Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On Topology and Resilience of Large-Scale Cognitive Radio Networks Under Generic Failures

It has been demonstrated that in wireless networks, blackholes, which are typically generated by isolated node failures, and augmented by failure correlations, can easily result in devastating impact on network performance. In order to address this issue, we focus on the topology of Cognitive Radio Networks (CRNs) because of their phenomenal benefits in improving spectrum efficiency through opportunistic communications. Particularly, we first define two metrics, namely the failure occurrence probability p and failure connection function g(·), to characterize node failures and their spreading properties, respectively. Then we prove that each blackhole is exponentially bounded based on percolation theory. By mapping failure spreading using a branching process, we further derive an upper bound on the expected size of blackholes. With the observations from our analysis, we are able to find a sufficient condition for a resilient CRN in the presence of blackholes through analysis and simulations.
Diagnosis of central venous catheter related sepsis--a critical look inside.

The use of central venous catheters for the administration of pharmaceutical agents, including chemotherapy regimens, inotropic support in the intensive care setting, intravenous nutrition, cardiac monitoring, and as a means of maintaining long term venous access, has increased dramatically in the past three decades. Complications associated with central venous catheterisation include those associated with insertion—for example, pneumothorax, haemorrhage, nerve injury, catheter tip misplacement, and cardiac arrhythmias—and those associated primarily with longer term use, including thrombosis and infection. Catheter related infections represent by far the greatest risk associated with the use of central venous catheters, and the rate of catheter related sepsis is variably reported to range from 4% to 14%. 1‐4 The magnitude of this variance reflects true diVerences in the incidence of catheter related sepsis in some patient groups—for example, the rate of catheter related sepsis in burns patients managed in intensive care is approximately 15-fold higher than in those with respiratory disease. 5 Infections associated with central venous catheters therefore represent approximately 30 000 and 400 000 cases in the United Kingdom and the USA, respectively, each year. 6 However, diVerences in the reported incidence of catheter related sepsis also result from a lack of standardisation in diagnostic approach. Catheter related sepsis is associated with significant morbidity and mortality, and with case fatality as high as 10‐20%. 7 Major complica
Growth and characterization of zinc ferrite thin films for high frequency applications

approved: Chih-Hung (Alex) Chang Shih-Lien L. Lu Raghu K. Settaluri Ferrites have been used for various high frequency applications as bulk materials. These applications, however, are limited to large dimension devices. In this thesis, thin film ferrites were deposited from a low temperature solution-based deposition process that is suitable for micro-scale high frequency applications. The low temperature nature of this deposition technique makes it an excellent back end process. In this work, a high rate deposition process for zinc ferrite thin films was established. A deposition rate of 0.2 μm/min was determined by the surface profiler. The deposited films have a plate-like morphology with fibrous texture. Zinc was uniformly incorporated into the ferrite film confirmed by the local chemical analysis by Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The deposited films are polycrystalline with a typical cubic ferrite structure. The overall composition of the films was determined by Auger electron spectroscopy as ZnxFeyO4, x ranges from 0.25 to 0.55, and y ranges from 2.2 to 2.7. A model consisting of resistors, capacitors and inductors was constructed and used for the analysis of impedance spectroscopy. The dielectric properties of zinc ferrite thin films were obtained by fitting the data to the model. The results show that the dielectric constants are around 15 regardless of Zn/Fe ratio. This value is consistent with most of the reported values for bulk ferrite materials. The resistivity changes from 0.6x10 ohm.meter to 1.3 x10 ohm.meter when Zn/Fe ratio varies from 0.06 to 0.14. A grounded coplanar waveguide structure was developed for microwave characterization of the thin film material to obtain the complex relative permittivity and the complex relative permeability. The method is based on conformal mapping and determination of filling factors for the coplanar waveguide configuration and is applicable to a wide range of dielectric as well as magnetic materials. The proposed approach was validated by determining the scattering parameters of a number of test structures using the 3D full-wave electromagnetic simulation. In all examples, the extracted parameters from the proposed technique resulted in values that are within 2% error. © Copyright by Jiqing Hu September 5, 2005 All Rights Reserved Growth and Characterization of Zinc Ferrite Thin Films for High Frequency Applications
The Metalloprotease ADAM12 Regulates the Effector Function of Human Th17 Cells

A key modulator of immune homeostasis, TGFβ has an important role in the differentiation of regulatory T cells (Tregs) and IL-17-secreting T cells (Th17). How TGFβ regulates these functionally opposing T cell subsets is not well understood. We determined that an ADAM family metalloprotease called ADAM12 is specifically and highly expressed in both Tregs and CCR6+ Th17 cells. ADAM12 is induced in vitro upon differentiation of naïve T cells to Th17 cells or IL-17-secreting Tregs. Remarkably, silencing ADAM12 expression in CCR6+ memory T cells enhances the production of Th17 cytokines, similar to suppressing TGFβ signaling. Further, ADAM12 knockdown in naïve human T cells polarized towards Th17/Treg cells, or ectopically expressing RORC, greatly enhances IL-17-secreting cell differentiation, more potently then inhibiting TGFβ signals. Together, our findings reveal a novel regulatory role for ADAM12 in Th17 cell differentiation or function and may have implications in regulating their aberrant responses during immune pathologies.
Maize Crop N Uptake from Organic Material of Gliricidia sepium Coinoculated with Rhizobium and Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungus in Sub-Saharian Africa Sandy Soil

The effect of green manure of gliricidia (Gliricidia sepium (Jacq.) Walp) leguminous plants applied for cereal maize cultivation and N uptake by cereal were investigated and analyzed in relation to influence of dual inoculation of gliricidia with microbial symbionts. Two pot experiments were conducted in greenhouse. The first trial was set up to enhance growth of gliricidia with exotic and indigenous rhizobial strains and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus and the second to determine the effect of gliricidia organic material on maize growth. Direct 15N-labelling techniques were used to estimate N-fixed by gliricidia plant and N uptake of maize cereal crop from green manuring was calculated. Growth of gliricidia trees estimated by aboveground biomass production and N fixed were positively affected by dual inoculations. This study showed that shoot dry weight and N accumulation of maize cultivated under gliricidia green manure were influenced by its application and indirectly by microbial treatments. The N recovery by the maize accounted 17.32% to 26.52% of N applied as gliricidia organic material. Gliricidia green manure N accumulation and release, and afterward microbial inoculations were substantially determining on maize crop N uptake and growth in sandy soil of Sub-Saharian Africa.
Restoration of the Dopamine Transporter through Cell Therapy Improves Dyskinesia in a Rat Model of Parkinson’s Disease

The dyskinesia of Parkinson's Disease is most likely due to excess levels of dopamine in the striatum. The mechanism may be due to aberrant synthesis but also, a deficiency or absence of the Dopamine Transporter. In this study we have examined the proposition that reinstating Dopamine Transporter expression in the striatum would reduce dyskinesia. We transplanted c17.2 cells that stably expressed the Dopamine Transporter into dyskinetic rats. There was a reduction in dyskinesia in rats that received grafts expressing the Dopamine Transporter. Strategies designed to increase Dopamine Transporter in the striatum may be useful in treating the dyskinesia associated with human Parkinson's Disease.
Role of impaired renal function as a cause of elevated plasma homocysteine concentration in psychogeriatric patients

In previous studies a high frequency of elevated plasma tHcy concentrations has been observed in psychogeriatric patients (40 - 50%), but the main cause of these increased concentrations could not be established with certainty. Impaired renal function could partly contribute to elevated plasma tHcy concentrations in psychogeriatric patients. Therefore, in the present study, cystatin C was used as a sensitive marker for glomerular filtration. A linear regression analysis including age, blood folate, serum cobalamin, serum cystatin C and serum creatinine showed that only serum creatinine (p<0.001) and blood folate (p<0.001) independently predicted plasma tHcy concentration. However, about 44% of the patients with elevated plasma tHcy concentrations had signs of reduced glomerular filtration rate, as judged by increased serum cystatin C, whereas only about 13% of the patients with normal concentrations of plasma tHcy had signs of reduced glomerular filtration rate. This finding indicates that renal impairment may to some extent contribute to the elevated plasma tHcy concentration, even though serum cystatin C did not independently predict plasma tHcy concentration.
Organochlorine Exposure and Colorectal Cancer Risk

Organochlorine compounds have been linked to increased risk of several cancers. Despite reductions in their use and fugitive release, they remain one of the most important groups of persistent pollutants to which humans are exposed, primarily through dietary intake. We designed a case–control study to assess the risk of colorectal cancer with exposure to these chemicals, and their potential interactions with genetic alterations in the tumors. A subsample of cases (n = 132) and hospital controls (n = 76) was selected from a larger case–control study in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. We measured concentrations in serum of several organochlorines by gas chromatography. We assessed point mutations in K-ras and p53 genes in tissue samples by polymerase chain reaction/single-strand conformation polymorphism and assessed expression of p53 protein by immunohistochemical methods. An elevated risk of colorectal cancer was associated with higher serum concentrations of mono-ortho polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congeners 28 and 118. The odds ratio for these mono-ortho PCBs for middle and higher tertile were, respectively, 1.82 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.90–3.70] and 2.94 (95% CI, 1.39–6.20). α-Hexachlorocyclohexane, hexachlorobenzene, and p,p′-DDE (4,4′-dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethene) showed nonsignificant increases in risk. Risk associated with mono-ortho PCBs was slightly higher for tumors with mutations in the p53 gene but was not modified by mutations in K-ras. Mono-ortho PCBs were further associated with transversion-type mutations in both genes. These results generate the hypothesis that exposure to mono-ortho PCBs contributes to human colorectal cancer development. The trend and magnitude of the association, as well as the observation of a molecular fingerprint in tumors, raise the possibility that this finding may be causal.
A Biologically‐Parameterized Feather Model

Feathers, unlike other cutaneous appendages such as hair, fur, or scales have a definite structure. Variation in feather structure creates a wide range of resulting appearances. Collectively, feather structure determines the appearance of the feather coat, which can largely affect the resulting look of a feathered object (bird). In this paper we define the structure of individual feathers using a parameterization based on biological structure and substructures of actual feathers. We show that our parameterization can generate a large variety of feathers at multiple levels of detail and provide an initial step to semi‐automatically generating a wide range of feather coats. his is achieved by specifying an intuitive interpolation between different structures and ages of feathers.
Differences in the degree of inhibition of NDP reductase by chemical inactivation and by the thermosensitive mutation nrdA101 in Escherichia coli suggest an effect on chromosome segregation

NDP reductase activity can be inhibited either by treatment with hydroxyurea or by incubation of an nrdAts mutant strain at the non-permissive temperature. Both methods inhibit replication, but experiments on these two types of inhibition yielded very different results. The chemical treatment immediately inhibited DNA synthesis but did not affect the cell and nucleoid appearance, while the incubation of an nrdA101 mutant strain at the non-permissive temperature inhibited DNA synthesis after more than 50 min, and resulted in aberrant chromosome segregation, long filaments, and a high frequency of anucleate cells. These phenotypes are not induced by SOS. In view of these results, we suggest there is an indirect relationship between NDP reductase and the chromosome segregation machinery through the maintenance of the proposed replication hyperstructure.
School Based Multicomponent Intervention for Obese Children in Udupi District, South India - A Randomized Controlled Trial.

INTRODUCTION Childhood obesity and overweight is a global epidemics and has been increasing in the developing countries. Childhood obesity is linked with increased mortality and morbidity independent of adult obesity. Declining physical activity, access to junk food and parenting style are the major determinants of overweight in children. Thus, there is a need for increasing the physical activity of children, educating the parents as well as the children on lifestyle modification. This can be achieved through implementation of multicomponent intervention. AIM To evaluate the effectiveness of multicomponent intervention on improving the lifestyle practices, reducing the body fat and improving the self esteem of obese children from selected schools of Udupi District, South India. MATERIALS AND METHODS A sample of 120 obese children were enrolled for multicomponent intervention. The components of multicomponent intervention were: education provided to the obese children on lifestyle modification, education of the parents and increasing the physical education activity of these children in the form of aerobics under the supervision of physical education teacher. There was an attrition of 25% in the intervention group. Thus the final sample in the intervention group was 90. Total sample of 131 overweight/ obese children enrolled as controls. There was an attrition of 20.61% in the control group. Thus, the final sample in the control group was 104. Intervention group received the multicomponent intervention for six month. RESULTS Mixed Method Repeated measures Ananlysis of Variance (ANOVA) was applied for analysis of data. Results indicated that the intervention was effective in reducing the Body Mass Index (BMI), triceps, biceps, subscapular skin fold thickness of obese children. The intervention was also effective in improving the lifestyle practices and self-esteem of obese children. CONCLUSION Overweight/obese children need to control diet and perform vigorous exercise at least for 20 minutes a day to reduce the excess fat and maintain their body fat level.
Subjective Textile Testing

Current consumer demands have led to increased interest in subjective evaluation of textile properties, but their assessment is often carried out by using techniques which cannot be justified as strictly valid. Tests in which a standard comparison is available are usually more likely to correlate well with objective measures, but the design of valid subjective tests is often imperfectly carried out. The mechanisms of subjective scaling are considered in this paper, which also examines several recent textile reports to determine the validity of their basic assumptions. Results obtained by arithmetically averaging ratings obtained from a scaling technique without objective validity should be regarded with suspicion, and theoretically sound methods (such as ranking or paired comparison), though less able to give convenient results, are more reliable in that they provide measures which have real meaning.
Multilingual number transcription for text-to-speech conversion

This paper describes the text normalization module of a text to speech fully-trainable conversion system and its application to number transcription. The main target is to generate a language independent text normalization module, based on data instead of on expert rules. This paper proposes a general architecture based on statistical machine translation techniques. This proposal is composed of three main modules: a tokenizer for splitting the text input into a token graph, a phrase-based translation module for token translation, and a post-processing module for removing some tokens. This architecture has been evaluated for number transcription in several languages: English, Spanish and Romanian. Number transcription is an important aspect in the text normalization problem.
One-Year Results of an Educational Program on Osteoarthritis

Introduction: Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is the most prevalent form of osteoarthritis. Low socioeconomic level, age, and obesity are directly correlated with the incidence of the disease. Education, exercise, and diet are the core recommendations of all KOA treatment guidelines. Objective: To evaluate the impact of a multiprofessional educational program on patients with KOA. Methods: Of a total of 198 participants, 150 patients with KOA attended 2 days of lectures (at 1- to 3-month intervals) and received educational material on osteoarthritis, and a control group (48 patients) received educational materials only. Body mass index (BMI), frequency, and intensity of physical activity, pain, function, and quality-of-life scores were assessed at baseline and at 4 and 12 months after the educational program. Bimonthly telephone calls were made to half of the participants. Correlations between BMI, level of education, coping skills, functional, and pain results was procured. Results: The groups were similar in terms of race, gender, affected side, and osteoarthritis severity. The results were not affected by the telephone calls or the patients’ level of education. At baseline, 25 performed physical activity, whereas 123 performed at 1 year. Seventy-two (36.36%) patients decreased BMI (45 by 1 point and 27 by more than 2 points). There were some weak correlations such as BMI reduction with pain and functional improvements and with coping results. Significant improvements in function and quality of life were found at 4 months. Quality of life remained improved at 1 year. Conclusion: The effect of this educational program in function and quality of life of patients with KOA is very subtle. Interval between classes (1, 2, or 3 months) is not an important issue.
The Cancer/Testis Antigen Melanoma-Associated Antigen-A3/A6 Is a Novel Target of Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptor 2-IIIb through Histone H3 Modifications in Thyroid Cancer

Purpose: Fibroblast growth factor (FGF) signals play fundamental roles in development and tumorigenesis. Thyroid cancer is an example of a tumor with nonoverlapping genetic mutations that up-regulate mitogen-activated protein kinase. We reported recently that FGF receptor 2 (FGFR2) is down-regulated through extensive DNA promoter methylation in thyroid cancer. Reexpression of the FGFR2-IIIb isoform impedes signaling upstream of the BRAF/mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway to interrupt tumor progression. In this analysis, we examined a novel target of FGFR2-IIIb signaling, melanoma-associated antigen-A3 and A6 (MAGE-A3/6). Experimental Design: cDNA microarray analysis was done on human WRO thyroid cancer cells transfected with FGFR2-IIIb or empty vector. Identified gene target was confirmed by reverse transcription-PCR and Western blotting. Gene regulation was examined by treatment of WRO cells with the methylation inhibitor 5′-azacytidine followed by methylation-specific PCR and reverse transcription-PCR and by chromatin immunoprecipitation. Results: Gene expression profiling identified the cancer/testis antigen MAGE-A3/6 as a novel target of FGFR2-IIIb signaling. MAGE-A3/6 regulation was mediated through DNA methylation and chromatin modifications. In particular, FGF7/FGFR2-IIIb activation resulted in histone 3 methylation and deacetylation associated with the MAGE-A3/6 promoter to down-regulate gene expression. Conclusions: These data unmask a complex repertoire of epigenetically controlled signals that govern FGFR2-IIIb and MAGE-A3/6 expression. Our findings provide insights into the interrelationship between novel tumor markers that may also represent overlapping therapeutic targets.
Primary Motor Cortex Activation during Action Observation of Tasks at Different Video Speeds Is Dependent on Movement Task and Muscle Properties

The aim of the present study was to investigate how the video speed of observed action affects the excitability of the primary motor cortex (M1), as assessed by the size of motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Twelve healthy subjects observed a video clip of a person catching a ball (Experiment 1: rapid movement) and another 12 healthy subjects observed a video clip of a person reaching to lift a ball (Experiment 2: slow movement task). We played each video at three different speeds (slow, normal and fast). The stimulus was given at two points of timing in each experiment. These stimulus points were locked to specific frames of the video rather than occurring at specific absolute times, for ease of comparison across different speeds. We recorded MEPs from the first dorsal interosseous muscle (FDI) and abductor digiti minimi muscle (ADM) of the right hand. MEPs were significantly different for different video speeds only in the rapid movement task. MEPs for the rapid movement task were higher when subjects observed an action played at slow speed than normal or fast speed condition. There was no significant change for the slow movement task. Video speed was effective only in the ADM. Moreover, MEPs in the ADM were significantly higher than in the FDI in a rapid movement task under the slow speed condition. Our findings suggest that the M1 becomes more excitable when subjects observe the video clip at the slow speed in a rapid movement, because they could recognize the elements of movement in others. Our results suggest the effects of manipulating the speed of the viewed task on the excitability of the M1 during passive observation differ depending on the type of movement task observed. It is likely that rehabilitation in the clinical setting will be more efficient if the video speed is changed to match the task’s characteristics.
Penetration of Dihydroartemisinin into Cerebrospinal Fluid after Administration of Intravenous Artesunate in Severe Falciparum Malaria

ABSTRACT Penetration of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) by artesunate and DHA was assessed in six adults with cerebral or severe malaria. Lumbar punctures were performed on admission and during convalescence, at 15 min (patient 1), 30 min (patient 2), 45 min (patient 3), 60 min (patient 4), 90 min (patient 5), and 120 min (patient 6) after intravenous administration of 120 mg of artesunate. No artesunate was detectable in CSF. In both studies, DHA levels in CSF increased with time while dihydroartemisinin levels in plasma fell. Dihydroartemisinin might accumulate in CSF during frequent artesunate dosing.