Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Outage Statistics in a Waveplate Hinge Model of Polarization-Mode Dispersion

The properties of the waveplate hinge model of polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) are studied in detail, and its statistics are compared to those of the traditional hinge model based on the assumption of an isotropic output after each hinge. In particular, the probability density function of the differential group delay for each individual frequency band is computed using a combination of importance sampling and the cross-entropy method. The outage probability is then obtained combining these results with the outage map method, allowing the fraction of bands with unacceptable outage probabilities to be quantified by the noncompliant capacity ratio (NCR). The results show that the traditional hinge model significantly overestimates the NCR compared to the waveplate hinge model.
POMDP manipulation via trajectory optimization

Efficient object manipulation based only on force feedback typically requires a plan of actively contact-seeking actions to reduce uncertainty over the true environmental model. In principle, that problem could be formulated as a full partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) whose observations are sensed forces indicating the presence/absence of contacts with objects. Such a naive application leads to a very large POMDP with high-dimensional continuous state, action and observation spaces. Solving such large POMDPs is practically prohibitive. In other words, we are facing three challenging problems: 1) uncertainty over discontinuous contacts with objects; 2) high-dimensional continuous spaces; 3) optimization for not only trajectory cost but also execution time. As trajectory optimization is a powerful model-based method for motion generation, it can handle the last two issues effectively by computing locally optimal trajectories. This paper aims to integrate advantages of trajectory optimization into existing POMDP solvers. The full POMDP formulation is solved using sample-based approaches, where each sampled model is quickly evaluated via trajectory optimization instead of simulating a large number of rollouts. To further accelerate the solver, we propose to integrate temporal abstraction, i.e. macro actions or temporal actions, into the POMDP model. We demonstrate the proposed method on a simulated 7 DoF KUKA arm and a physical Willow Garage PR2 platform. The results show that our proposed method could effectively seek contacts in complex scenarios, and achieve near-optimal performance of path planing.
Differential Expression of Chemokines, Chemokine Receptors and Proteinases by Foreign Body Giant Cells (FBGCs) and Osteoclasts

Osteoclasts and foreign body giant cells (FBGCs) are both derived from the fusion of macropahges. These cells are seen in close proximity during foreign body reactions, therefore it was assumed that they might interact with each other. The aim was to identify important genes that are expressed by osteoclasts and FBGCs which can be used to understand peri‐implantitis and predict the relationship of these cells during foreign body reactions. Bone marrow macrophages (BMM) were treated with receptor activator of nuclear factor kappa B ligand (RANKL) to produce osteoclasts. Quantitative PCR (qPCR) was used to identify the genes that were expressed by osteoclasts and FBGCs compared to macrophage controls. TRAP staining was used to visualise the cells while gelatine zymography and western blots were used for protein expression. Tartrate‐resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP), matrix metallo proteinase 9 (MMP9), nuclear factor of activated T cells 1 (NFATc1), cathepsin K (CTSK) and RANK were significantly lower in FBGCs compared to osteoclasts. Inflammation specific chemokines such as monocyte chemotactic protein (MCP1 also called CCL2), macrophage inflammatory protein 1 alpha (MIP1α), MIP1β and MIP1γ, and their receptors CCR1, CCR3 and CCR5, were highly expressed by FBGCs. FBGCs were negative for osteoclast specific markers (RANK, NFATc1, CTSK). FBGCs expressed chemokines such as CCL2, 3, 5 and 9 while osteoclasts expressed the receptors for these chemokines i.e. CCR1, 2 and 3. Our findings show that osteoclast specific genes are not expressed by FBGCs and that FBGCs interact with osteoclasts during foreign body reaction through chemokines. J. Cell. Biochem. 115: 1290–1298, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Aluminum Hydroxide Adjuvant Differentially Activates the Three Complement Pathways with Major Involvement of the Alternative Pathway

Al(OH)3 is the most common adjuvant in human vaccines, but its mode of action remains poorly understood. Complement involvement in the adjuvant properties of Al(OH)3 has been suggested in several reports together with a depot effect. It is here confirmed that Al(OH)3 treatment of serum depletes complement components and activates the complement system. We show that complement activation by Al(OH)3 involves the three major pathways by monitoring complement components in Al(OH)3-treated serum and in Al(OH)3-containing precipitates. Al(OH)3 activation of complement results in deposition of C3 cleavage products and membrane attack complex (MAC) and in generation of the anaphylatoxins C3a and C5a. Complement activation was time dependent and inhibited by chelation with EDTA but not EGTA+Mg2+. We thus confirm that Al(OH)3 activates the complement system and show that the alternative pathway is of major importance.
Formal Analysis of Safety and Security Requirements of Critical Systems Supported by an Extended STPA Methodology

Cyber-physical systems represent an engineering challenge due to their safety and security concerns, particularly those systems involved in critical infrastructure which require some of the highest standards of safety, availability, integrity and security. The complexity of these systems makes the identification and analysis of safety and security requirements challenging. In this paper, we present a methodology for identifying and formally analysing safety and security requirements, based on the STPA methodology and combined with modelling, traceability and formal verification through use of the Event-B formal method. Our STPA approach is then leveraged to generate 'critical requirements' to mitigate against undesirable system states, which are subsequently translated into constraints on an Event-B representation of the system. The Rodin toolset allows us to demonstrate that these critical requirements fully mitigate against the undesirable system states and therefore provide automated verification of the critical requirements.
Holographic Photolysis for Multiple Cell Stimulation in Mouse Hippocampal Slices

Background Advanced light microscopy offers sensitive and non-invasive means to image neural activity and to control signaling with photolysable molecules and, recently, light-gated channels. These approaches require precise and yet flexible light excitation patterns. For synchronous stimulation of subsets of cells, they also require large excitation areas with millisecond and micrometric resolution. We have recently developed a new method for such optical control using a phase holographic modulation of optical wave-fronts, which minimizes power loss, enables rapid switching between excitation patterns, and allows a true 3D sculpting of the excitation volumes. In previous studies we have used holographic photololysis to control glutamate uncaging on single neuronal cells. Here, we extend the use of holographic photolysis for the excitation of multiple neurons and of glial cells. Methods/Principal Findings The system combines a liquid crystal device for holographic patterned photostimulation, high-resolution optical imaging, the HiLo microscopy, to define the stimulated regions and a conventional Ca2+ imaging system to detect neural activity. By means of electrophysiological recordings and calcium imaging in acute hippocampal slices, we show that the use of excitation patterns precisely tailored to the shape of multiple neuronal somata represents a very efficient way for the simultaneous excitation of a group of neurons. In addition, we demonstrate that fast shaped illumination patterns also induce reliable responses in single glial cells. Conclusions/Significance We show that the main advantage of holographic illumination is that it allows for an efficient excitation of multiple cells with a spatiotemporal resolution unachievable with other existing approaches. Although this paper focuses on the photoactivation of caged molecules, our approach will surely prove very efficient for other probes, such as light-gated channels, genetically encoded photoactivatable proteins, photoactivatable fluorescent proteins, and voltage-sensitive dyes.
An N-Terminal Missense Mutation in STX11 Causative of FHL4 Abrogates Syntaxin-11 Binding to Munc18-2

Familial hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (FHL) is an often-fatal hyperinflammatory disorder caused by autosomal recessive mutations in PRF1, UNC13D, STX11, and STXBP2. We identified a homozygous STX11 mutation, c.173T > C (p.L58P), in three patients presenting clinically with hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis from unrelated Pakistani families. The mutation yields an amino acid substitution in the N-terminal Habc domain of syntaxin-11 and resulted in defective natural killer cell degranulation. Notably, syntaxin-11 expression was decreased in patient cells. However, in an ectopic expression system, syntaxin-11 L58P was expressed at levels comparable to wild-type syntaxin-11, but did not bind Munc18-2. Moreover, another N-terminal syntaxin-11 mutant, R4A, also did not bind Munc18-2. Thus, we have identified a novel missense STX11 mutation causative of FHL type 4. The syntaxin-11 R4A and L58P mutations reveal that both the N-terminus and Habc domain of syntaxin-11 are required for binding to Munc18-2, implying similarity to the dynamic binary binding of neuronal syntaxin-1 to Munc18-1.
Predicting sediment metal toxicity using a sediment biotic ligand model: methodology and initial application

An extension of the simultaneously extracted metals/acid‐volatile sulfide (SEM/AVS) procedure is presented that predicts the acute and chronic sediment metals effects concentrations. A biotic ligand model (BLM) and a pore water—sediment partitioning model are used to predict the sediment concentration that is in equilibrium with the biotic ligand effects concentration. This initial application considers only partitioning to sediment particulate organic carbon. This procedure bypasses the need to compute the details of the pore‐water chemistry. Remarkably, the median lethal concentration on a sediment organic carbon (OC)—normalized basis, SEM*x,OC, is essentially unchanged over a wide range of concentrations of pore‐water hardness, salinity, dissolved organic carbon, and any other complexing or competing ligands. Only the pore‐water pH is important. Both acute and chronic exposures in fresh‐ and saltwater sediments are compared to predictions for cadmium (Cd), copper (Cu), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), and zinc (Zn) based on the Daphnia magna BLM. The SEM*x,OC concentrations are similar for all the metals except cadmium. For pH = 8, the approximate values (μmol/gOC) are Cd‐SEM*x,OC ⋍ 100, Cu‐SEM*x,OC ⋍ 900, Ni‐SEM*x,OC ⋍ 1,100, Zn‐SEM*x,OC ⋍ 1,400, and Pb‐SEM*x,OC ⋍ 2,700. This similarity is the explanation for an empirically observed dose—response relationship between SEM and acute and chronic effects concentrations that had been observed previously. This initial application clearly demonstrates that BLMs can be used to predict toxic sediment concentrations without modeling the pore‐water chemistry.
In ation Dynamics and the New Keynesian Phillips Curve : Evidence from an Estimated DSGE Model

Versions of the New Keynesian model have come to play a major role in applied research on central banking. Among the questions to which the NK model has been directed are (1) what accounts for the observed persistence of ination? and (2) what accounts for the break in the behavior of many macroeconomic time series around the early 1980s? How one answers these questions in the context of the NK model depends on the empirical approach one takes (as well as on the details of the model speci cation). Empirical work on the New Keynesian model has taken two broad forms. First, there is a large literature on singleequation estimates of one component of the model  the New Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC). Second, there is system estimation of the entire model. Single equation estimates can be produced using methods that deal with simultaneity problems, but those methods have limited ability to provide a structural interpretation to shocks. Our primary goal in this paper is to undertake a full system estimation of the NK model and then to use our structural estimates to answer the questions posed above. We proceed as follows. We estimate a New Keynesian DSGE model on data for output, ination, and the nominal interest rate over 1959-2008 with a xed ination target. This establishes a baseline for our various exercises later on. Our main focus will be on the estimates of the parameters that generate persistence in the model, namely the autoregressive coe¢ cients of the exogenous shocks and the habit and backward-looking indexation parameters. Moreover, we are interested in the driving forces behind cyclical uctuations in the model, which we study using variance decompositions. In order to assess robustness of these baseline results, we also report estimates for model versions that, respectively, x key parameters and add additional sources of uctuations. In the next step, we introduce a time-varying ination target that evolves independently from the rest of the model and that is unobserved to the econometrician. We discuss how this
Cleft lip and palate care in the United Kingdom--the Clinical Standards Advisory Group (CSAG) Study. Part 3: speech outcomes.

OBJECTIVE To summarize speech outcomes in children born with unilateral cleft lip and palate (UCLP) throughout the United Kingdom. DESIGN Prospective descriptive study on a cross-sectional sample of children. PATIENTS/PARTICIPANTS Data were collected for 238 5-year-olds (born between April 1, 1989, and March 31, 1991) and 218 12-year-olds (born between April 1, 1982, and March 31, 1984) with complete UCLP. MAIN OUTCOMES Ratings of intelligibility, nasality, "speech cleft type characteristics" and speech therapy intervention. CONCLUSIONS Nineteen percent of 5-year-olds and 4% of 12-year-olds were judged to be impossible to understand or just intelligible to strangers. Thirty-four percent of 5-year-olds and 17% of 12-year-olds had at least one serious error of consonant production. Eighteen percent of 5-year-olds and 12-year-olds had consistent hypernasality of mild, moderate, or severe degree. Approximately two-thirds of both age groups had undergone speech therapy.
Splatting Illuminated Ellipsoids with Depth Correction

Ellipsoids are important primitives used in visualization and modeling, where often a larger number of ellipsoids have to be displayed in real-time. The standard approach of tessellating each ellipsoid into a smooth polygonal mesh leads to unacceptable polygon counts that dramatically increase the rendering time. In this paper a method is proposed to splat ellipsoids perspectively correct. The splatted ellipsoids are illuminated with the accuracy of floating point precision by exploiting the fragment shader facility of current graphics accelerators. It is also shown how to correct the depth value of the fragment position such that overlapping ellipsoids are displayed correctly.
Expression of Th1/Th2 cytokine mRNA in peritoneal exudative polymorphonuclear neutrophils and their effects on mononuclear cell Th1/Th2 cytokine production in MRL‐lpr/lpr mice

Peritoneal exudative polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PEC‐PMN) and mononuclear cells (PEC‐MNC) were obtained from normal BALB/c and from autoimmune MRL‐lpr/lpr mice (lpr) with different disease severities. The spontaneous and mitogen‐stimulated expression of T‐helper lymphocyte type‐1 (Th1) [represented by interferon‐γ (IFN‐γ) and interleukin (IL‐2)] and T‐helper lymphocyte type‐2 (Th2) (represented by IL‐4 and IL‐10) cytokine mRNA in these cells was detected by reverse transcription‐polymerase chain reaction (RT–PCR). The production of these cytokines was measured by enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). We found that the spontaneous expression of Th1/Th2 cytokine mRNA in PEC‐PMN from autoimmune mice was progressively increased in parallel with disease severity but was not changed by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation. By contrast, spontaneous expression of Th1/Th2 cytokine mRNA in PEC‐MNC from these mice was progressively decreased in parallel with disease severity but retained the responsiveness to phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) stimulation. To determine the effect of PEC‐PMN on Th1/Th2 cytokine production by PEC‐MNC, autologous PEC‐PMN and PEC‐MNC were co‐cultured at MNC:PMN ratios of 5:0, 4:1, 3:2, 2:3, 1:4 and 0:5 with PHA stimulation for 24 hr. The production of cytokines at each ratio was compared with the expected value, by calculation. We found that PEC‐PMN from autoimmune mice progressively suppressed the production of IL‐4, IL‐10 and IFN‐γ whereas the production of IL‐2 was enhanced by autologous MNC in parallel with disease severity. These results suggest that a reciprocal relationship exists in the expression of Th1/Th2 cytokine mRNA between PEC‐PMN and PEC‐MNC in lpr mice in parallel with disease severity. Autoimmune PEC‐PMN can exert significant modulatory effects on Th1/Th2 cytokine production by autologous MNC in stimulation.
Interrelationships of Heat Stress and Reproduction in Lactating Dairy Cows

Efficient reproductive performance of lactating dairy cattle in tropical/subtropical and arid environments throughout the world is impacted by a multiplicity of factors such as: the physical environment, socialeconomic status of producers, available nutrients, adaptability and genetic composition of cattle, intensive or extensive management systems, and available reproductive technology. Seasonal summer reductions in reproductive performance of lactating cows has been well-documented and is associated with decreased thermoregulatory competence of lactating dairy cows, partially due to intensive genetic selection for high milk production (AlKatanani et al., 1999). With higher production, the associated increase in dietary dry matter intake (DMI) enhances heat increment, which when coupled with increases in metabolic heat production to produce milk, aggravates thermal balance during the stressful summer period.
Anticipatory Suppression of Nonattended Locations in Visual Cortex Marks Target Location and Predicts Perception

Spatial attention is associated with modulations in prestimulus, anticipatory blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) activity across the brain. It is unclear, however, if these anticipatory modulations depend on the computational demands of the upcoming task. Here, we show that anticipation of low-contrast stimuli, relative to high-contrast stimuli, is associated with increased prestimulus BOLD activity in the frontal eye field (FEF) and the posterior inferior frontal sulcus (IFS) but not in the intraparietal sulcus (IPS). In visual cortex, anticipation of low-contrast stimuli is associated with increased suppression of activity corresponding to unattended (but not attended) locations, and this suppression predicts whether subjects will accurately perceive low-contrast stimuli. These results suggest that when a stimulus will be difficult to distinguish from the background, top-down signals from FEF and IFS can facilitate perception by marking its location through the suppression of unattended locations in visual cortex.
Scheduling parallelizable jobs on multiprocessors

The effect of parallel execution on the complexity of scheduling hard real time jobs on multiprocessors is analyzed. Studied is the scheduling problem in which a job may be parallelized and executed on any number of processors concurrently. In hard real-time systems, each job must be completed before a deadline. Parallelization gives a scheduler the flexibility to allocate more processors to a job whose deadline is near. Unfortunately, with this flexibility some of the multiprocessor scheduling problems are very difficult. The NP-hardness of scheduling parallelizable jobs where each job has a fixed priority is proved. A heuristic algorithm is proposed for finding an approximate job partition on two processors. Simulation results show that the heuristic algorithm usually has a very good performance. <<ETX>>
Pre-emptive hypoxia-regulated HO-1 gene therapy improves post-ischaemic limb perfusion and tissue regeneration in mice

Aims Haem oxygenase-1 (HO-1) is a haem-degrading enzyme that generates carbon monoxide, bilirubin, and iron ions. Through these compounds, HO-1 mitigates cellular injury by exerting antioxidant, anti-apoptotic, and anti-inflammatory effects. Here, we examined the influence of HO-1 deficiency and transient hypoxia/ischaemia-induced HO-1 overexpression on post-injury hindlimb recovery. Methods and results Mice lacking functional HO-1 (HO-1−/−) showed reduced reparative neovascularization in ischaemic skeletal muscles, impaired blood flow (BF) recovery, and increased muscle cell death compared with their wild-type littermates. Human microvascular endothelial cells (HMEC-1) transfected with plasmid vector (pHRE-HO-1) carrying human HO-1 driven by three hypoxia response elements (HREs) and cultured in 0.5% oxygen demonstrated markedly increased expression of HO-1. Such upregulated HO-1 levels were effective in conferring protection against H2O2-induced cell death and in promoting the proangiogenic phenotype of HMEC-1 cells. More importantly, when delivered in vivo, pHRE-HO-1 significantly improved the post-ischaemic foot BF in mice subjected to femoral artery ligation. These effects were associated with reduced levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-6 and CXCL1) and lower numbers of transferase-mediated dUTP nick-end labelling-positive cells. Moreover, HO-1 delivered into mouse skeletal muscles seems to influence the regenerative potential of myocytes as it significantly changed the expression of transcriptional (Pax7, MyoD, myogenin) and post-transcriptional (miR-146a, miR-206) regulators of skeletal muscle regeneration. Conclusion Our results suggest the therapeutic potential of HO-1 for prevention of adverse effects in critical limb ischaemia.
A Comparison of the Quality of Hypertension Management in Primary Care Between Shanghai and Shenzhen

AbstractStrong primary care is in urgent need for the management and control of hypertension. This study aimed to compare the quality of hypertensive care delivered by community health centers (CHCs) in Shanghai and Shenzhen.Multistage random sampling method was used to select 4 CHCs in each city as study settings. A cohort of hypertensive patients under the hypertensive management program in the CHCs was selected from the electronic information system by using a systematic random sampling method. Binary logistic regression models were constructed for comparison between the 2 cities.A total of 3196 patients’ records were assessed. The proportions of hypertensive patients who received advice on smoking cessation (33.8 vs 7.7%, P < 0.001), increasing physical activity (52.4 vs 16.8%, P < 0.001), low-sodium diet (72.0 vs 64.1%, P < 0.001), and regular follow-up (37.8 vs 8.6%, P < 0.001) were higher in Shenzhen than in Shanghai. However, the drug treatment rate in Shenzhen was lower than that in Shanghai (74.2 vs 95.2%, P < 0.001). The hypertension control rate in Shenzhen was lower than that in Shanghai (76.3 vs 83.2%, P < 0.001). Better performance in the process of hypertensive care in terms of increasing physical activity advice, low-sodium diet advice, regular follow-up, and drug prescription was associated with a higher rate of hypertension control.The study indicates that primary care is effective in managing hypertension irrespective of management and operation models of CHCs in urban China. Our study suggests that improvements in the process of hypertensive care may lead to better hypertension control.