Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
P0-15 Temperature Compensated Bulk Acoustic Wave Resonator and its Predictive 1D Acoustic Tool for RF Filtering

The design of bulk acoustic wave "BAW" resonators should take into account the stringent requirements of thermal effects. In this paper, we propose a thermal model, allowing the reduction of the Temperature Coefficient of Frequency "TCF" with a slightly modified process while retaining a good coupling and quality factor. For a significant reduction of the TCF, a SiO2 layer is added above the upper electrode. A TCF of +1.5 ppm/degC was obtained at 2.08 GHz. The present accuracy of the ID model is approximately 1 ppm/degC. Most material parameters were extracted by comparison between the modeling and the measurement of BAW resonators with different stacks. To improve the dispersion of the TCF, the uniformity of each layer is introduced into the model. Firstly, the reduction of the top SiO2 Bragg layer thickness dispersion from 2 % to 0.2 % is achieved, using an ion etching. The compensation of BAW resonators in our process has been improving for PCS diversity standard. This model was used to design a Personal Communications Service "PCS" RX diversity filter (1.93-1.99 GHz). The compensated loaded and unloaded resonators were used in the filtering function and present TCFs between 0.8 and -7 ppm/degC with a coupling factor of approximately 5.2 %.
Stratified Sampling Meets Machine Learning

This paper solves a specialized regression problem to obtain sampling probabilities for records in databases. The goal is to sample a small set of records over which evaluating aggregate queries can be done both efficiently and accurately. We provide a principled and provable solution for this problem; it is parameterless and requires no data insights. Unlike standard regression problems, the loss is inversely proportional to the regressed-to values. Moreover, a cost zero solution always exists and can only be excluded by hard budget constraints. A unique form of regularization is also needed. We provide an efficient and simple regularized Empirical Risk Minimization (ERM) algorithm along with a theoretical generalization result. Our extensive experimental results significantly improve over both uniform sampling and standard stratified sampling which are de-facto the industry standards.
Onion (Allium cepa) extract prevents cadmium induced renal dysfunction

Cadmium (Cd), a heavy metal, is known for its adverse effects on the body. In this study, the lowering effect of Cd on renal clearance (RC) was investigated, and Allium cepa extract (AcE) (an antioxidant) was pre-administered orally to prevent Cd's adverse effects. Seventy-two Wistar rats, grouped into three (n = 24), were used for this study. While Group C was given 1.0 ml of AcE daily (orally), Group A and Group B were given distilled water. AcE administration was done for eight weeks. Afterwards B and C were then given 1.5 ml/kg BW of 0.3 mg/L 3CdSO4.8H2O intraperitoneally for three consecutive days. The results obtained showed that Cd causes significant reduction in the 24 hour urine volume (from 3.017 ± 0.125 to 2.433 ± 0.118 ml), RC (from 3.258 ± 0.114 to 1.357 ± 0.104 ml/h for creatinine; and from 0.350 ± 0.057 to 0.185 ± 0.055 ml/h for urea), plasma and tissue SOD and CAT activity (form 1.644 ± 0.036 to 1.307 ± 0.056 u/g protein for plasma SOD; 0.391 ± 0.029 to 0.2692 ± 0.031 u/protein for plasma CAT; 1.695 ± 0.034 to 1.327 ± 0.049 u/g protein for tissues SOD; and from 0.350 ± 0.027 to 0.273 ± 0.043 u for tissue CAT), and significant MDA increased in plasma (from 1496.79 ± 1.321 to 1679.48 ± 143.29 μg/g protein) and tissue (from 1265.22 ± 2.285 to 1669.87 ± 14.61 μg/dL). AcE, however, prevents these Cd's adverse effects. This findings lead to the conclusion Cd exposure causes renal dysfunction, but oral administration of onion could prevent it.
Effects of skilled training on sleep slow wave activity and cortical gene expression in the rat.

STUDY OBJECTIVE The best characterized marker of sleep homeostasis is the amount of slow wave activity (SWA, 0.5-4 Hz) during NREM sleep. SWA increases as a function of previous waking time and declines during sleep, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We have suggested that SWA homeostasis is linked to synaptic potentiation associated with learning during wakefulness. Indeed, studies in rodents and humans found that SWA increases after manipulations that presumably enhance synaptic strength, but the evidence remains indirect. Here we trained rats in skilled reaching, a task known to elicit long-term potentiation in the trained motor cortex, and immediately after learning measured SWA and cortical protein levels of c-fos and Arc, 2 activity-dependent genes involved in motor learning. DESIGN Intracortical local field potential recordings and training on reaching task. SETTING Basic sleep research laboratory. PATIENTS OR PARTICIPANTS Long Evans adult male rats. INTERVENTIONS N/A. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS SWA increased post-training in the trained cortex (the frontal cortex contralateral to the limb used to learn the task), with smaller or no increase in other cortical areas. This increase was reversible within 1 hour, specific to NREM sleep, and positively correlated with changes in performance during the prior training session, suggesting that it reflects plasticity and not just motor activity. Fos and Arc levels were higher in the trained relative to untrained motor cortex immediately after training, but this asymmetry was no longer present after 1 hour of sleep. CONCLUSION Learning to reach specifically affects gene expression in the trained motor cortex and, in the same area, increases sleep need as measured by a local change in SWA.
Query-driven parallel exploration of large datasets

Recent advances in supercomputing capabilities pose a multi-faceted data retrieval challenge to the exploration and visualisation of the obtained results: the bandwidth between visualisation devices and the high-performance computing (HPC) clusters neither scales with the simulation data nor with the compute power, the total memory footprint of the data on the supercomputer often exceeds the aggregate memory on the visualisation, and the data has to be distributed among several visualisation nodes working in parallel to render a visual. In the present paper, we introduce an on-demand data exploration paradigm that leverages HPC capabilities and distributed visualisation without requiring a large memory footprint on the visualisation cluster. Regions of interest within the data are specified by the user in the form of queries. These queries, augmented by node identifiers on the visualisation cluster, are automatically distributed among multiple compute nodes of the HPC cluster. The compute nodes work in parallel to assemble and merge data in response to the user query until the data distribution matches the visualisation cluster's topology. Query results are then simultaneously streamed to the right visualisation nodes. Our approach allows for interactive exploration of data residing on HPC resources, irrespective of memory footprint. The streaming of data to the visualisation nodes scales with the bandwidth of the interconnecting network and the HPC cluster's domain decomposition, while the latter is hidden from the visualisation and can change dynamically. We demonstrate the capability of our query-driven approach with a turbulent mixing dataset, and show that it supports interactive data exploration on HPC systems.
Disruption of CXCR4 signaling in pharyngeal neural crest cells causes DiGeorge syndrome-like malformations

DiGeorge syndrome (DGS) is a congenital disease causing cardiac outflow tract anomalies, craniofacial dysmorphogenesis, thymus hypoplasia, and mental disorders. It results from defective development of neural crest cells (NCs) that colonize the pharyngeal arches and contribute to lower jaw, neck and heart tissues. Although TBX1 has been identified as the main gene accounting for the defects observed in human patients and mouse models, the molecular mechanisms underlying DGS etiology are poorly identified. The recent demonstrations that the SDF1/CXCR4 axis is implicated in NC chemotactic guidance and impaired in cortical interneurons of mouse DGS models prompted us to search for genetic interactions between Tbx1, Sdf1 (Cxcl12) and Cxcr4 in pharyngeal NCs and to investigate the effect of altering CXCR4 signaling on the ontogeny of their derivatives, which are affected in DGS. Here, we provide evidence that Cxcr4 and Sdf1 are genetically downstream of Tbx1 during pharyngeal NC development and that reduction of CXCR4 signaling causes misrouting of pharyngeal NCs in chick and dramatic morphological alterations in the mandibular skeleton, thymus and cranial sensory ganglia. Our results therefore support the possibility of a pivotal role for the SDF1/CXCR4 axis in DGS etiology. Summary: SDF1/CXCR4 signaling lies downstream of Tbx1 during pharyngeal neural crest development, and inactivating CXCR4 causes defects that phenocopy the human DiGeorge syndrome.
Classification Using Word Subsequences and Dependency Subtrees

Document sentiment classification is a task to classify a document according to the positive or negative polarity of its opinion (favorable or unfavorable). We propose using syntactic relations between words in sentences for document sentiment classification. Specifically, we use text mining techniques to extract frequent word sub-sequences and dependency sub-trees from sentences in a document dataset and use them as features of support vector machines. In experiments on movie review datasets, our classifiers obtained the best results yet published using these data.
Boundary Collocation Technique for Heat Conduction in Eccentric Systems

Heat conduction through eccentric systems with circular inner surface and regular polygonal outer surface has been analyzed. Constant wall temperature at the inner surface and convective heat transfer from the outer surface is considered. A two dimensional semi analytical method using boundary collocation technique is used in which collocation points are considered on the outer periphery of the eccentric systems. The temperature contour in the solid domain and heat transfer to the ambient are predicted. The geometry of the critical and crossover condition of insulation around a heated circular cylinder is also determined when regular polygonal shaped insulation is provided eccentrically.
The Influence of Reward on the Speed of Reinforcement Learning: An Analysis of Shaping

Shaping can be an effective method for improving the learning rate in reinforcement systems. Previously, shaping has been heuristically motivated and implemented. We provide a formal structure with which to interpret the improvement afforded by shaping rewards. Central to our model is the idea of a reward horizon, which focuses exploration on an MDP's critical region, a subset of states with the property that any policy that performs well on the critical region also performs well on the MDP. We provide a simple algorithm and prove that its learning time is polynomial in the size of the critical region and, crucially, independent of the size of the MDP. This identifies low reward horizons with easy-to-learn MDPs. Shaping rewards, which encode our prior knowledge about the relative merits of decisions, can be seen as artificially reducing the MDP's natural reward horizon. We demonstrate empirically the effects of using shaping to reduce the reward horizon.
Insights into the Impact of Heterogeneous Glycosylation on the Pharmacokinetic Behavior of Follistatin-Fc–Based Biotherapeutics

Follistatin 315 heparan sulfate-binding deficient mutant human IgG4 Fc fusion (FST-ΔHBS-Fc) is a follistatin (FST) based Fc fusion protein currently being developed as a novel therapy for several potential indications, including muscle wasting. Previous assessments of the pharmacokinetics and therapeutic activity of FST-ΔHBS-Fc have shown a close association of the exposure–response relationship. The current work builds upon these initial studies by investigating the glycosylation characteristics of FST-ΔHBS-Fc after recombinant expression and its impact on the pharmacokinetics in mice and Cynomolgus monkeys. The data presented indicate that FST-ΔHBS-Fc is heterogeneously glycosylated at the three putative sites in FST when recombinantly expressed in stably transfected Chinese hamster ovary cells. Such carbohydrate heterogeneity, especially with regards to sialic acid incorporation, directly results in sugar-dependent clearance in both mice and Cynomolgus monkeys. Examination of the pharmacokinetics of FST-ΔHBS-Fc molecules containing variable sialic acid content in asialoglycoprotein receptor 1 (ASPGR-1) knockout mice supports the receptor’s role as part of the clearance mechanism of the molecules. Based on the evaluation of several variably sialylated lots of material in pharmacokinetic assessments, we define specifications for average sialic acid incorporation into FST-ΔHBS-Fc that result in limited sugar-mediated clearance. Taken together, these studies highlight the importance of establishing an early understanding of the glycosylation/pharmacokinetic relationships of FST-ΔHBS-Fc, which will provide a basis for future application toward optimal systemic drug delivery and dosing strategies.
The effect of swine leukocyte antigen haplotype on birth and weaning weights in miniature pigs and the role of statistical analysis in this estimation.

Miniature pigs of seven swine leukocyte antigen (SLA) genotypes were examined for birth and weaning weights to determine the influence of major histocompatibility (MHC) and background genes on these traits. Effects of different statistical analyses on the magnitude of these associations also were examined. Data on 154 piglets from 32 litters were analyzed by least squares using a linear model that included effects of SLA, litter, and sex of piglet. In these miniature pigs, SLA genotype had little influence on birth and weaning weight; litter, which includes effects of background genes, had a significant effect on both birth weight (P less than or equal to .0001) and weaning (P less than or equal to .005) weight. When litter effects were not accounted for, SLA haplotype appeared to influence both birth (P less than or equal to .001) and weaning (P less than or equal to .10) weights. Use of simple group means, as opposed to least squares means, for comparisons of genotypes yielded misleading results. Simple means indicated that piglets with the aa genotype were heavier (P less than or equal to .01) at birth than those with the cd genotype; in contrast, least squares means showed that cd piglets were slightly heavier at birth (P less than or equal to .10). Heterosis was not observed for birth or weaning weights among piglets of various genotypes, nor did one vs two copies of any haplotype influence these traits.
Boron neutron capture therapy for the treatment of prostate cancer using a boron-containing cholesteryl ester compound

Title of Document: BORON NEUTRON CAPTURE THERAPY FOR THE TREATMENT OF PROSTATE CANCER USING A BORON-CONTAINING CHOLESTERYL ESTER COMPOUND Ian Alexander Gifford, Doctor of Philosophy, 2013 Directed By: Professor Mohamad Al-Sheikhly, Department of Materials Science and Engineering Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) for the treatment of prostate cancer using a boron-containing cholesteryl ester compound (BCH) was investigated. BNCT is a binary radiation therapy that relies on targeted delivery of 10 B to cancer cells followed by irradiation with thermal neutrons. High-linear energy transfer (LET)  particles and 7 Li nuclei released from the 10 B neutron capture event result in lethal double-strand DNA breaks within a 9 m range. Given the high density energy deposition and short range, neighboring cells without 10 B remain unharmed. To evaluate the efficacy of BCH as a BNCT compound, a sample chamber within the thermal column experimental facility of the Maryland University Training Reactor (MUTR) was designed to provide a means of irradiating samples in vitro in a thermal neutron field. The thermal neutron fluence rate at 250 kW within the sample chamber is 8.69 x10 8 n/cm 2 /s with the < 3 eV neutron energy region representing 94.6% of the total neutron field. The hydrophobic BCH compound was embedded in the lipid bilayer of DPPC:cholesterol liposomes for delivery to PC-3 prostate cancer cells. Liposomes were synthesized by the thin film layer technique with high-pressure homogenization size reduction. Dynamic light scattering analysis of the liposomes yielded a mean diameter of 111.5 nm and 0.113 relative variance. Cytotoxicity of the BCH-containing liposomes was evaluated by neutral red, MTS, LDH, and colony formation assays. Boron uptake by PC-3 cells was analyzed with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Drug delivery conditions that minimized cytotoxic effects yielded a boron uptake of 35.2 + 4.3 g/g cell. PC-3 cells were irradiated in the MUTR thermal column sample chamber to quantify the enhanced cell killing of the high-LET thermal neutron capture 10 B reactions. PC-3 cells treated with BCH and exposed to a 9.4 x 10 11 n/cm 2 /s thermal neutron fluence yielded a 20-25% increase in cell death compared to the untreated control. BORON NEUTRON CAPTURE THERAPY FOR THE TREATMENT OF PROSTATE CANCER USING A BORON-CONTAINING CHOLESTERYL ESTER COMPOUND
Homeomorphisms and Metamorphosis of Polyhedral Models Using Fields of Directions Defined on Triangulations

Many approaches have been proposed to generate the shape interpolation or morphing of two polyhedral objects given in a facet based representation. Most of them focus only the correspondence problem, leaving the interpolation process to just an interpolation of corresponding vertices. In this article we present a new approach which uses fields of directions defined on triangulations(FDTs) to treat both the problem of getting an homeomorphism between the models and that of morphing them. Consider that an scaled version(P1) of one of the objects, has already been adequately placed in the interior of the other(P2). The objective of the first part of the approach, is to obtain a field of unit vectors defined on a triangulation of the space between P1 and P2. This field must have no singularities and the trajectories determined by it will be later used to get warping and morphing transformations between P1 and P2. The morphing transformations obtained have the good property of being topology preserving ones but it can be hard to get an FDT defined on a triangulation of P1 - P2 and the intermediate models can have a very large number of faces. To illustrate those aspects, transformations between simple models are presented.
Energy-aware routing optimization in dynamic GMPLS controlled optical networks

In this paper, routing optimizations based on energy sources are proposed in dynamic GMPLS controlled optical networks. The influences of re-routing and load balancing factors on the algorithm are evaluated, with a focus on different re-routing thresholds. Results from dynamic network simulations show that re-routing strategies can lower CO2 emissions compared to the basic energy source routing scheme, and a lower re-routing threshold achieves more savings. The increased blocking probability brought by using re-routing schemes can be compensated by applying load balancing criteria. A trade-off between blocking probability and obtained CO2 savings is studied.
False belief understanding and “cool” inhibitory control in 3-and 4-years-old Italian children

During preschool years, major developments occur in both executive function and theory of mind (ToM), and several studies have demonstrated a correlation between these processes. Research on the development of inhibitory control (IC) has distinguished between more cognitive, “cool” aspects of self-control, measured by conflict tasks, that require inhibiting an habitual response to generate an arbitrary one, and “hot,” affective aspects, such as affective decision making, measured by delay tasks, that require inhibition of a prepotent response. The aim of this study was to investigate the relations between 3- and 4-year-olds’ performance on a task measuring false belief understanding, the most widely used index of ToM in preschoolers, and three tasks measuring cognitive versus affective aspects of IC. To this end, we tested 101 Italian preschool children in four tasks: (a) the Unexpected Content False Belief task, (b) the Conflict task (a simplified version of the Day–Night Stroop task), (c) the Delay task, and (d) the Delay Choice task. Children’s receptive vocabulary was assessed by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary test. Children’s performance in the False Belief task was significantly related only to performance in the Conflict task, controlling for vocabulary and age. Importantly, children’s performance in the Conflict task did not significantly correlate with their performance in the Delay task or in the Delay Choice task, suggesting that these tasks measure different components of IC. The dissociation between the Conflict and the Delay tasks may indicate that monitoring and regulating a cool process (as flexible categorization) may involve different abilities than monitoring and regulating a hot process (not touching an available and highly attractive stimulus or choosing between a smaller immediate option and a larger delayed one). Moreover, our findings support the view that “cool” aspects of IC and ToM are interrelated, extending to an Italian sample of children previous findings on an association between self-control and ToM.
Approximation algorithms for asymmetric TSP by decomposing directed regular multigraphs

A directed multigraph is said to be d-regular if the indegree and outdegree of every vertex is exactly d. By Hall's theorem one can represent such a multigraph as a combination of at most n/sup 2/ cycle covers each taken with an appropriate multiplicity. We prove that if the d-regular multigraph does not contain more than /spl lfloor/d/2/spl rfloor/ copies of any 2-cycle then we can find a similar decomposition into 0(n/sup 2/) pairs of cycle covers where each 2-cycle occurs in at most one component of each pair. Our proof is constructive and gives a polynomial algorithm to find such decomposition. Since our applications only need one such a pair of cycle covers whose weight is at least the average weight of all pairs, we also give a simpler algorithm to extract a single such pair. This combinatorial theorem then comes handy in rounding a fractional solution of an LP relaxation of the maximum and minimum TSP problems. For maximum TSP, we obtain a tour whose weight is at least 2/3 of the weight of the longest tour, improving a previous 5/8 approximation. For minimum TSP we obtain a tour whose weight is at most 0.842log/sub 2/ n times the optimal, improving a previous 0.999log/sub 2/ n approximation. Utilizing a reduction from maximum TSP to the shortest superstring problem we obtain a 2.5-approximation algorithm for the latter problem which is again much simpler than the previous one. Other applications of the rounding procedure are approximation algorithms for maximum 3-cycle cover (factor 2/3, previously 3/5) and maximum asymmetric TSP with triangle inequality (factor 10/13, previously 3/4 ).