempted to perform DALK. Intraoperative and postoperative complications, uncorrected visual acuity, best spectacle-corrected visual acuity (BSCVA), refraction, topographic astigmatism, CSF and ocular HOA were evaluated. Results The DALK and PK groups consisted of 99 and 75 eyes, respectively. Postoperative BSCVA was 20/40 or better in 64 eyes (85%) in the PK group and and 82 eyes (83%) in the DALK group (p>0.05). The mean spherical equivalent and maximum keratometry were −1.50 (−6.25 to +4.75) and 46.85 (40.60 to 56.00) in the PK group and −2.25 (−8.75 to +4.00) and 46.90 (40.60 to 53.60) in the DALK group, respectively. The differences were not statistically significant (p=0.08 and p=0.66, respectively). No significant differences in photopic contrast sensitivity were found for each of the spatial frequencies (p>0.05 for all). However, mesopic contrast sensitivity for three cycles/degree was significantly higher in the DALK group (p=0.01). No significant differences between groups were detected for any of the aberrometric parameters (p>0.05). Conclusions DALK is an alternative treatment option in eyes with moderate to advanced keratoconus, providing comparable results to PK in terms of visual acuity, refraction, CSF and HOA.
Cancer vaccines

Vaccination refers to the procedure pioneered by Edward Je (EJ), whereby the immune system is primed to respond rapid an infectious agent, by exposing it to the important antigens o infectious agent by using heat-killed or attenuated non-pathog versions. EJ used the biologically naturally attenuated humans), cow pox to provide resistance to small pox. A ca vaccine is designed to induce an immune response in a patien has developed cancer resistant to conventional treatment can who has a high probability of developing a recurrence follow adequate treatment. It is reasonable to regard cancer as an tion that has infected the host without inducing an approp immune response. The reasons that cancer cells are able to the immune system or an effective immune response include: