Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cold DUst around NEarby Stars (DUNES). First results A resolved exo-Kuiper belt around the solar-like star zeta(2) Ret

We present the first far-IR observations of the solar-type stars delta Pav, HR 8501, 51 Peg and zeta(2) Ret, taken within the context of the DUNES Herschel open time key programme (OTKP). This project uses the PACS and SPIRE instruments with the objective of studying infrared excesses due to exo-Kuiper belts around nearby solar-type stars. The observed 100 mu m fluxes from delta Pav, HR 8501, and 51 Peg agree with the predicted photospheric fluxes, excluding debris disks brighter than L-dust/L-star similar to 5 x 10(-7) (1 sigma level) around those stars. A flattened, disk-like structure with a semi-major axis of similar to 100 AU in size is detected around zeta(2) Ret. The resolved structure suggests the presence of an eccentric dust ring, which we interpret as an exo-Kuiper belt with L-dust/L-star approximate to 10(-5).
Effect of the Camelid’s Seminal Plasma Ovulation-Inducing Factor/β-NGF: A Kisspeptin Target Hypothesis

Female mammals are classified into spontaneous and induced ovulators based on the mechanism eliciting ovulation. Ovulation in spontaneous species (e.g., human, sheep, cattle, horse, pigs, and most rodents) occurs at regular intervals and depends upon the circulating estradiol. However, in induced ovulators (e.g., rabbits, ferrets, cats, and camelids), ovulation is associated with coitus. In the later, various factors have been proposed to trigger ovulation, including auditory, visual, olfactory, and mechanic stimuli. However, other studies have identified a biochemical component in the semen of induced ovulators responsible for the induction of ovulation and named accordingly ovulation-inducing factor (OIF). In camelids, intramuscular or intrauterine administration of seminal plasma (SP) was shown to induce the preovulatory luteinizing hormone (LH) surge followed by ovulation and subsequent formation of corpus luteum. Recently, this OIF has been identified from SP as a neurotrophin, the β subunit of nerve growth factor (β-NGF). β-NGF is well known as promoting neuron survival and growth, but in this case, it appears to induce ovulation through an endocrine mode of action. Indeed, β-NGF may be absorbed through the endometrium to be conveyed, via the blood stream, to the central structures regulating the LH preovulatory surge. In this review, we provide a summary of the most relevant results obtained in the field, and we propose a working hypothesis for the central action of β-NGF based on our recent demonstration of the presence of neurons expressing kisspeptin, a potent stimulator of GnRH/LH, in the camel hypothalamus.
Neuromyelitis optica lesions may inform multiple sclerosis heterogeneity debate

Neuromyelitis optica (NMO) and multiple sclerosis (MS) are considered inflammatory demyelinating diseases with distinguishing pathological characteristics. NMO pathology shows perivascular immunoglobulin G and complement deposition, as well as an astrocytopathy with aquaporin‐4 (AQP4) loss. MS lesions reveal a profound, interindividual heterogeneity in immunopathological patterns of active demyelination, which has been challenged by the description of stage‐dependent sequences of pathological features. The aim of our study was to compare the histological characteristics of early active demyelinating NMO and MS brain lesions.
Frequent mutation of receptor protein tyrosine phosphatases provides a mechanism for STAT3 hyperactivation in head and neck cancer

Significance Most cancers are characterized by increased STAT3 activation where phosphorylated STAT3 levels are associated with reduced survival. The molecular mechanisms underlying aberrant STAT3 phosphorylation/activation in human malignancies have been elusive. Our findings provide a mechanistic basis for tumor-specific STAT3 hyperactivation in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). We demonstrate that receptor-like protein tyrosine phosphatases, encoded by PTPR genes, including PTPRT, are commonly mutated in HNSCC where PTPR mutations are associated with increased phosphorylation of STAT3 in tumors. Several cancer-related PTPRT mutations localize to the substrate interaction surface of the enzyme catalytic domains. Expression of mutated PTPRT in HNSCC models markedly increases STAT3 activation, promoting cellular survival. PTPRT mutations may therefore serve as predictive biomarkers for STAT3 pathway inhibitors, suggesting new therapeutic opportunities. The underpinnings of STAT3 hyperphosphorylation resulting in enhanced signaling and cancer progression are incompletely understood. Loss-of-function mutations of enzymes that dephosphorylate STAT3, such as receptor protein tyrosine phosphatases, which are encoded by the PTPR gene family, represent a plausible mechanism of STAT3 hyperactivation. We analyzed whole exome sequencing (n = 374) and reverse-phase protein array data (n = 212) from head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs). PTPR mutations are most common and are associated with significantly increased phospho-STAT3 expression in HNSCC tumors. Expression of receptor-like protein tyrosine phosphatase T (PTPRT) mutant proteins induces STAT3 phosphorylation and cell survival, consistent with a “driver” phenotype. Computational modeling reveals functional consequences of PTPRT mutations on phospho-tyrosine–substrate interactions. A high mutation rate (30%) of PTPRs was found in HNSCC and 14 other solid tumors, suggesting that PTPR alterations, in particular PTPRT mutations, may define a subset of patients where STAT3 pathway inhibitors hold particular promise as effective therapeutic agents.
Call admission control for multitier networks with integrated voice and data services

Hierarchical Cell Structure (HCS) has become a major trend in the design of Third Generation (3G) system networks in order to support the high capacity demand required for multimedia traffic in 3G systems. In this type of network, an efficient call admission scheme is required to improve the Quality of Service (QoS) of the system in terms of dropping probability, blocking probability, and channel utilisation. This paper proposed and analysed a call admission scheme for supporting both voice and data traffic in HCS that uses both guard channels and queuing to handle the communication traffic in the system shows improvement in the performance of the system when a guard channel used.
Contributions of phenotypic plasticity to differences in thermogenic performance between highland and lowland deer mice

SUMMARY Small mammals face especially severe thermoregulatory challenges at high altitude because the reduced O2 availability constrains the capacity for aerobic thermogenesis. Adaptive enhancement of thermogenic performance under hypoxic conditions may be achieved via physiological adjustments that occur within the lifetime of individuals (phenotypic plasticity) and/or genetically based changes that occur across generations, but their relative contributions to performance differences between highland and lowland natives are unclear. Here, we examined potentially evolved differences in thermogenic performance between populations of deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus) that are native to different altitudes. The purpose of the study was to assess the contribution of phenotypic plasticity to population differences in thermogenic performance under hypoxia. We used a common-garden deacclimation experiment to demonstrate that highland deer mice have enhanced thermogenic capacities under hypoxia, and that performance differences between highland and lowland mice persist when individuals are born and reared under common-garden conditions, suggesting that differences in thermogenic capacity have a genetic basis. Conversely, population differences in thermogenic endurance appear to be entirely attributable to physiological plasticity during adulthood. These combined results reveal distinct sources of phenotypic plasticity for different aspects of thermogenic performance, and suggest that thermogenic capacity and endurance may have different mechanistic underpinnings.
Thermal Mechanisms of Grain and Packet Refinement in a Lath Martensitic Steel

This work was done to clarify the metallurgical mechanisms that are used in thermal treatments to refine the effective grain size of lath martensitic steels. The alloy chosen for this work was Fe–12Ni–0.25Ti, which provides a well-defined lath martensite structure in the as-quenched condition. The alloy was given four prototypic heat treatments: (1) an anneal-and-quench treatment, (2) an intercritical anneal, (3) a single or double anneal in the austenite range, and (4) a single or double reversion to austenite at a rapid heating rate. Two effective grain sizes were identified for each heat treatment: the packet size, or dimension over which adjacent martensite laths have a common crystallographic orientation, and the prior austenite grain size. The former controls the ductile–brittle transition temperature (DBTT), the latter controls intergranular embrittlement. The different heat treatments suppress the DBTT and increase resistance to intergranular embrittlement to the extent that they decrease the relevant grain size. Rapid reversion is the most successful of the heat treatments since it destroys the alignment of laths within a packet. Rapid reversion readily yields an effective grain size near 1 μm, leading to a very low ductile–brittle transition temperature and a substantial resistance to temper or hydrogen embrittlement.
Other-Cell Interference Aware Precoding for the Downlink of Multi-User MIMO AF Communication

Amplify-and-forward (AF) is one of the most popular and simple approaches for transmitting information over a cooperative multi-input multi-output (MIMO) relay channel. In cooperative communication, relays are employed for improving the coverage or enhancing the spectral efficiency, especially of cell-edge users. However, in a multi-cell context, the use of relays will also lead to an increase in the level of interference that is experienced by cell-edge users of neighboring cells. In this paper, two novel precoding schemes are proposed for mitigating this adverse effect of cooperative communication. They are designed by taking into account the effect of interference coming from neighboring cells, i.e. other cell-interference (OCI), in order to maximize the sum-rate of cell-edge users. Our novel OCI-aware precoding schemes are compared against non OCI-aware techniques and results show the large performance gain in terms of sum-rate that our schemes can achieved, especially for large numbers of users and/or antennas in the multi-cell system.
Novel Computational Methodologies for Structural Modeling of Spacious Ligand Binding Sites of G-Protein-Coupled Receptors: Development and Application to Human Leukotriene B4 Receptor

This paper describes a novel method to predict the activated structures of G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) with high accuracy, while aiming for the use of the predicted 3D structures in in silico virtual screening in the future. We propose a new method for modeling GPCR thermal fluctuations, where conformation changes of the proteins are modeled by combining fluctuations on multiple time scales. The core idea of the method is that a molecular dynamics simulation is used to calculate average 3D coordinates of all atoms of a GPCR protein against heat fluctuation on the picosecond or nanosecond time scale, and then evolutionary computation including receptor-ligand docking simulations functions to determine the rotation angle of each helix of a GPCR protein as a movement on a longer time scale. The method was validated using human leukotriene B4 receptor BLT1 as a sample GPCR. Our study demonstrated that the proposed method was able to derive the appropriate 3D structure of the active-state GPCR which docks with its agonists.
KORE: keyphrase overlap relatedness for entity disambiguation

Measuring the semantic relatedness between two entities is the basis for numerous tasks in IR, NLP, and Web-based knowledge extraction. This paper focuses on disambiguating names in a Web or text document by jointly mapping all names onto semantically related entities registered in a knowledge base. To this end, we have developed a novel notion of semantic relatedness between two entities represented as sets of weighted (multi-word) keyphrases, with consideration of partially overlapping phrases. This measure improves the quality of prior link-based models, and also eliminates the need for (usually Wikipedia-centric) explicit interlinkage between entities. Thus, our method is more versatile and can cope with long-tail and newly emerging entities that have few or no links associated with them. For efficiency, we have developed approximation techniques based on min-hash sketches and locality-sensitive hashing. Our experiments on semantic relatedness and on named entity disambiguation demonstrate the superiority of our method compared to state-of-the-art baselines.
Hydrothermal effects on the physico-chemical properties of pure and glass fiber reinforced polyester and vinylester resins

The effect of aging by immersion in water at 60°C on polyester and vinylester resins, unreinforced and reinforced with glass fibers, was investigated. Changes in weight, glass transition temperature, secondary relaxations, and storage modulus, as well as loss modulus were measured, and the environmental effects on these parameters were assessed. Moreover, the chemical structure changes of the materials during aging were studied by the use of IR spectra. The evolution of the physico-chemical and the mechanical properties as a function of the aging time was established. The results indicate the importance of the matrix morphology, the structure regularity, and the presence of the fibers on the water diffusion mechanisms, and the thermomechanical properties through gravimetric changes, DSC, DMA and IR experiments
Theory and Simulation of Arbitrarily Shaped Groove Staggered Double Grating Array Waveguide

A theoretical model for the arbitrarily shaped groove staggered double grating array waveguide (SDGAW) slow-wave structure is proposed in this paper. The boundary of the groove was approximately replaced by a series of steps and the formulas of dispersion and interaction impedance were obtained utilizing the field matching method combined with the continuity of transverse admittance. Considering the traditional single mode approximation (SMA) model is not so accurate for describing the high frequency (HF) characteristics, a multiple modes approximation (MMA) model is established, which takes account for the higher order terms in the grooves, thus greatly improves the accuracy of the numerical calculations. As an example, the HF characteristics of a cosine groove SDGAW for a 0.22-THz traveling wave tube were calculated utilizing the SMA model, the MMA model, and HFSS code, the results were compared and discussed. Comparison of the HF characteristics among several kinds of groove shaped SDGAWs has been made by numerical calculation.
Preoperative vascular access evaluation for haemodialysis patients.

BACKGROUND Haemodialysis treatment requires reliable vascular access. Optimal access is provided via functional arteriovenous fistula (fistula), which compared with other forms of vascular access, provides superior long-term patency, requires few interventions, has low thrombosis and infection rates and cost. However, it has been estimated that between 20% and 60% of fistulas never mature sufficiently to enable haemodialysis treatment. Mapping blood vessels using imaging technologies before surgery may identify vessels that are most suitable for fistula creation. OBJECTIVES We compared the effect of conducting routine radiological imaging evaluation for vascular access creation preoperatively with standard care without routine preoperative vessel imaging on fistula creation and use. SEARCH METHODS We searched Cochrane Kidney and Transplant's Specialised Register to 14 April 2015 through contact with the Trials' Search Co-ordinator using search terms relevant to this review. SELECTION CRITERIA We included randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that enrolled adult participants (aged ≥ 18 years) with chronic or end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) who needed fistulas (both before dialysis and after dialysis initiation) that compared fistula maturation rates relating to use of imaging technologies to map blood vessels before fistula surgery with standard care (no imaging). DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS Two authors assessed study quality and extracted data. Dichotomous outcomes, including fistula creation, maturation and need for catheters at dialysis initiation, were expressed as risk ratios (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Continuous outcomes, such as numbers of interventions required to maintain patency, were expressed as mean differences (MD). We used the random-effects model to measure mean effects. MAIN RESULTS Four studies enrolling 450 participants met our inclusion criteria. Overall risk of bias was judged to be low in one study, unclear in two, and high in one.There was no significant differences in the number of fistulas that were successfully created (4 studies, 433 patients: RR 1.06, 95% CI 0.95 to 1.28; I² = 76%); the number of fistulas that matured at six months (3 studies, 356 participants: RR 1.11, 95% CI 0.98 to 1.25; I² = 0%); number of fistulas that were used successfully for dialysis (2 studies, 286 participants: RR 1.12, 95% CI 0.99 to 1.28; I² = 0%); the number of patients initiating dialysis with a catheter (1 study, 214 patients: RR 0.66, 95% CI 0.42 to 1.04); and in the rate of interventions required to maintain patency (1 study, 70 patients: MD 14.70 interventions/1000 patient-days, 95% CI -7.51 to 36.91) between the use of preoperative imaging technologies compared with standard care (no imaging). AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS Based on four small studies, preoperative vessel imaging did not improve fistula outcomes compared with standard care. Adequately powered prospective studies are required to fully answer this question.
A 2.62-GHz class-F power amplifier with lumped-element and transmission line network design

A 2.62-GHz class-F power amplifier with independent analogous method, lumped-element network design is presented. The amplifier is designed using CGH40010 GaN HEMT transistor device with 5th order low pass structure at the lumped-element output network. A transmission line networks has been used in transformation of both input and output of the amplifier. Optimum fundamental impedance matching networks and optimization are applied at the frequencies of interest to controlling the even and odd harmonics, to allow fundamental frequency deliver to the load. The power amplifier achieves 81.5% peak efficiency at 18.1dBm output power.
Simulation-based bug trace minimization with BMC-based refinement

Finding the cause of a bug can be one of the most time-consuming activities in design verification. This is particularly true in the case of bugs discovered in the context of a random simulation- based methodology, where bug traces, or counter-examples, may contain several hundred thousand cycles. In this work we propose Butramin, a bug trace minimizer. Butramin considers a bug trace produced by a random simulator or a semi-formal verification software and produces an equivalent trace of shorter length. Butramin applies a range of minimization techniques, deploying both simulation-based and formal methods, with the objective of producing highly reduced traces that still expose the original bug. We evaluated Butramin on a range of designs, including the publicly available picoJava microprocessor. Our experiments show that in most cases Butramin is able to reduce traces to a small fraction of their initial size, in terms of cycle length and signals involved.
Arsenic[III] and heavy metal ions induce intrachromosomal homologous recombination in the hprt gene of V79 Chinese hamster cells

In the present study the carcinogenic metal ions Cd[II], Co[II], Cr[VI], Ni[II], and Pb[II], as well as As[III], were examined for their ability to induce intrachromosomal homologous and nonhomologous recombination in the hprt gene of two V79 Chinese hamster cell lines, SPD8 and Sp5, respectively. With the exception of Pb[II], all of these ions enhanced homologous recombination, the order of potency being Cr>Cd>As>Co>Ni. In contrast, Cr[VI] was the only ion to enhance recombination of the nonhomologous type. In order to obtain additional information on the mechanism of recombination in the SPD8 cell line, individual clones exhibiting metal‐induced recombination were isolated, and the sequence of their hprt gene determined. These findings confirmed that all recombinogenic events in this cell line were of the homologous type, involving predominantly a chromatid exchange mechanism. The mechanisms underlying the recombination induced by these ions are discussed in relationship to their genotoxicity, as well as to DNA repair and replication. Induced recombination may constitute a novel mechanism for induction of neoplastic disease. Environ. Mol. Mutagen. 35:114‐122, 2000 © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Clustering with Constraints: Feasibility Issues and the k-Means Algorithm

Recent work has looked at extending the k-Means algorithm to incorporate background information in the form of instance level must-link and cannot-link constraints. We introduce two ways of specifying additional background information in the form of δ and constraints that operate on all instances but which can be interpreted as conjunctions or disjunctions of instance level constraints and hence are easy to implement. We present complexity results for the feasibility of clustering under each type of constraint individually and several types together. A key finding is that determining whether there is a feasible solution satisfying all constraints is, in general, NP-complete. Thus, an iterative algorithm such as k-Means should not try to find a feasible partitioning at each iteration. This motivates our derivation of a new version of the k-Means algorithm that minimizes the constrained vector quantization error but at each iteration does not attempt to satisfy all constraints. Using standard UCI datasets, we find that using constraints improves accuracy as others have reported, but we also show that our algorithm reduces the number of iterations until convergence. Finally, we illustrate these benefits and our new constraint types on a complex real world object identification problem using the infra-red detector on an Aibo robot.
Efficient Compression Algorithm for H.264/AVC Intra-prediction Using an Activity Map

H.264/AVC, the international video coding standard developed by ITU-T VCEG and ISO/IEC MPEG, is known to be more efficient than other standards. Higher compression is provided with the parameter block mode of H.264/AVC, but due to its low compression efficiency, researchers tend to ignore the algorithm's intra-prediction coding capability. This study examined this overlooked aspect to determine its impact on compression efficiency and identify potential adverse effects. This paper proposes a novel algorithm to boost efficiency using an activity map for the pixel unit of respective prediction block in conjunction with specific thresholds. Experimental results reveal that compared to the existing H.264/AVC algorithm, the proposed algorithm shows a significant improvement of over 0.35% in the compression efficiency without any increase in overall encoding time and PSNR complexity.