Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Approximating the hard square entropy constant with probabilistic methods

For any two-dimensional nearest neighbor shift of finite type X and any integer n≥1, one can define the horizontal strip shift Hn(X) to be the set of configurations on Z×{1,…,n} which do not contain any forbidden pairs of adjacent letters for X. It is always the case that the sequence htop(Hn(X))/n of normalized topological entropies of the strip shifts converges to htop(X), the topological entropy of X. In this paper, we combine ergodic theoretic techniques with methods from percolation theory and interacting particle systems to show that for the two-dimensional hard square shift H, the sequence htop(Hn+1(H))−htop(Hn(H)) also converges to htop(H), and that the rate of convergence is at least exponential. As a corollary, we show that htop(H) is computable to any tolerance e in time polynomial in 1/e. We also show that this phenomenon is not true in general by defining a block gluing two-dimensional nearest neighbor shift of finite type Y for which htop(Hn+1(Y))−htop(Hn(Y)) does not even approach a limit.
A simple and scalable receiver model in molecular communication systems

This paper shows a simple although reliable receiver model for diffusion-based molecular communication systems. Indeed, the complexity of molecular communications system, involving a massive number of interacting entities, makes scalability a fundamental property of simulators and modeling tools. A sample scenario is that of targeted drug delivery systems, which makes use of biological nanomachines close to a biological target, able to release molecules in a diseased area. The proposed model tackles the time needed for analyzing such a system by the introduction of an equivalent markovian queuing model, which reproduces the aggregate behavior of thousands of receptors spread over the receiver surface. Our results demonstrate that the proposed approach substantially matches simulation results achieved through detailed simulations of a large number of receivers by means of BiNS2 simulator, although the time taken for obtaining the results is order of magnitudes lower than the simulation time. We believe that this model is the precursor of novel models based on similar principles that allow realizing reliable simulations of body-wide systems.
ARMLCC: Adaptive and recovery-based Multi-Layer Connected Chain Mechanism for Multicast Source Authentication

Source authentication in multicast communication is essential and challenging requirement. In this paper we address the multicast stream authentication problem when the communication channel is under the control of an opponent who can drop, reorder or inject data. In such a network model, robustness against packet loss, packet overhead and computing efficiency are important parameters to be taken into account when designing a multicast source authentication mechanism. The proposed scheme is based on adaptive and multi-layer connected chain structure in addition to an efficient recovery information model. It adapts the redundancy chaining degree depending on the actual packet loss rate in the network. Our mechanism provides non-repudiation of the origin and tolerates packet loss with low communication overhead, low delay and buffer capacity on the receiver side. NS-2 simulations show significant improvements over mechanisms in the same category.
Web search personalization: A fuzzy adaptive approach

Today the growing rate of web data has become so large and this is the reason for turning search engines into the major decision support systems for the Internet. In this paper, a novel and simple approach is proposed to improve Web search. The approach is a client-side method towards personalization of web search which adapts the results based on user interests. In addition we define a fuzzy variable to clarify the relevance of each document. In real world, notion of relevance is a fuzzy concept and certainly the relevancy ratios of some relevant documents are not equal. By applying our approach to the Google's datasets the result shows that this approach can improve performance in search.
Electronic service quality: Public transport information on the Internet

As public transit companies market new self-service technologies, it has become increasingly important to understand the factors affecting the users’ perceived quality of these services. Electronic Service Quality has been broadly defined as encompassing all phases of a customer’s interaction with a website. The E-S-QUAL scale comprises 4 dimensions. This paper examines the importance of 3 of the suggested quality dimensions (efficiency, system availability, fulfillment) for overall satisfaction when using information-based websites. A survey was conducted with respondents being asked to use and evaluate an existing website delivering public transit information in their region. Results reveal efficiency (addressing the ease and speed of using the site) was most important for overall satisfaction. It is also concluded that a modified E-S-QUAL scale is appropriate for this purpose as it was possible to adapt it to a pure service-related website.
The interaction between within-year and between-year effects across ages in elite table tennis in international and national contexts – A further exploration of relative age effects in sports

ABSTRACT Although relative age effects in sports have been studied worldwide, the underlying mechanisms are still under debate. This study adds to the existing knowledge by providing a further exploration of the within-year and between-year effects and their possible interaction in an individual skill/technique based sport: table tennis. Data of male and female elite players across ages (U15, U18, U21, and senior) were collected from the ranking lists in international (world and Europe) and national contexts (France and the Netherlands). A multi-way frequency analysis per subsample revealed (1) no interaction effects; (2) significant within-year and between-year effects for the U15 players in the international context and male French players; (3) a significant within-year effect in the French U18 category; (4) a significant within-year effect in female European U21; and (5) no within-year effects in the senior category. Table tennis seems to be at risk for within-year and between-year effects specifically within the context of high competitive level for younger players (U15, males, and females), but not for interactions between these effects. Future research should reveal the development of the RAEs over time in a longitudinal study, evaluate influencing constraints, and innovative prevention solutions in a more comprehensive way.
Long-Term Predictors of Insulin Resistance

OBJECTIVE—Predictors of insulin resistance have hitherto only been examined in cross-sectional studies without information on lifestyle factors. Few researchers have measured insulin sensitivity directly and compared different metabolic and lifestyle predictors in a large population. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—Our aim was to investigate independent long-term predictors of insulin sensitivity in a large population-based sample (the Uppsala Longitudinal Study of Adult Men cohort) of 50-year-old men who underwent a euglycemic clamp 20 years later (n = 770). Subjects with diabetes and treatment of cardiovascular disease at baseline were excluded. In linear regression models, metabolic (BMI, triglycerides, HDL cholesterol, glucose, and blood pressure) and lifestyle factors (physical activity, smoking, saturated fat biomarkers, and socioeconomic status) were independent variables at baseline (age 50 years) and insulin sensitivity–dependent variables at follow-up (age 70 years). A subsample of only normal-weight men from the initial population was also examined (n = 440). RESULTS—BMI was the strongest predictor of insulin sensitivity even after addition of metabolic factors. One SD (±2.8) increase in BMI corresponded to a mean 19% decrease in insulin sensitivity. After addition of lifestyle factors, all factors except triglycerides and smoking were significant predictors. BMI remained the strongest predictor (β = −0.67 [95% CI −0.83 to −0.51], P < 0.0001) followed by physical activity, HDL cholesterol, saturated fat, and socioeconomic status (all P < 0.05). BMI remained the strongest predictor in normal-weight subjects also (P < 0.001). In addition, after adjustment for baseline insulin concentrations, BMI remained the strongest predictor (P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS—Multiple factors, including novel factors such as saturated fat and socioeconomic status, independently predict insulin sensitivity after 20 years. BMI is, however, the single strongest predictor, even in normal-weight subjects.
Intraseasonal multi-scale moist dynamics of the tropical atmosphere

We derive a multi-scale model of moist tropical dynamics which is valid on horizontal synoptic scales, zonal planetary scales, and synoptic and intraseasonal time scales. The Intraseasonal Multi-Scale Moist Dynamics (IMMD) framework builds on the IPESD framework of A.J. Majda and R. Klein, J. Atmos. Sci., 60, 393–408, 2003. It generalizes the latter by allowing for strong zonal winds (the Trade Winds) and the pressure and stratification variations that they generate. The framework consists of three pieces. The first, called TH, are planetary scale climatology modulation equations which govern the Trade Winds and Hadley Circulation. Self-consistency of the asymptotic theory requires that the meridional component of the Hadley Circulation is an order of magnitude weaker than the zonal component. The second piece, S, is a linear system of equations which govern synoptic scale velocity, temperature, and pressure fluctuations forced by synoptic scale heating fluctuations. Unlike the IPESD theory, these fluctuations are advected by part of the planetary scale climatology from TH. Since the meridional component of TH is an order of magnitude weaker than the zonal component, the synoptic scale fluctuations are only advected by the latter. The third, P, govern the planetary scale anomalies which, like IPESD, are driven both by planetary scale mean heating and by upscale fluxes from the synoptic scales. These planetary scale anomalies are advected both by the zonal component of the Trade Winds and by the meridional component of the Hadley Circulation and, furthermore, respond to an in-scale flux from the mean climatology. We also present an asymptotic analysis of the equations of bulk cloud thermodynamics in order to lay out a self-contained path for incorporating synoptic scale cloud models into the IMMD framework. This framework has potentially important implications for the development of models describing the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) since the MJO manifests itself as planetary scale anomalies from a mean climatology which it modulates on intraseasonal time scales.
Orthogonal circuit visualization improved by merging the placement and routing phases

Visualization of circuits is an important research area in electronic design automation. Locating errors in a large design may require a high-quality graphical representation of a circuit that allows humans to understand it. Usually, drawing a circuit is based on visualizing the corresponding graph or hypergraph structure where nodes are connected by straight lines, and nodes are located in a way that minimizes the crossings of these lines. Then the algorithms re-transform this graph representation back to an orthogonal circuit structure, i. e. it replaces the straight lines by horizontal and vertical lines. In contrast to many other approaches which route all the wiring after placing all nodes we focus on a new approach which dynamically reorders the nodes within the layers to further reduce the number of hyperedge crossings. An efficient algorithm is presented that minimizes the hyperedge crossings. Experimental results are provided which show that the drawings can be improved significantly while the run time remains moderate.
Mining User Behavior in a Social Bookmarking System - A Delicious Friend Recommender System

The growth of the Web 2.0 has brought to a widespread use of social media systems. In particular, social bookmarking systems are a form of social media system that allows to tag bookmarks of interest for a user and to share them. The increasing popularity of these systems leads to an increasing number of active users and this implies that each user interacts with too many users ("social interaction overload"). In order to overcome this problem, we present a friend recommender system in the social bookmarking domain. Recommendations are produced by mining user behavior in a tagging system, analyzing the bookmarks tagged by a user and the frequency of each used tag. Experimental results highlight that, by analyzing both the tagging and bookmarking behavior of a user, our approach is able to mine preferences in a more accurate way, with respect to state-of-the-art approaches that consider only tags.
Discovery of Novel Orally Active Tetrahydro-Naphthyl-N-Acylhydrazones with In Vivo Anti-TNF-α Effect and Remarkable Anti-Inflammatory Properties

LASSBio-1524 was designed as inhibitor of the IKK-β (kappa β kinase inhibitor) enzyme, which participates in the activation of the nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) canonical pathway, and its three N-acylhydrazone new analogues, LASSBio-1760, LASSBio-1763 and LASSBio-1764 are now being tested on their anti-inflammatory potential. The activity of these compounds was evaluated with the subcutaneous air pouch induced by carrageenan and by subsequent measurement of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), nitric oxide (NO) and reactive oxygen species (ROS). In the acute inflammation model, the oral pretreatment with doses from 0.3 to 30 mg/kg of N-acylhydrazone derivatives was able to significantly reduce leukocyte migration to the cavity. Pretreatment with LASSBio-1524 and its analogues also decreased NO, TNF-α and ROS biosynthesis an events closely involved with NF-kB pathway. The tetrahydronaphthyl-N-acylhydrazone derivative LASSBio-1764 was the most promising compound from this series, surpassing even LASSBio-1524. Additionally, none of the compounds demonstrated myelotoxicity or cytotoxicity. Cell viability was assayed and these compounds demonstrated to be safe at different concentrations. Western blot analysis demonstrated that LASSBio-1524 and LASSBio-1760 inhibited NF-κB expression in RAW 264.7 cell lineage. Our data indicate that the tested compounds have anti-inflammatory activity, which may be related to inhibition of leukocyte migration, reducing the production of NO, TNF-α and ROS. LASSBio-1524 and LASSBio-1760, in addition to these features, also reduced p65 nuclear expression assessed by western blot in RAW 264.7 murine cells.
Temporal Paĵern of the Induction of Sf-1 Gene Expression by the Sig- Nal Transduction Pathway Involving 3',5'-cyclic Adenosine Monophos- Phate

important role in the maintenance of the differentiated functions of these organs, and is essential for the expression of all steroidogenic CYPs (Parker & Schimmer, 1997). It is also required for the expression of other genes involved in steroid hormone synthesis such as steroidogenic acute regulatory protein (StAR), 3β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase /Δ5-Δ4 isomerase (HSD3B) and the ACTH receptor (ACTH-R, melanocortin-2 receptor MC2R) (Hammer & Ingraham, 1999). SF-1 has also been linked to the regulation of target gene expression in response to tropic hormones acting via the cAMP/protein kinase A (PKA) pathway. SF-1 has been shown to take part in cAMP-induced expression of StAR (Wooton-Kee & Clark, 2000), P450scc (CYP11A1) (Liu & Simpson, Temporal pa ern of the induction of SF-1 gene expression by the signal transduction pathway involving 3’,5’-cyclic adenosine monophosphate
Relationship Between the Presence of Eczema Herpeticum and the Significance of Clinical and Laboratory Tests in Korean Children With Atopic Dermatitis

Background Eczema herpeticum (EH) is a herpes simplex virus (HSV) infection superimposed on atopic dermatitis (AD). Objectives The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between clinical features and laboratory tests, including skin cultures, total IgE, eosinophil count, eosinophil cationic protein, and 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 (25-(OH)D3), in Korean children with AD according to the presence of EH. Patients and Methods We enrolled 380 patients aged 6 months to 18 years who were admitted to Busan St. Mary’s hospital from January 2012 to December 2014. All 380 subjects were divided into two groups: the control and the AD group. The AD group was further divided into two subgroups: EH+ and EH-. Results The male gender was related to the presence of EH (odds ratio of 2.56; 95% confidence interval, 1.19 - 5.53, P = 0.01), but age and 25-(OH)D3 levels were not. After adjusting for age, gender, and 25-(OH)D3, no significant relationship was found between total IgE, eosinophil cationic protein or eosinophil count levels and the presence of EH. The relationship between positive skin cultures and the presence of EH was significant (P < 0.001) and the presence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was also related to the development of EH (OR, 0.19; 95% CI, 0.04 - 0.92, P = 0.03). Conclusions We conclude that while male gender, positive skin culture results, and the presence of MRSA are factors influencing EH, serum 25-(OH)D3 levels are not associated with EH in Korean AD children.
Accepted for Publication in Ieee Transactions on Wireless Communications 1 New Trellis Code Design for Spatial Modulation

Spatial modulation (SM), in which multiple antennas are used to convey information besides the conventional M-ary signal constellations, is a new multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmission technique, which has recently been proposed as an alternative to V-BLAST. In this paper, a novel MIMO transmission scheme, called spatial modulation with trellis coding (SM-TC), is proposed. Similar to the conventional trellis coded modulation (TCM), in this scheme, a trellis encoder and an SM mapper are jointly designed to take advantage of the benefits of both. A soft decision Viterbi decoder, which is fed with the soft information supplied by the optimal SM decoder, is used at the receiver. The pairwise error probability (PEP) upper bound is derived for the SM-TC scheme in uncorrelated quasi-static Rayleigh fading channels. From the PEP upper bound, code design criteria are given and then used to obtain new 4-, 8-and 16-state SM-TC schemes using QPSK and 8-PSK modulations for 2, 3 and 4 bits/s/Hz spectral efficiencies. It is shown via computer simulations and also supported by a theoretical error performance analysis that the proposed SM-TC schemes achieve significantly better error performance than the classical space-time trellis codes and coded V-BLAST systems at the same spectral efficiency, yet with reduced decoding complexity.
Pareto-Efficient and Goal-Driven Power Control in Wireless Networks: A Game-Theoretic Approach With a Novel Pricing Scheme

A Pareto-efficient, goal-driven, and distributed power control scheme for wireless networks is presented. We use a noncooperative game-theoretic approach to propose a novel pricing scheme that is linearly proportional to the signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) and analytically show that with a proper choice of prices (proportionality constants), the outcome of the noncooperative power control game is a unique and Pareto-efficient Nash equilibrium (NE). This can be utilized for constrained-power control to satisfy specific goals (such as fairness, aggregate throughput optimization, or trading off between these two goals). For each one of the above goals, the dynamic price for each user is also analytically obtained. In a centralized (base station) price setting, users should inform the base station of their path gains and their maximum transmit-powers. In a distributed price setting, for each goal, an algorithm for users to update their transmit-powers is also presented that converges to a unique fixed-point in which the corresponding goal is satisfied. Simulation results confirm our analytical developments.
Early Signs of Pathological Cognitive Aging in Mice Lacking High-Affinity Nicotinic Receptors

In order to address pathological cognitive decline effectively, it is critical to adopt early preventive measures in individuals considered at risk. It is therefore essential to develop approaches that identify such individuals before the onset of irreversible dementia. A deficient cholinergic system has been consistently implicated as one of the main factors associated with a heightened vulnerability to the aging process. In the present study we used mice lacking high affinity nicotinic receptors (β2-/-), which have been proposed as an animal model of accelerated/premature cognitive aging. Our aim was to identify behavioral signs that could serve as indicators or predictors of impending cognitive decline. We used test batteries in order to assess cognitive functions and additional tasks to investigate spontaneous behaviors, such as species-specific activities and exploration/locomotion in a novel environment. Our data confirm the hypothesis that β2-/- animals exhibit age-related cognitive impairments in spatial learning. In addition, they document age-related deficits in other areas, such as recognition memory, burrowing and nesting building, thereby extending the validity of this animal model for the study of pathological aging. Finally, our data reveal deficits in spontaneous behavior and habituation processes that precede the onset of cognitive decline and could therefore be useful as a non-invasive behavioral screen for identifying animals at risk. To our knowledge, this is the first study to perform an extensive behavioral assessment of an animal model of premature cognitive aging, and our results suggest that β2-nAChR dependent cognitive deterioration progressively evolves from initial subtle behavioral changes to global dementia due to the combined effect of the neuropathology and aging.
Cooperation of Nutlin-3a and a Wip1 inhibitor to induce p53 activity

Targeting the Mdm2 oncoprotein by drugs has the potential of re-establishing p53 function and tumor suppression. However, Mdm2-antagonizing drug candidates, e. g. Nutlin-3a, often fail to abolish cancer cell growth sustainably. To overcome these limitations, we inhibited Mdm2 and simultaneously a second negative regulator of p53, the phosphatase Wip1/PPM1D. When combining Nutlin-3a with the Wip1 inhibitor GSK2830371 in the treatment of p53-proficient but not p53-deficient cells, we observed enhanced phosphorylation (Ser 15) and acetylation (Lys 382) of p53, increased expression of p53 target gene products, and synergistic inhibition of cell proliferation. Surprisingly, when testing the two compounds individually, largely distinct sets of genes were induced, as revealed by deep sequencing analysis of RNA. In contrast, the combination of both drugs led to an expression signature that largely comprised that of Nutlin-3a alone. Moreover, the combination of drugs, or the combination of Nutlin-3a with Wip1-depletion by siRNA, activated p53-responsive genes to a greater extent than either of the compounds alone. Simultaneous inhibition of Mdm2 and Wip1 enhanced cell senescence and G2/M accumulation. Taken together, the inhibition of Wip1 might fortify p53-mediated tumor suppression by Mdm2 antagonists.