Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimum end-to-end distortion of interleaved transmission via a Rayleigh MIMO channel

In this paper, we study the optimum expected end-to-end distortion on a reproduced white thermal noise source conveyed over a flat Rayleigh fading multi-input multi-output (MIMO) channel with time-interleaving. Assuming no outage event happens, perfect channel information at the receiver and ideal interleaving, we derive the analytical expression of the tight lower bound on the expected quadratic end-to-end distortion for general signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) and analyze its asymptotic form at high SNR. Straightforwardly, the tight lower bound for no-outage cases is also a lower bound for outage cases although loose. Our results expose the mechanism of how time diversity branches benefit the end-to-end distortion for a MIMO system.
Effects of dietary inclusion of silymarin on performance, intestinal morphology and ileal bacterial count in aflatoxin‐challenged broiler chicks

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of dietary supplementation of silymarin on performance, jejunal morphology and ileal bacterial population in broiler chicks intoxicated with a mix of aflatoxins. A total of three hundred thirty six 7-day-old Ross broiler chicks were randomly distributed between seven experimental groups with four replicates of 12 birds each. Experimental treatments consisted of a control group (unchallenged), and a 2 × 3 factorial arrangement, including two aflatoxin levels (0.5 and 2 ppm) and three levels of silymarin (0, 500 and 1000 ppm). Birds were challenged with a mix of aflatoxins from 7 to 28 days of age. Results showed that increasing aflatoxin level resulted in decreased average daily feed intake (ADFI) and weight gain (ADWG), consequently impaired feed conversion ratio (FCR) throughout the trial period. Dietary supplementation of silymarin resulted in the marked increases in ADFI and ADWG, and improved FCR values in aflatoxin-challenged chicks. Ileal bacterial populations at days 28 and 42 of age were increased by incremental levels of aflatoxins. On the other hand, dietary silymarin supplementation suppressed ileal populations of Escherichia coli, Salmonella, Klebsiella and total negative bacteria in aflatoxicated birds. Increase in dietary aflatoxin level resulted in the decreased villi height, villi height-to-crypt depth ratio (VH:CD), villi surface area and apparent villi absorptive area, while it increased crypt depth, goblet cell count and lymphoid follicular diameter. Feeding silymarin at the level of 1000 ppm increased villi height and VH:CD in aflatoxicated birds. Present results indicate that dietary inclusion of silymarin could improve performance by suppressing ileal bacteria and enhancing absorptive surface area in aflatoxin-challenged broiler chicks.
The Zariski spectrum of the category of finitely presented modules

A representation-theoretic description of the Zariski spectrum of a commutative noetherian ring is applied to more general categories, giving the "Gabriel-Zariski" spectrum. Applied to functor categories it gives a topology, the "rep-Zariski spectrum" on the set of indecomposable pure-injective modules. This topology is dual to Ziegler's topology on the same underlying set. Associated presheaves of rings and of small abelian categories are defined. Examples of rep-Zariski spectra are computed. Over commutative coherent rings it is shown that, although its underlying set might be larger, the Gabriel-Zariski spectrum is topologically equivalent to the Zariski spectrum.
Toward Virtual Humans

This article describes the virtual humans developed as part of the Mission Rehearsal Exercise project, a virtual reality-based training system. This project is an ambitious exercise in integration, both in the sense of integrating technology with entertainment industry content, but also in that we have joined a number of component technologies that have not been integrated before. This integration has not only raised new research issues, but it has also suggested some new approaches to difficult problems. We describe the key capabilities of the virtual humans, including task representation and reasoning, natural language dialogue, and emotion reasoning, and show how these capabilities are integrated to provide more human-level intelligence than would otherwise be possible.
A Microsystem for Time-Resolved Fluorescence Analysis using CMOS Single-Photon Avalanche Diodes and Micro-LEDs

Although microfluidics and microarray technologies are revolutionizing the throughput, sensitivity and cost in many areas of biodiagnostics, they are still reliant on bulky and expensive fluorescence analysis instrumentation. Conventional fluorescence intensity measurements are prone to misinterpretation due to illumination and fluorophore concentration non-uniformities. Thus, there is a growing interest in time-resolved fluorescence detection, whereby the characteristic fluorescence decay time-constant (or lifetime) in response to an impulse excitation source is measured.
Kidney function and specific mortality in 60-80 years old post-myocardial infarction patients: A 10-year follow-up study

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is highly prevalent among older post-myocardial infarction (MI) patients. It is not known whether CKD is an independent risk factor for mortality in older post-MI patients with optimal cardiovascular drug-treatment. Therefore, we studied the relation between kidney function and all-cause and specific mortality among older post-MI patients, without severe heart failure, who are treated with state-of-the-art pharmacotherapy. From 2002–2006, 4,561 Dutch post-MI patients were enrolled and followed until death or January 2012. We estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate (eGFR) with cystatin C (cysC) and creatinine (cr) using the CKD-EPI equations and analyzed the relation with any and major causes of death using Cox models and restricted cubic splines. Mean (SD) for age was 69 years (5.6), 79% were men, 17% smoked, 21% had diabetes, 90% used antihypertensive drugs, 98% used antithrombotic drugs and 85% used statins. Patients were divided into four categories of baseline eGFRcysC: ≥90 (33%; reference), 60–89 (47%), 30–59 (18%), and <30 (2%) ml/min/1.73m2. Median follow-up was 6.4 years. During follow-up, 873 (19%) patients died: 370 (42%) from cardiovascular causes, 309 (35%) from cancer, and 194 (22%) from other causes. After adjustment for age, sex and classic cardiovascular risk factor, hazard ratios (95%-confidence intervals) for any death according to the four eGFRcysC categories were: 1 (reference), 1.4 (1.1–1.7), 2.9 (2.3–3.6) and 4.4 (3.0–6.4). The hazard ratios of all-cause and cause-specific mortality increased linearly below kidney functions of 80 ml/min/1.73 m2. Weaker results were obtained for eGFRcr. To conclude, we found in optimal cardiovascular drug-treated post-MI patients an inverse graded relation between kidney function and mortality for both cardiovascular as well as non-cardiovascular causes. Risk of mortality increased linearly below kidney function of about 80 ml/min/1.73 m2.
Formation of a full complement of cranial proprioceptors requires multiple neurotrophins

Inactivation of neurotrophin‐3 (NT3) completely blocks the development of limb proprioceptive neurons and their end organs, the muscle spindles. We examined whether cranial proprioceptive neurons of the trigeminal mesencephalic nucleus (TMN) require NT3, brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) or neurotrophin‐4 (NT4) for their development. Complements of TMN neurons and masticatory muscle spindles were decreased by 62% in NT3 null mutants, 33% in BDNF null mutants, and 10% in NT4 null mutant mice at birth. The extent of proprioceptive deficiencies differed among different masticatory muscles, particularly in NT3 null mice. Masticatory muscles of embryonic mice heterozygous for the NT3lacZneo or BDNFlacZ reporter genes expressed both NT3 and BDNF, consistent with target‐derived neurotrophin support of TMN neurons. Although more than 90% of TMN neurons expressed TrkB as well as TrkC receptor proteins by immunocytochemistry in wild‐type newborns, TrkC or TrkB null mice exhibited only partial proprioceptive deficiencies similar to those present in NT3 or BDNF;NT4 null mice. Thus, in terms of the survival outcome, two main subpopulations of TMN neurons may exist during embryogenesis, one dependent on TrkC/NT3 functioning and the other utilizing TrkB/BDNF signaling. The differential dependence of TMN neurons on neurotrophins may reflect differential accessibility of the neurons to limiting amounts of NT3, BDNF, or NT4 in target tissues, especially if the tissue distribution or levels of BDNF, NT3, and NT4 were dynamically regulated both spatially and temporally. Dev Dyn;218:359–370. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Nonverbal robot-group interaction using an imitated gaze cue

Ensuring that a particular and unsuspecting member of a group is the recipient of a salient-item hand-over is a complicated interaction. The robot must effectively, expediently and reliably communicate its intentions to advert any tendency within the group towards antinormative behaviour. In this paper, we study how a robot can establish the participant roles of such an interaction using imitated social and contextual cues. We designed two gaze cues, the first was designed to discourage antinormative behaviour through individualising a particular member of the group and the other to the contrary. We designed and conducted a field experiment (456 participants in 64 trials) in which small groups of people (between 3 and 20 people) assembled in front of the robot, which then attempted to pass a salient object to a particular group member by presenting a physical cue, followed by one of two variations of a gaze cue. Our results showed that presenting the individualising cue had a significant (z=3.733, p=0.0002 ) effect on the robot's ability to ensure that an arbitrary group member did not take the salient object and that the selected participant did.
PM Synchronous Machine PMSM Performance Improvement

Due to the importance of PM synchronous machine in many categories like in industrial, mechatronics, automotive, energy storage flywheel, centrifugal compressor, vacuum pump and robotic applications moreover in smart power grid applications, this paper is presented. It reviews the improvement of permanent magnet synchronous machines performance researches. This is done depending on many researchers' papers as samples for many aspects like: modelling, control, optimization and design to present a satisfied literature review
Extracting an English-Persian Parallel Corpus from Comparable Corpora

Parallel data are an important part of a reliable Statistical Machine Translation (SMT) system. The more of these data are available, the better the quality of the SMT system. However, for some language pairs such as Persian-English, parallel sources of this kind are scarce. In this paper, a bidirectional method is proposed to extract parallel sentences from English and Persian document aligned Wikipedia. Two machine translation systems are employed to translate from Persian to English and the reverse after which an IR system is used to measure the similarity of the translated sentences. Adding the extracted sentences to the training data of the existing SMT systems is shown to improve the quality of the translation. Furthermore, the proposed method slightly outperforms the one-directional approach. The extracted corpus consists of about 200,000 sentences which have been sorted by their degree of similarity calculated by the IR system and is freely available for public access on the Web.
Genetic Variants, Prediagnostic Circulating Levels of Insulin-like Growth Factors, Insulin, and Glucose and the Risk of Colorectal Cancer: The Multiethnic Cohort Study

Background: Increased exposure of colonic and rectal epithelial cells to the promitotic and antiapoptotic effects of insulin and insulin-like growth factors (IGF) is hypothesized to increase colorectal cancer risk. Methods: In a case–control study nested within the Multiethnic Cohort, we attempted to replicate associations for five genetic variants associated with IGF system biomarkers, insulin, or glucose and to examine their association with the risk of colorectal cancer. In a subset of participants, the association between circulating biomarkers and colorectal cancer risk was examined. Unconditional logistic regression was used to calculate ORs and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for genetic variants (1,954 cases/2,587 controls) and serum biomarkers (258 cases/1,701 controls). Results: Associations with circulating biomarkers were replicated in the Multiethnic Cohort for IGF1 rs35767 and for IGFBP3 rs2854744, rs2854746, and rs3110697 (P < 0.05). Homozygous carriers of the glucokinase regulator (GCKR) rs780094 variant T-allele were at a decreased risk of colorectal cancer (OR, 0.77; 95% CI, 0.64–0.92). In risk factor–adjusted models, participants with the highest prediagnostic IGF-II levels were at an increased risk [OR (T1 vs. T3), 1.58; 95% CI, 1.09–2.28; Ptrend = 0.011] and participants with the highest prediagnostic IGF-binding protein (IGFBP)-3 levels were at a decreased risk of colorectal cancer (OR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.34–0.83; Ptrend = 0.003). Conclusion: These data provide further support for a role of prediagnostic IGF and insulin levels in the etiology of colorectal cancer. Impact: Future studies attempting to replicate the association between the GCKR rs780094 variant and the risk of colorectal cancer are warranted. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 21(5); 810–20. ©2012 AACR.
The ethics of disclosing genetic diagnosis for Alzheimer's disease: do we need a new paradigm?

INTRODUCTION OR BACKGROUND Genetic testing for rare Mendelian disorders represents the dominant ethical paradigm in clinical and professional practice. Predictive testing for Huntington's disease is the model against which other kinds of genetic testing are evaluated, including testing for Alzheimer's disease. SOURCES OF DATA This paper retraces the historical development of ethical reasoning in relation to predictive genetic testing and reviews a range of ethical, sociological and psychological literature from the 1970s to the present. AREAS OF AGREEMENT In the past, ethical reasoning has embodied a distinct style whereby normative principles are developed from a dominant disease exemplar. AREAS OF CONTROVERSY This reductionist approach to formulating ethical frameworks breaks down in the case of disease susceptibility. GROWING POINTS Recent developments in the genetics of Alzheimer's disease present a significant case for reconsidering the ethics of disclosing risk for common complex diseases. Disclosing the results of susceptibility testing for Alzheimer's disease has different social, psychological and behavioural consequences. Furthermore, what genetic susceptibility means to individuals and their families is diffuse and often mitigated by other factors and concerns. AREAS TIMELY FOR DEVELOPING RESEARCH The ethics of disclosing a genetic diagnosis of susceptibility is contingent on whether professionals accept that probabilistic risk information is in fact 'diagnostic' and it will rely substantially on empirical evidence of how people actually perceive, recall and communicate complex risk information.
Using Conversation Analysis to Study Gender： An alternative to the ＇gender- differences＇ paradigm＊

Research on gender and language has typically been underpinned by the premise that women and men are essentially different,and that these differences are evident in how they talk.In this paper,I introduce—and argue in favour of—the conversation analytic(CA)approach to gender as an alternative to a gender-differences paradigm.I describe what I take to be the three main challenges that conversation analysts have levied against such an approach,which I summarise as:a question of evidence,a question of relevance,and a question of existence(or ontology). I then describe,and critically evaluate,the classic solution to these questions that conversation analysts have proposed:a focus on‘participant orientations’to gender.I suggest that—in addition to correcting some of the mistaken analyses of interactional phenomena evident in gender-differences research—CA can inspire new ways of thinking about old research questions.I also propose that the question of what counts as an orientation to gender and,relatedly,how best to analyse the taken-for-granted social world,provide particularly fruitful areas for future research.I conclude by calling on researchers and students of gender to avoid using the assumption of essential difference as the starting point for academic endeavour.
How Do Industry Peers Respond to Control Threats?

This paper studies how industry peers respond when another firm in the industry is the subject of a hostile takeover attempt. The industry peers cut their capital spending, free cash flows, and cash holdings, and increase their leverage and payouts to shareholders. They also adopt more takeover defenses. The stock price reaction upon announcement of the takeover is positive and larger for peer firms with higher capital spending and higher free cash flows. Before the takeover attempt, the peer firms borrow less and invest more than predicted. Both stock returns and performance improve after the takeover attempt. These results are consistent with the argument that the control threat has important spillover effects for the other firms in the industry. This paper was accepted by Wei Xiong, finance.
The relationship between shaved margin and inked margin status in breast excision specimens

The presence of tumor at the inked margins (IMs) of breast specimens is associated with an increased risk of local recurrence after breast‐conserving therapy for invasive breast carcinoma and ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). Given the importance of margin status, some have advocated the use of shaved margins (SMs) as a means of conducting a more complete examination of the specimen margins than could be done with sections taken perpendicular to the IMs. However, it is not known whether these two methods of margin assessment provide comparable information.
Relationship between oral malodor and the menstrual cycle.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Sex hormones have been suggested to be important modifying factors that may influence the pathogenesis of periodontal disease. This study examined changes in volatile sulfur compounds (VSC) levels, clinical parameters and bacterial levels during the menstrual cycle. MATERIAL AND METHODS The study group consisted of 10 female subjects with periodontitis and 12 periodontally healthy female subjects. Clinical and bacterial measurements were performed for all subjects during the ovulation and follicular phases of the menstrual cycle. RESULTS Bleeding on probing (BOP) was significantly increased in the ovulation phase in periodontitis subjects but not in healthy subjects. The VSC levels in subjects with periodontitis increased 2.2-fold in the ovulation phase compared with the follicular phase. In the ovulation phase, VSC levels and BOP were significantly higher in subjects with periodontitis than in healthy subjects. The number, and salivary levels, of Prevotella intermedia in subjects with periodontitis were significantly higher in the ovulation phase than in the follicular phase. CONCLUSION The present study indicated changes in VSC, BOP and P. intermedia during the menstrual cycles of women with periodontitis.
Coulomb GANs: Provably Optimal Nash Equilibria via Potential Fields

Generative adversarial networks (GANs) evolved into one of the most successful unsupervised techniques for generating realistic images. Even though it has recently been shown that GAN training converges, GAN models often end up in local Nash equilibria that are associated with mode collapse or otherwise fail to model the target distribution. We introduce Coulomb GANs, which pose the GAN learning problem as a potential field of charged particles, where generated samples are attracted to training set samples but repel each other. The discriminator learns a potential field while the generator decreases the energy by moving its samples along the vector (force) field determined by the gradient of the potential field. Through decreasing the energy, the GAN model learns to generate samples according to the whole target distribution and does not only cover some of its modes. We prove that Coulomb GANs possess only one Nash equilibrium which is optimal in the sense that the model distribution equals the target distribution. We show the efficacy of Coulomb GANs on a variety of image datasets. On LSUN and celebA, Coulomb GANs set a new state of the art and produce a previously unseen variety of different samples.
Coxiella burnetii (Q fever) seroprevalence in cattle

SUMMARY Human cases of Q fever appear to be common in Northern Ireland compared to the rest of the British Isles. The purpose of this study was to describe the seroepidemiology of Coxiella burnetii infection in cattle in Northern Ireland in terms of seroprevalence and determinants of infection. A total of 5182 animals (from a stratified systematic random sample of 273 herds) were tested with a commercial C. burnetii phase 2 IgG ELISA. A total of 6·2% of animals and 48·4% of herds tested positively. Results from a multilevel logistic regression model indicated that the odds of cattle being infected with Q fever increased with age, Friesian breed, being from large herds and from dairy herds. Large dairy herd animal prevalence was 12·5% compared to 2·1% for small beef herds. Preliminary seroprevalence in sheep (12·3%), goats (9·3%), pigs (0%) rats (9·7%) and mice (3·2%) using indirect immunofluorescence is reported.
Assessment of Vulnerability to Extreme Flash Floods in Design Storms

There has been an increase in the occurrence of sudden local flooding of great volume and short duration caused by heavy or excessive rainfall intensity over a small area, which presents the greatest potential danger threat to the natural environment, human life, public health and property, etc. Such flash floods have rapid runoff and debris flow that rises quickly with little or no advance warning to prevent flood damage. This study develops a flash flood index through the average of the same scale relative severity factors quantifying characteristics of hydrographs generated from a rainfall-runoff model for the long-term observed rainfall data in a small ungauged study basin, and presents regression equations between rainfall characteristics and the flash flood index. The aim of this study is to develop flash flood index-duration-frequency relation curves by combining the rainfall intensity-duration-frequency relation and the flash flood index from probability rainfall data in order to evaluate vulnerability to extreme flash floods in design storms. This study is an initial effort to quantify the flash flood severity of design storms for both existing and planned flood control facilities to cope with residual flood risks due to extreme flash floods that have ocurred frequently in recent years.
Chromatofocusing: a new method for purification of staphylococcal enterotoxins B and C1

A new chromatographic procedure was developed which obtained highly purified preparations of staphylococcal enterotoxins B and C1 in yields of 60% from cultures of Staphylococcus aureus and which is faster than any of the separation methods used previously. The procedure involves chromatography on carboxymethylcellulose, removal of alpha-toxin by adsorption to rabbit erythrocyte membranes, and finally, chromatofocusing as the fundamental new step. Enterotoxins were obtained in highly purified form and behaved in a homogeneous manner as determined by ultracentrifugation and electrophoresis on polyacrylamide gel in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate, with molecular weights of 34,000 for staphylococcal enterotoxin B and 30,000 for staphylococcal enterotoxin C1. Using chromatofocusing as the final purification step, we isolated three B and six C1 distinct but immunologically identical enterotoxin fractions, which were found to be devoid of any impurities and to possess a marked degree of toxicity in monkeys.