Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ising exponents from the functional renormalisation group

We study the 3d Ising universality class using the functional renormalization group. With the help of background fields and a derivative expansion up to fourth order we compute the leading index, the subleading symmetric and antisymmetric corrections to scaling, the anomalous dimension, the scaling solution, and the eigenperturbations at criticality. We also study the cross correlations of scaling exponents, their dependence on dimensionality, and the numerical convergence of the derivative expansion. Collecting all available data from functional renormalization group studies to date, we estimate that systematic errors are in good agreement with findings from Monte Carlo simulations, ϵ-expansion techniques, and resummed perturbation theory.
Streptozotocin-induced type 1 diabetes in rodents as a model for studying mitochondrial mechanisms of diabetic β cell glucotoxicity

Chronic hyperglycemia and the corresponding glucotoxicity are the main pathogenic mechanisms of diabetes and its complications. Streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic animal models are useful platforms for the understanding of β cell glucotoxicity in diabetes. As diabetes induced by a single STZ injection is often referred to as type 1 diabetes that is caused by STZ’s partial destruction of pancreas, one question often being asked is whether the STZ type 1 diabetes animal model is a good model for studying the mitochondrial mechanisms of β cell glucotoxicity. In this mini review, we provide evidence garnered from the literature that the STZ type 1 diabetes is indeed a suitable model for studying mitochondrial mechanisms of diabetic β cell glucotoxicity. Evidence presented includes: 1) continued β cell derangement is due to chronic hyperglycemia after STZ is completely eliminated out of the body; 2) STZ diabetes can be reversed by insulin treatment, which indicates that β cell responds to treatment and shows ability to regenerate; and 3) STZ diabetes can be ameliorated or alleviated by administration of phytochemicals. In addition, mechanisms of STZ action and fundamental gaps in understanding mitochondrial mechanisms of β cell dysfunction are also discussed.
Understanding Digital Markets: Review and Assessment

As the Internet develops into a robust channel for commerce, it will be important to understand the characteristics of electronic markets. Businesses, consumers, government regulators, and academic researchers face a variety of questions when analyzing these nascent markets. Will electronic markets have less friction than comparable conventional markets? What factors lead to dispersion in Internet prices? What are the major electronic commerce developments to watch in the coming years? This paper addresses these questions by reviewing current academic research, discussing the implications of this research, and proposing areas for future study. We review evidence that Internet markets are more efficient than conventional markets with respect to price levels, menu costs, and price elasticity. However, several studies find substantial and persistent dispersion in prices on the Internet. This price dispersion may be explained, in part, by heterogeneity in retailer-specific factors such as trust and awareness. In addition, we note that Internet markets are still in an early stage of development and may change dramatically in the coming years with the development of cross-channel sales strategies, infomediaries and shopbots, improved supply chain management, and new information markets.
Herb Network Analysis for a Famous TCM Doctor's Prescriptions on Treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) doctors always prescribe various herbal formulae tailored to individual patients. However, there is still a lack of appropriate methods to study the rule and potential biological basis underlying the numerous prescriptions. Here we developed an Herb-Compound-Target-Disease coherent network approach to analyze 871 herbal prescriptions from a TCM master, Mr. Ji-Ren Li, in his clinical practice on treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The core herb networks were extracted from Mr. Li's prescriptions. Then, we predicted target profiles of compounds in core herb networks and calculated potential synergistic activities among them. We further found that the target sets of core herbs overlapped significantly with the RA related biological processes and pathways. Moreover, we detected a possible connection between the prescribed herbs with different properties such as Cold and Hot and the Western drugs with different actions such as immunomodulatory and hormone regulation on treatment of RA. In summary, we explored a new application of TCM network pharmacology on the analysis of TCM prescriptions and detected the networked core herbs, their potential synergistic and biological activities, and possible connections with drugs. This work offers a novel way to understand TCM prescriptions in clinical practice.
Performance analysis of concatenated space-time coding with two transmit antennas

We show how Alamouti's simple but useful transmit diversity scheme for two antennas can be combined with a standard outer error-correcting code to achieve a stronger concatenated space-time coding scheme. By introducing a matrix formalism that allows us to interpret the transmission channel as a rotation in an Euclidean space, it can be easily shown that this scheme with two transmit (TX) and L/sub r/ receive (RX) antennas is equivalent to a simple RX antenna setup with 2L/sub r/ RX antennas. Analytical formulas for pair error probabilities will be derived for the time and/or frequency flat fading and for the ideally interleaved Rayleigh fading channel as well as for the correlated fading channel. As a practical example, we study how the performance of a Walsh-Hadamard coded multicarrier code-division multiple-access system depends on the correlation bandwidth of the channel and the number of RX and TX antennas.
Efficient batch-sequential Bayesian optimization with moments of truncated Gaussian vectors

We deal with the efficient parallelization of Bayesian global optimization algorithms, and more specifically of those based on the expected improvement criterion and its variants. A closed form formula relying on multivariate Gaussian cumulative distribution functions is established for a generalized version of the multipoint expected improvement criterion. In turn, the latter relies on intermediate results that could be of independent interest concerning moments of truncated Gaussian vectors. The obtained expansion of the criterion enables studying its differentiability with respect to point batches and calculating the corresponding gradient in closed form. Furthermore , we derive fast numerical approximations of this gradient and propose efficient batch optimization strategies. Numerical experiments illustrate that the proposed approaches enable computational savings of between one and two order of magnitudes, hence enabling derivative-based batch-sequential acquisition function maximization to become a practically implementable and efficient standard.
Epidemiology of Aspergillus terreus at a University Hospital

ABSTRACT Invasive fungal infections due to Aspergillus species have become a major cause of morbidity and mortality among immunocompromised patients. Aspergillus terreus, a less common pathogen, appears to be an emerging cause of infection at our institution, the University of Alabama hospital in Birmingham. We therefore investigated the epidemiology of A. terreus over the past 6 years by using culture data; antifungal susceptibility testing with amphotericin B, voriconazole, and itraconazole; and molecular typing with random amplification of polymorphic DNA-PCR (RAPD-PCR). During the study period, the percentage of A. terreus isolates relative to those of other Aspergillus species significantly increased, and A. terreus isolates frequently were resistant to amphotericin B. Molecular typing with the RAPD technique was useful in discriminating between patient isolates, which showed much strain diversity. Further surveillance of A. terreus may better define epidemiology and determine whether this organism is becoming more frequent in relation to other Aspergillus species.
Chronic reactive gliosis following regulatory T cell depletion during acute MCMV encephalitis

Long‐term, persistent central nervous system inflammation is commonly seen following brain infection. Using a murine model of viral encephalitis (murine cytomegalovirus, MCMV) we have previously shown that post‐encephalitic brains are maintained in an inflammatory state consisting of glial cell reactivity, retention of brain‐infiltrating tissue‐resident memory CD8+ T‐cells, and long‐term persistence of antibody‐producing cells of the B‐lineage. Here, we report that this neuroinflammation occurs concomitantly with accumulation and retention of immunosuppressive regulatory T‐cells (Tregs), and is exacerbated following their ablation. However, the extent to which these Tregs function to control neuroimmune activation following MCMV encephalitis is unknown. In this study, we used Foxp3‐diphtheria toxin receptor‐GFP (Foxp3‐DTR‐GFP) transgenic mice, which upon administration of low‐dose diphtheria toxin (DTx) results in the specific depletion of Tregs, to investigate their function. We found treatment with DTx during the acute phase of viral brain infection (0–4 dpi) resulted in depletion of Tregs from the brain, exacerbation of encephalitis (i.e., increased presence of CD4+ and CD8+ T‐cells), and chronic reactive phenotypes of resident glial cells (i.e., elevated MHC Class II as well as PD‐L1 levels, sustained microgliosis, and increased glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) expression on astrocytes) versus untreated, infected animals. This chronic proinflammatory environment was associated with reduced cognitive performance in spatial learning and memory tasks (Barnes Maze) by convalescent animals. These data demonstrate that chronic glial cell activation, unremitting post‐encephalitic neuroinflammation, and its associated long‐term neurological sequelae in response to viral brain infection are modulated by the immunoregulatory properties of Tregs. GLIA 2015;63:1982–1996
Long-Term Potentiation in the Rat Medial Vestibular Nuclei Depends on Locally Synthesized 17β-Estradiol

In male rat brainstem slices, we investigated the involvement of locally synthesized 17β-estradiol (E2) in the induction in the medial vestibular nucleus (MVN) of long-term potentiation (LTP) by high-frequency stimulation (HFS) of the primary vestibular afferents. We demonstrated that the blockade of aromatase by letrozole or of E2 receptors (ERα and ERβ) by ICI 182,780 prevented the HFS-induced LTP of the N1 wave of the evoked field potential (FP) without affecting baseline responses. Only prolonged afferent activation could induce low LTP. In contrast, HFS applied under a combined blockade of GABAA receptors and aromatase or ERs was still able to induce LTP, but it was significantly lower and slower. These findings demonstrate that E2 does not have a tonic influence on the activity of the MVN neurons and provide the first evidence of the crucial role played by local synthesis of E2 in inducing LTP. We suggest that the synthesis of E2 occurs after aromatase activation during HFS and facilitates the development of vestibular synaptic plasticity by influencing glutamate and GABA transmission.
Evaluation of nano zero valent iron effects on fermentation of municipal anaerobic sludge and inducing biogas production

The application of nano size materials on wastewater is going extensive because its high reactivity compared with other materials. As a result, numerous research studies investigated the effectiveness of dosing nano zero valent iron (nZVI) or micro zero valent iron (mZVI) on anaerobic digestion (AD) of sludge and production of biogas as promising renewable energy but inconsistent outcomes have appeared. In this paper, different dosing concentrations of nZVI were applied on anaerobic activated municipal sludge to examine the impact of nZVI on sludge fermentation, biogas generation, and methane (CH4) content stimulation. The results showed that addition 250 mg/L nZVI nanoparticles could enhance 25.23% biogas production and the methane content reached 94.05% after one week of digestion compared with 62.67% without adding iron nanoparticles.
ADULT-ONSET PRIMARY LATERAL SCLEROSIS IS NOT ASSOCIATED WITH MUTATIONS IN THE ALS2 GENE

Primary lateral sclerosis (PLS) is a diagnosis of exclusion in patients with an adult-onset gradually progressive pure upper motor neuron (UMN) syndrome. It has been debated whether PLS is a separate disease or part of the spectrum of ALS. Adult-onset PLS is almost always sporadic; it can, however, be a rare manifestation of familial ALS (FALS). 1 Homozygous mutations in the ALS2 gene are causative for autosomal recessive, early-onset forms of UMN diseases described as infantile–ascending hereditary spastic paralysis (IAHSP)2 and juvenile PLS (JPLS). 3,4 They are also rarely associated with lower motor neuron (LMN) involvement (juvenile ALS, ALS2). 3,4 Whether ALS2 mutations may also cause adult-onset PLS is not known. We, therefore, analyzed the ALS2 gene in 51 Dutch patients with adult-onset PLS. ### Methods. We included 51 Dutch patients (31 men and 20 women) with a progressive UMN syndrome of adult onset (median 51 years, range 18 to 76 years) and a median disease duration of 8 years (range 2 to 25 years). Onset was in the legs in 39, in the …
Bis{4-bromo-2-[(2-hydroxyethyl)iminomethyl]phenolato}nickel(II) monohydrate

The title mononuclear nickel complex, [Ni(C9H9BrNO2)2]·H2O, was obtained by the reaction of 5-bromosalicylaldehyde, 2-aminoethanol and nickel nitrate in methanol. The NiII atom is six-coordinated by two phenolate O, two imine N and two hydroxy O atoms from two crystallographically different Schiff base ligands, forming an octahedral geometry. In the crystal, molecules are linked by intermolecular O—H⋯O and O—H⋯Br hydrogen bonds, forming a three-dimensional network.
Channel-quality dependent earliest deadline due fair scheduling schemes for wireless multimedia networks

Providing delay guarantees to time-sensitive traffic in wireless multimedia networks is a challenging issue. This is due to the time-varying link capacities and the variety of real-time applications expected to be handled by such networks. We propose and evaluate the performance of two channel-aware scheduling schemes that are capable of providing such delay guarantees in wireless networks. In the first proposed scheme, the Channel-Dependent Earliest-Due-Date (CD-EDD) discipline, the expiration time of the head of line packets of users' queues is taken into consideration in conjunction with the current channel states of users in the scheduling decision. This policy attempts to guarantee the targeted delay bounds in addition to exploiting multiuser diversity to make best utilization of the variable capacity of the channel. In the second scheme we attempt to ensure that the number of packets dropped due to deadline violation is fairly disturbed among users. This provides fairness in the quality of service (QoS) delivered to different users. A unique feature of our work is explicit provisioning of statistical QoS as well as ensuring fairness in data rates, delay bound, and delay bound violation. We provide extensive simulation results to show the different performance aspects of the proposed schemes.
Artificial neural network control of FES in paraplegics for patient responsive ambulation

Describes a binary adaptive resonance theory (ART-1)-based artificial neural network (ANN) adapted for controlling functional electrical stimulation (FES) to facilitate patient-responsive ambulation by paralyzed patients with spinal cord injures. This network is to serve as a controller in an FES system developed by the first author which is presently in use by 300 patients worldwide (still without ANN control) and which was the first and the only FES system approved by the FDA. The proposed neural network discriminates above-lesion upper-trunk electromyographic (EMG) time series to activate standing and walking functions under FES and controls FES stimuli levels using response-EMG signals. For this particular application, the authors introduce several modifications of the ART-1 for pattern recognition and classification. First, a modified on-line learning rule is proposed. The new rule assures bidirectorial modification of the stored patterns and prevents noise interference. Second, a new reset rule is proposed which prevents "exact matching" when the input is a subset of the chosen pattern. The authors show the applicability of a single ART-1-based structure to solving two problems, namely, 1) signal pattern recognition and classification, and 2) control. This also facilitates ambulation of paraplegics under FES, with adequate patient interaction in initial system training, retraining the network when needed, and in allowing patient's manual override in the ease of error, where any manual override serves as a retraining input to the neural network. Thus, the practical control problems (arising in actual independent patient ambulation via FES) were all satisfied by a relatively simple ANN design. <<ETX>>
Bump hunting with non-Gaussian kernels

It is well known that the number of modes of a kernel density estimator is monotone nonincreasing in the bandwidth if the kernel is a Gaussian density. There is numerical evidence of nonmonotonicity in the case of some non-Gaussian kernels, but little additional information is available. The present paper provides theoretical and numerical descriptions of the extent to which the number of modes is a nonmonotone function of bandwidth in the case of general compactly supported densities. Our results address popular kernels used in practice, for example, the Epanechnikov, biweight and triweight kernels, and show that in such cases nonmonotonicity is present with strictly positive probability for all sample sizes n ≥ 3. In the Epanechnikov and biweight cases the probability of nonmonotonicity equals 1 for all n ≥ 2. Nevertheless, in spite of the prevalence of lack of monotonicity revealed by these results, it is shown that the notion of a critical bandwidth (the smallest bandwidth above which the number of modes is guaranteed to be monotone) is still well defined. Moreover, just as in the Gaussian case, the critical bandwidth is of the same size as the bandwidth that minimises mean squared error of the density estimator. These theoretical results, and new numerical evidence, show that the main effects of nonmonotonicity occur for relatively small bandwidths, and have negligible impact on many aspects of bump hunting.jj
Compiling Packet Programs to Reconfigurable Switches

Programmable switching chips are becoming more commonplace, along with new packet processing languages to configure the forwarding behavior. Our paper explores the design of a compiler for such switching chips, in particular how to map logical lookup tables to physical tables, while meeting data and control dependencies in the program. We study the interplay between Integer Linear Programming (ILP) and greedy algorithms to generate solutions optimized for latency, pipeline occupancy, or power consumption. ILP is slower but more likely to fit hard cases; further, ILP can be used to suggest the best greedy approach. We compile benchmarks from real production networks to two different programmable switch architectures: RMT and Intel's FlexPipe. Greedy solutions can fail to fit and can require up to 38% more stages, 42% more cycles, or 45% more power for some benchmarks. Our analysis also identifies critical resources in chips. For a complicated use case, doubling the TCAM per stage reduces the minimum number of stages needed by 12.5%.
Variations in GABRA2, encoding the alpha 2 subunit of the GABA(A) receptor, are associated with alcohol dependence and with brain oscillations.

Alcoholism is a complex disease with both genetic and environmental risk factors. To identify genes that affect the risk for alcoholism, we systematically ascertained and carefully assessed individuals in families with multiple alcoholics. Linkage and association analyses suggested that a region of chromosome 4p contained genes affecting a quantitative endophenotype, brain oscillations in the beta frequency range (13-28 Hz), and the risk for alcoholism. To identify the individual genes that affect these phenotypes, we performed linkage disequilibrium analyses of 69 single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs) within a cluster of four GABA(A) receptor genes, GABRG1, GABRA2, GABRA4, and GABRB1, at the center of the linked region. GABA(A) receptors mediate important effects of alcohol and also modulate beta frequencies. Thirty-one SNPs in GABRA2, but only 1 of the 20 SNPs in the flanking genes, showed significant association with alcoholism. Twenty-five of the GABRA2 SNPs, but only one of the SNPs in the flanking genes, were associated with the brain oscillations in the beta frequency. The region of strongest association with alcohol dependence extended from intron 3 past the 3' end of GABRA2; all 43 of the consecutive three-SNP haplotypes in this region of GABRA2 were highly significant. A three-SNP haplotype was associated with alcoholism, with P=. 000000022. No coding differences were found between the high-risk and low-risk haplotypes, suggesting that the effect is mediated through gene regulation. The very strong association of GABRA2 with both alcohol dependence and the beta frequency of the electroencephalogram, combined with biological evidence for a role of this gene in both phenotypes, suggest that GABRA2 might influence susceptibility to alcohol dependence by modulating the level of neural excitation.
Regulation of ventilatory sensitivity and carotid body proliferation in hypoxia by the PHD2/HIF‐2 pathway

Sustained hypoxic exposure increases ventilatory sensitivity to hypoxia as part of physiological acclimatisation. Oxygen‐sensitive signals are transduced in animal cells by post‐translational hydroxylation of transcription factors termed hypoxia‐inducible factors (HIFs). Mice heterozygous for the principal ‘oxygen‐sensing’ HIF hydroxylase PHD2 (prolyl hydroxylase domain 2) show enhanced ventilatory sensitivity to hypoxia. To analyse the underlying mechanisms, functional (hypoxic ventilatory responses, HVRs) and anatomical (cellular proliferation within carotid bodies) responses were studied in genetic models of inducible and constitutive inactivation of PHD2 and its principal hydroxylation substrates, HIF‐1α and HIF‐2α. Inducible PHD2 inactivation enhanced HVR, similar to constitutive inactivation; both responses were almost entirely compensated for by specific inactivation of HIF‐2α. Inducible inactivation of HIF‐2α, but not HIF‐1α, strikingly reduced ventilatory acclimatisation to hypoxia and associated carotid body cell proliferation. These findings demonstrate a key role for PHD2 and HIF‐2α in ventilatory control and carotid body biology.