Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Message Passing Algorithm for Distributed Downlink Regularized Zero-Forcing Beamforming with Cooperative Base Stations

Base station (BS) cooperation can turn unwanted interference to useful signal energy for enhancing system performance. In the cooperative downlink, zero-forcing beamforming (ZFBF) with a simple scheduler is well known to obtain nearly the performance of the capacity-achieving dirty-paper coding. However, the centralized ZFBF approach is prohibitively complex as the network size grows. In this paper, we devise message passing algorithms for realizing the regularized ZFBF (RZFBF) in a distributed manner using belief propagation. In the proposed methods, the overall computational cost is decomposed into many smaller computation tasks carried out by groups of neighboring BSs and communication is only required between neighboring BSs. More importantly, some exchanged messages can be computed based on channel statistics rather than instantaneous channel state information, leading to significant reduction in computational complexity. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithms converge quickly to the exact RZFBF and much faster compared to conventional methods.
Characterizing transcriptional heterogeneity through pathway and gene set overdispersion analysis

The transcriptional state of a cell reflects a variety of biological factors, from cell-type-specific features to transient processes such as the cell cycle, all of which may be of interest. However, identifying such aspects from noisy single-cell RNA-seq data remains challenging. We developed pathway and gene set overdispersion analysis (PAGODA) to resolve multiple, potentially overlapping aspects of transcriptional heterogeneity by testing gene sets for coordinated variability among measured cells.
Catching predators at watering holes: finding and understanding strategically compromised websites

Unlike a random, run-of-the-mill website infection, in a strategic web attack, the adversary carefully chooses the target frequently visited by an organization or a group of individuals to compromise, for the purpose of gaining a step closer to the organization or collecting information from the group. This type of attacks, called "watering hole", have been increasingly utilized by APT actors to get into the internal networks of big companies and government agencies or monitor politically oriented groups. With its importance, little has been done so far to understand how the attack works, not to mention any concrete step to counter this threat. In this paper, we report our first step toward better understanding this emerging threat, through systematically discovering and analyzing new watering hole instances and attack campaigns. This was made possible by a carefully designed methodology, which repeatedly monitors a large number potential watering hole targets to detect unusual changes that could be indicative of strategic compromises. Running this system on the HTTP traffic generated from visits to 61K websites for over 5 years, we are able to discover and confirm 17 watering holes and 6 campaigns never reported before. Given so far there are merely 29 watering holes reported by blogs and technical reports, the findings we made contribute to the research on this attack vector, by adding 59% more attack instances and information about how they work to the public knowledge. Analyzing the new watering holes allows us to gain deeper understanding of these attacks, such as repeated compromises of political websites, their long lifetimes, unique evasion strategy (leveraging other compromised sites to serve attack payloads) and new exploit techniques (no malware delivery, web only information gathering). Also, our study brings to light interesting new observations, including the discovery of a recent JSONP attack on an NGO website that has been widely reported and apparently forced the attack to stop.
Special Communication

In vivo murine left ventricular pressure-volume relations by miniaturized conductance micromanometry In vivo murine left ventricular pressure-volume relations by miniaturized conductance micro-manometry. Am. —The mouse is the species of choice for creating genetically engineered models of human disease. To study detailed systolic and diastolic left ventricular (LV) chamber mechanics in mice in vivo, we developed a miniatur-ized conductance-manometer system. ␣-Chloralose-urethan-anesthetized animals were instrumented with a two-electrode pressure-volume catheter advanced via the LV apex to the aortic root. Custom electronics provided time-varying conductances related to cavity volume. Baseline hemodynam-ics were similar to values in conscious animals: 634 Ϯ 14 beats/min, 112 Ϯ 4 mmHg, 5.3 Ϯ 0.8 mmHg, and 11,777 Ϯ 732 mmHg/s for heart rate, end-systolic and end-diastolic pressures , and maximum first derivative of ventricular pressure with respect to time (dP/dt max), respectively. Catheter stroke volume during preload reduction by inferior vena caval occlusion correlated with that by ultrasound aortic flow probe (r 2 ϭ 0.98). This maneuver yielded end-systolic elastances of 79 Ϯ 21 mmHg/µl, preload-recruitable stroke work of 82 Ϯ 5.6 mmHg, and slope of dP/dt max-end-diastolic volume relation of 699 Ϯ 100 mmHg · s Ϫ1 ·µl Ϫ1 , and these relations varied predictably with acute inotropic interventions. The control normalized time-varying elastance curve was similar to human data, further supporting comparable chamber mechanics between species. This novel approach should greatly help assess cardiovascular function in the blood-perfused murine heart. THE APPLICATION of genetic engineering methods to mice has greatly expanded the ability to study the molecular foundations of physiology and disease. Many of these models, including those with gene manipulations without known direct cardiac specificity, display dramatic changes in cardiac morphology and/or integrated cardio-vascular physiology (9, 14, 21, 22). This has greatly increased the need for rigorous quantification of cardio-vascular dynamics in intact animals (7). Such analysis is achievable in larger animals and humans on the basis of measurements of simultaneous cardiac chamber pressure and volume. Relations between and based on these variables have been established as among the most specific and precise means of assessing intrinsic passive and active properties of the intact heart, as well as quantifying its energetics and interaction with the arterial system (27). To date, however, application of this approach to mice has been stymied by methodologi-cal limitations. In this study, we demonstrate the feasibility and utility of conductance micromanometry for assessment of cardiovascular dynamics and chamber mechanics of in vivo …
Feelings for the Suffering of Others and the Environment

Recent research has shown that compassionate feelings for the suffering environment promote conservation of nature. We extend this notion and relate compassion for suffering humans to proenvironmental tendencies. The proposed relation should hold true as compassion elicits moral actions and judgments across different moral domains which should also be applicable to the environment. Therefore, we expect compassion for other humans to relate positively to proenvironmental tendencies. Two studies were conducted to test this assumption. Study 1 included three independent samples (final N = 2,096) and several measures of proenvironmental tendencies. Results revealed that compassion was indeed positively related to proenvironmental values, proenvironmental intentions, and reported donations to nature or environmental organizations. In Study 2, we experimentally tested and found a causal path between compassion for humans and proenvironmental intentions. Implications for climate change and protection of nature are discussed.
Targeted Strategic Trade Policy with Domestic Cost Heterogeneity

This paper examines optimal strategic trade policy under oligopoly with many home and foreign firms when firms have different levels of efficiency and a trade-off exists between the subsidy bill and firms’ profits. The first-best policy involves a structure of firm-specific export subsidies and export taxes in which the government favours the most efficient firms unless the social cost of funds is sufficiently high. When the policy is constrained to a uniform subsidy, the optimal policy depends on the relative number of home and foreign firms and on the curvature of demand. Deficiencies of the uniform subsidy are examined. (99 words)
How Anacetrapib Inhibits the Activity of the Cholesteryl Ester Transfer Protein? Perspective through Atomistic Simulations

Cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) mediates the reciprocal transfer of neutral lipids (cholesteryl esters, triglycerides) and phospholipids between different lipoprotein fractions in human blood plasma. A novel molecular agent known as anacetrapib has been shown to inhibit CETP activity and thereby raise high density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol and decrease low density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol, thus rendering CETP inhibition an attractive target to prevent and treat the development of various cardiovascular diseases. Our objective in this work is to use atomistic molecular dynamics simulations to shed light on the inhibitory mechanism of anacetrapib and unlock the interactions between the drug and CETP. The results show an evident affinity of anacetrapib towards the concave surface of CETP, and especially towards the region of the N-terminal tunnel opening. The primary binding site of anacetrapib turns out to reside in the tunnel inside CETP, near the residues surrounding the N-terminal opening. Free energy calculations show that when anacetrapib resides in this area, it hinders the ability of cholesteryl ester to diffuse out from CETP. The simulations further bring out the ability of anacetrapib to regulate the structure-function relationships of phospholipids and helix X, the latter representing the structural region of CETP important to the process of neutral lipid exchange with lipoproteins. Altogether, the simulations propose CETP inhibition to be realized when anacetrapib is transferred into the lipid binding pocket. The novel insight gained in this study has potential use in the development of new molecular agents capable of preventing the progression of cardiovascular diseases.
New Multiply-Lensed Galaxies Identified in ACS/NIC3 Observations of Cl0024+1654, Using an Improved Mass Model

We present an improved strong-lensing analysis of Cl0024+1654 (z = 0.39) using deep Hubble Space Telescope (HST)/Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS)/NIC3 images, based on 33 multiply-lensed images of 11 background galaxies. These are found with a model that assumes mass approximately traces light, with a low-order expansion to allow for flexibility on large scales. The model is constrained initially by the well-known five-image system (z = 1.675) and refined as new multiply-lensed systems are identified using the model. Photometric redshifts of these new systems are then used to constrain better the mass profile by adopting the standard cosmological relation between redshift and lensing distance. Our model requires only six free parameters to describe well all positional and redshift data. The resulting inner mass profile has a slope of d log M/ dl ogr �− 0.55, consistent with new weak-lensing measurements where the data overlap, at r � 200 kpc/h70. The combined profile is well fitted by a high-concentration Navarro, Frenk & White (NFW) mass profile, Cvir ∼ 8.6 ± 1.6,
Dexmedetomidine prevent postoperative nausea and vomiting on patients during general anesthesia

Background: Postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) is a frequent complication in postoperative period. The aim of this article was to evaluate the effect of dexmedetomidine on PONV. Method: RevMan 5.3 software was applied for performing statistic analysis. Twenty-four trials with 2046 patients were included. Results: The PONV of the dexmedetomidine group was significantly lower compared with the placebo group (0.56, 95% CI: 0.46, 0.69). Subgroup analysis further confirmed the effect of dexmedetomidine (irrespective of administration mode) (P < 0.00001). Perioperative fentanyl consumption in dexmedetomidine group were also reduced significantly (P < 0.00001). Whereas, side effects such as bradycardia, hypotension increased in dexmedetomidine group (especially in loading dose mode and loading dose plus continuous infusion mode). Conclusions: Dexmedetomidine administrated in continuous infusion mode has the advantage to prevent PONV as well as reduce side effects such as bradycardia and hypotension.
Cosmological simulations of the growth of supermassive black holes and feedback from active galactic nuclei: method and tests

We present a method that self-consistently tracks the growth of supermassive black holes (BHs) and the feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGN) in cosmological, hydrodynamical simulations. Our model is a substantially modified version of the one introduced by Springel, Di Matteo & Hernquist implemented in a significantly expanded version of the gadget III code, which contains new prescriptions for star formation, supernova feedback, radiative cooling and chemodynamics. We simulate the growth of BHs from an initial seed state via Eddington-limited accretion of the surrounding gas, and via mergers with other BHs. Because cosmological simulations at present lack both the resolution and the physics to model the multiphase interstellar medium, they tend to strongly underestimate the Bondi–Hoyle accretion rate. To allow low-mass BHs to grow, it is therefore necessary to increase the predicted Bondi–Hoyle rates in star-forming gas by large factors, either by explicitly multiplying the accretion rate by a numerical correction factor or by using an unresolved, subgrid model for the gas close to the BH. We explore the physical regimes where the use of such multiplicative factors is reasonable, and through this introduce a new prescription for gas accretion by BHs. Feedback from AGN is modelled by coupling a fraction of the rest-mass energy of the accreted gas thermally into the surrounding medium. We describe the implementation as well as the limitations of the model in detail and motivate all the changes relative to previous work. We demonstrate how general physical considerations can be used to choose many of the parameters of the model and demonstrate that the fiducial model reproduces observational constraints. We employ a large suite of cosmological simulations, in which the parameters of the BH model are varied away from their fiducial values, to investigate the robustness of the predictions for the cosmic star formation history and the redshift zero cosmic BH density, BH scaling relations and galaxy-specific star formation rates. We find that the freedom introduced by the need to increase the predicted accretion rates by hand, the standard procedure in the literature, is the most significant source of uncertainty. Our simulations demonstrate that supermassive BHs are able to regulate their growth by releasing a fixed amount of energy for a given halo mass, independent of the assumed efficiency of AGN feedback, which sets the normalization of the BH scaling relations. Regardless of whether BH seeds are initially placed above or below the BH scaling relations, they grow on to the same scaling relations. AGN feedback efficiently suppresses star formation in high-mass galaxies.
Improved delay-range-dependent stability criteria for linear systems with interval time-varying delays [Brief Paper]

This study provides new delay-range-dependent stability criteria in the forms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) for systems with interval time-varying delays. Two cases concerning whether the derivative of the time delay is known are studied. A new estimation method is developed to estimate the non-linear time-varying coefficients derived from Jenson’s integral inequality more tightly than the existing ones. Along with convex combination and delay partitioning method, less conservative stability criteria are provided by utilising the new estimation method. Numerical examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Intergroup Communication in Online Forums: The Effect of Group Identification on Online Support Provision

Guided by the frameworks of the social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE) and the intergroup sensitivity effect, this experiment examined whether and how group identification manifested in user avatars, along with the supportiveness of others’ comments to a support-seeking post, may affect people’s support provision online. Participants were given the option to reply to a support-seeking post in an interactive forum. Participants’ responses were coded for verbal person-centeredness (VPC) and action-focused supportiveness. The SIDE model received some support. The results suggested that more participants replied to a support-seeking message posted by an in-group than by an out-group. Participants provided higher levels of action-focused supportiveness after viewing supportive comments from in-groups than from out-groups. They also provided messages with lower levels of VPC when exposed to unsupportive comments from in-groups than from out-groups. The intergroup sensitivity effect did not receive strong support. The implications of the study are discussed.
Recovering Risk Aversion from Options

Cross-sections of option prices embed the risk-neutral probability densities functions (PDFs) for the future values of the underlying asset. Theory suggests that risk-neutral PDFs differ from market expectations due to risk premia. Using a utility function to adjust the risk-neutral PDF to produce subjective PDFs, we can obtain measures of the risk aversion implied in option prices. Using FTSE 100 and S&P 500 options, and both power and exponential utility functions, we show that subjective PDFs accurately forecast the distribution of realizations, while risk-neutral PDFs do not. The estimated coefficients of relative risk aversion are all reasonable. The relative risk aversion estimates are remarkably consistent across utility functions and across markets for given horizons. The degree of relative risk aversion declines with the forecast horizon and is lower during periods of high market volatility.
The Rhox Homeobox Gene Cluster Is Imprinted and Selectively Targeted for Regulation by Histone H1 and DNA Methylation

ABSTRACT Histone H1 is an abundant and essential component of chromatin whose precise role in regulating gene expression is poorly understood. Here, we report that a major target of H1-mediated regulation in embryonic stem (ES) cells is the X-linked Rhox homeobox gene cluster. To address the underlying mechanism, we examined the founding member of the Rhox gene cluster—Rhox5—and found that its distal promoter (Pd) loses H1, undergoes demethylation, and is transcriptionally activated in response to loss of H1 genes in ES cells. Demethylation of the Pd is required for its transcriptional induction and we identified a single cytosine in the Pd that, when methylated, is sufficient to inhibit Pd transcription. Methylation of this single cytosine prevents the Pd from binding GA-binding protein (GABP), a transcription factor essential for Pd transcription. Thus, H1 silences Rhox5 transcription by promoting methylation of one of its promoters, a mechanism likely to extend to other H1-regulated Rhox genes, based on analysis of ES cells lacking DNA methyltransferases. The Rhox cluster genes targeted for H1-mediated transcriptional repression are also subject to another DNA methylation-regulated process: Xp imprinting. Remarkably, we found that only H1-regulated Rhox genes are imprinted, not those immune to H1-mediated repression. Together, our results indicate that the Rhox gene cluster is a major target of H1-mediated transcriptional repression in ES cells and that H1 is a candidate to have a role in Xp imprinting.
Asymptomatic Malaria among Blood Donors in Benin City Nigeria

Background This study aimed at determining the prevalence and associated risk factors for asymptomatic malaria parasitaemia and anemia among blood donors in a private medical laboratory in Benin City, Nigeria. Methods Venous blood was collected from a total of 247 blood donors. Malaria status, ABO, Rhesus blood groups and hemoglobin concentration of all participants were determined using standard methods. Results The prevalence of asymptomatic malaria infection was higher among commercial blood donors than volunteer group (commercial vs volunteer donor: 27.5 %vs. 13.8%; OR = 2.373, 95% CI = 0.793, 7.107, P = 0.174). Asymptomatic malaria was not significantly affected by gender (P = 0.733), age (P = 0.581), ABO (P = 0.433) and rhesus blood groups (P = 0.806) of blood donors. Age was observed to significantly (P = 0.015) affect malaria parasite density with donors within the age group of 21-26 years having the highest risk. The prevalence of anemia was significantly higher among commercial donors (commercial vs volunteer donors: 23.4% vs 3.4%: OR = 8.551, 95% CI = 1.135, 64.437, P = 0.013) and donors of blood group O type (P = < 0.0001). Conclusions Asymptomatic malaria parasitaemia and anemia was higher among commercial donors than voluntary donors. Mandatory screening of blood donors for malaria parasite is advocated to curb transfusion transmitted malaria and associated sequelae.
Effective Message-Sequence Generation for Testing BPEL Programs

With the popularity of Web Services and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), quality assurance of SOA applications, such as testing, has become a research focus. Programs implemented by the Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (WS-BPEL), which can be used to compose partner Web Services into composite Web Services, are one popular kind of SOA applications. The unique features of WS-BPEL programs bring new challenges into testing. A test case for testing a WS-BPEL program is a sequence of messages that can be received by the WS-BPEL program under test. Previous research has not studied the challenges of message-sequence generation induced by unique features of WS-BPEL as a new language. In this paper, we present a novel methodology to generate effective message sequences for testing WS-BPEL programs. To capture the order relationship in a message sequence and the constraints on correlated messages imposed by WS-BPEL's routing mechanism, we model the WS-BPEL program under test as a message-sequence graph (MSG), and generate message sequences based on MSG. We performed experiments for our method and two other techniques with six WS-BPEL programs. The results show that the message sequences generated by using our method can effectively expose faults in the WS-BPEL programs.
Real-time live face detection using face template matching and DCT energy analysis

This paper presents a method to detect the face of a live test subject in real time using a single camera as the image acquisition source. The objective is to improve the identification capability of biometric authentication systems based on face recognition by serving as a preprocessing tool to reject faces that do not belong to live humans and which can spoof the system into granting access. The face detection procedure involves skin area selection in the YCbCr color space and matching with a reference face template. Morphological operations such as erosion, dilation etc. have been avoided due to the uncertainty in the number of such operations that may be required under a varying real-time environment and also to reduce the computational cost of the algorithm. There are few parameters that can be considered as indicative of a live face, for example- pupil movements, nostril movements, 3D depth, and difference in number of high frequency components in live faces and photos etc. The proposed method involves the analysis of the image's DCT energy aided by detection of eye blinking and pupil movements. This yields a compact security scheme capable of resisting attacks by photographic imitation.