Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Three-Dimensional Beamforming for Large-Scale FD-MIMO Systems Exploiting Statistical Channel State Information

In this paper, we provide a practical downlink transmission approach for single-cell full-dimension multiple-input-multiple-output (FD-MIMO) systems with large-scale uniform planar antenna array at the base station (BS). Under the assumption of only statistical channel state information (CSI) at the BS, we derive the optimal beamforming vector of each user by maximizing a lower bound on the average signal-to-leakage-plus-noise ratio. Some main guidelines for user scheduling are also derived under this criterion. Based on these results, a low-complexity 3-D beamforming space-division multiple-access (SDMA) transmission algorithm exploiting only the statistical CSI of each user is proposed. Furthermore, the ergodic sum rate of the proposed algorithm is analyzed, and a closed-form expression, as well as a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) approximation and a high-SNR approximation, are derived. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm performs well in terms of achievable sum rate, and the analytical results on its achievable sum rate are validated.
Patient-Specific Computational Modeling of Upper Extremity Arteriovenous Fistula Creation: Its Feasibility to Support Clinical Decision-Making

Introduction Inadequate flow enhancement on the one hand, and excessive flow enhancement on the other hand, remain frequent complications of arteriovenous fistula (AVF) creation, and hamper hemodialysis therapy in patients with end-stage renal disease. In an effort to reduce these, a patient-specific computational model, capable of predicting postoperative flow, has been developed. The purpose of this study was to determine the accuracy of the patient-specific model and to investigate its feasibility to support decision-making in AVF surgery. Methods Patient-specific pulse wave propagation models were created for 25 patients awaiting AVF creation. Model input parameters were obtained from clinical measurements and literature. For every patient, a radiocephalic AVF, a brachiocephalic AVF, and a brachiobasilic AVF configuration were simulated and analyzed for their postoperative flow. The most distal configuration with a predicted flow between 400 and 1500 ml/min was considered the preferred location for AVF surgery. The suggestion of the model was compared to the choice of an experienced vascular surgeon. Furthermore, predicted flows were compared to measured postoperative flows. Results Taken into account the confidence interval (25th and 75th percentile interval), overlap between predicted and measured postoperative flows was observed in 70% of the patients. Differentiation between upper and lower arm configuration was similar in 76% of the patients, whereas discrimination between two upper arm AVF configurations was more difficult. In 3 patients the surgeon created an upper arm AVF, while model based predictions allowed for lower arm AVF creation, thereby preserving proximal vessels. In one patient early thrombosis in a radiocephalic AVF was observed which might have been indicated by the low predicted postoperative flow. Conclusions Postoperative flow can be predicted relatively accurately for multiple AVF configurations by using computational modeling. This model may therefore be considered a valuable additional tool in the preoperative work-up of patients awaiting AVF creation.
Exhaled monoxides in asymptomatic atopic subjects

Atopy is a genetically determined condition and some atopic people develop airway hyperresponsiveness and sometimes asthma later in life. Since airway inflammation may be present before the onset of clinical symptoms of asthma, early and noninvasive detection of inflammation would be useful in atopic subjects. Mediators produced by activated inflammatory cells may lead to induction of inducible nitric oxide synthase producing nitric oxide (NO) and inducible heme oxygenase releasing carbon monoxide (CO) in the airways. Both monoxides are present in exhaled air and their levels are elevated in asthma reflecting airway inflammation.
Climate sensitivity estimates – sensitivity to radiative forcing time series and observational data

Abstract. Inferred effective climate sensitivity (ECSinf) is estimated using a method combining radiative forcing (RF) time series and several series of observed ocean heat content (OHC) and near-surface temperature change in a Bayesian framework using a simple energy balance model and a stochastic model. The model is updated compared to our previous analysis by using recent forcing estimates from IPCC, including OHC data for the deep ocean, and extending the time series to 2014. In our main analysis, the mean value of the estimated ECSinf is 2.0 ∘C, with a median value of 1.9 ∘C and a 90 % credible interval (CI) of 1.2–3.1 ∘C. The mean estimate has recently been shown to be consistent with the higher values for the equilibrium climate sensitivity estimated by climate models. The transient climate response (TCR) is estimated to have a mean value of 1.4 ∘C (90 % CI 0.9–2.0 ∘C), and in our main analysis the posterior aerosol effective radiative forcing is similar to the range provided by the IPCC. We show a strong sensitivity of the estimated ECSinf to the choice of a priori RF time series, excluding pre-1950 data and the treatment of OHC data. Sensitivity analysis performed by merging the upper (0–700 m) and the deep-ocean OHC or using only one OHC dataset (instead of four in the main analysis) both give an enhancement of the mean ECSinf by about 50 % from our best estimate.
Genome-Wide Small Interfering RNA Screens Reveal VAMP3 as a Novel Host Factor Required for Uukuniemi Virus Late Penetration

ABSTRACT The Bunyaviridae constitute a large family of enveloped animal viruses, many of which are important emerging pathogens. How bunyaviruses enter and infect mammalian cells remains largely uncharacterized. We used two genome-wide silencing screens with distinct small interfering RNA (siRNA) libraries to investigate host proteins required during infection of human cells by the bunyavirus Uukuniemi virus (UUKV), a late-penetrating virus. Sequence analysis of the libraries revealed that many siRNAs in the screens inhibited infection by silencing not only the intended targets but additional genes in a microRNA (miRNA)-like manner. That the 7-nucleotide seed regions in the siRNAs can cause a perturbation in infection was confirmed by using synthetic miRNAs (miRs). One of the miRs tested, miR-142-3p, was shown to interfere with the intracellular trafficking of incoming viruses by regulating the v-SNARE VAMP3, a strong hit shared by both siRNA screens. Inactivation of VAMP3 by the tetanus toxin led to a block in infection. Using fluorescence-based techniques in fixed and live cells, we found that the viruses enter VAMP3+ endosomal vesicles 5 min after internalization and that colocalization was maximal 15 min thereafter. At this time, LAMP1 was associated with the VAMP3+ virus-containing endosomes. In cells depleted of VAMP3, viruses were mainly trapped in LAMP1-negative compartments. Together, our results indicated that UUKV relies on VAMP3 for penetration, providing an indication of added complexity in the trafficking of viruses through the endocytic network. IMPORTANCE Bunyaviruses represent a growing threat to humans and livestock globally. Unfortunately, relatively little is known about these emerging pathogens. We report here the first human genome-wide siRNA screens for a bunyavirus. The screens resulted in the identification of 562 host cell factors with a potential role in cell entry and virus replication. To demonstrate the robustness of our approach, we confirmed and analyzed the role of the v-SNARE VAMP3 in Uukuniemi virus entry and infection. The information gained lays the basis for future research into the cell biology of bunyavirus infection and new antiviral strategies. In addition, by shedding light on serious caveats in large-scale siRNA screening, our experimental and bioinformatics procedures will be valuable in the comprehensive analysis of past and future high-content screening data.
Computing a Smallest Multilabeled Phylogenetic Tree from Rooted Triplets

We investigate the computational complexity of inferring a smallest possible multilabeled phylogenetic tree (MUL tree) which is consistent with each of the rooted triplets in a given set. This problem has not been studied previously in the literature. We prove that even the very restricted case of determining if there exists a MUL tree consistent with the input and having just one leaf duplication is an NP-hard problem. Furthermore, we showthatthe general minimization problem is difficult to approximate, although a simple polynomial-time approximation algorithm achieves an approximation ratio close to our derived inapproximability bound. Finally, we provide an exact algorithm for the problem running in exponential time and space. As a by-product, we also obtain new, strong inapproximability results for two partitioning problems on directed graphs called Acyclic Partition and Acyclic Tree-Partition.
Oocyte development in the mouse: An ultrastructural comparison of oocytes isolated at various stages of growth and meiotic competence

An ultrastructural comparison of mouse oocytes isolated at various stages of growth and meiotic competence has been carried out. Progressive changes in the nucleoli, ribosomes, mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi complex, and other organelles and inclusions of the oocyte have been examined as a function of oocyte size by transmission electron microscopy. The observations presented support the idea that growth of the mammalian oocyte involves not just tremendous enlargement of the cell, but extensive alterations in its overall metabolism as reflected in the ultrastructure of the oocyte at various stages of growth.
Multifactorial Biological Modulation of Warm Ischemia Reperfusion Injury in Liver Transplantation From Non–Heart-Beating Donors Eliminates Primary Nonfunction and Reduces Bile Salt Toxicity

Objective:To design a multifactorial biological modulation approach targeting ischemia reperfusion injury to augment viability of porcine liver grafts from non–heart-beating donors (NHBD). Background Data:Liver Transplantation (LTx) from NHBD is associated with an increased risk of primary nonfunction (PNF) and biliary complications. In porcine NHBD-LTx, we previously reported a 50% risk of PNF and toxic bile formation in grafts exposed to ≥30′ warm ischemia (WI). Methods:Porcine livers exposed to 45′ WI were cold stored, transplanted and either modulated (n = 6) or not (controls, n = 9). In the modulation group, donor livers were flushed with warm Ringers (avoiding cold-induced vasoconstriction), streptokinase (eliminating stagnating thrombi), and epoprostenol (vasodilator, platelet aggregation inhibitor) prior to cold storage. In recipients, glycine (Kupffer cell stabilizer), α1-acid-glycoprotein (anti-inflammatory protein), MAPKinase-inhibitor (pro-inflammatory cytokine generation inhibitor), α-tocopherol and glutathione (anti-oxidants), and apotransferrin (iron chelator) were administrated intravenously. PNF, survival, lactate, transaminase, TNF-α, redox-active iron, and biliary bile salt-to-phospholipid ratio were monitored. Results:No PNF was observed in modulated versus 55% in control pigs (P = 0.025). Survival was 83% in modulated versus 22% in control pigs (P = 0.02). At 180′ postreperfusion, lactate was lower in modulated (5.4 ± 1.9 mmol/L) versus control pigs (9.4 ± 2.2 mmol/L; P = 0.011). At 60′ postreperfusion, there was a trend for lower AST in modulated versus control pigs at 60′ (939 ± 578 vs. 1683 ± 873 IU/L; P = 0.089). Postreperfusion, TNF-α remained stable in modulated pigs (49 ± 27 pg/mL at 15′ and 85 ± 26 pg/mL at 180′; P = 0.399) but increased in control pigs (107 ± 36pg/mL at 15′ and 499 ± 216 pg/mL at 180′; P = 0.023). At 180′ postreperfusion, redox-active iron was higher in control pigs versus modulated pigs (0.21±0.18 vs. 0.042±0.062 μm; P = 0.038). Biliary bile salt-to-phospholipid ratio post-LTx was lower in modulated versus control pigs (1128 ± 447 vs. 4836 ± 4619; P = 0.05). Conclusions:A multifactorial biological modulation eliminates PNF, improves liver function and increases survival. Biochemically, TNF-α and redox-active iron are suppressed and biliary bile salt toxicity is reduced. Translating this strategy clinically may lead to wider and safer use of NHBD.
Resource-Bounded Crowd-Sourcing of Commonsense Knowledge

Knowledge acquisition is the essential process of extracting and encoding knowledge, both domain specific and commonsense, to be used in intelligent systems. While many large knowledge bases have been constructed, none is close to complete. This paper presents an approach to improving a knowledge base efficiently under resource constraints. Using a guiding knowledge base, questions are generated from a weak form of similarity-based inference given the glossary mapping between two knowledge bases. The candidate questions are prioritized in terms of the concept coverage of the target knowledge. Experiments were conducted to find questions to grow the Chinese ConceptNet using the English ConceptNet as a guide. The results were evaluated by online users to verify that 94.17% of the questions and 85.77% of the answers are good. In addition, the answers collected in a six-week period showed consistent improvement to a 36.33% increase in concept coverage of the Chinese commonsense knowledge base against the English ConceptNet.
Factors associated with blood lead concentrations of children in Jamaica

Lead is a heavy metal known to be detrimental to neurologic, physiologic, and behavioral health of children. Previous studies from Jamaica reported that mean lead levels in soil are four times that of lead levels in some other parts of the world. Other studies detected lead levels in fruits and root vegetables, which were grown in areas with lead contaminated soil. In this study, we investigate environmental factors associated with blood lead concentrations in Jamaican children. The participants in this study comprised 125 typically developing (TD) children (ages 2–8 years) who served as controls in an age- and sex-matched case-control study that enrolled children from 2009–2012 in Jamaica. We administered a questionnaire to assess demographic and socioeconomic information as well as potential exposures to lead through food. Using General Linear Models (GLMs), we identified factors associated with blood lead concentrations in Jamaican children. The geometric mean blood lead concentration (GMBLC) in the sample of children in this study was 2.80 μg dL−1. In univariable GLM analyses, GMBLC was higher for children whose parents did not have education beyond high school compared to those whose parents had attained this level (3.00 μg dL−1 vs. 2.31 μg dL−1; P = 0.05), children living near a high traffic road compared to those who did not (3.43 μg dL−1 vs. 2.52 μg dL−1; P < 0.01), and children who reported eating ackee compared to those who did not eat this fruit (2.89 μg dL−1 vs. 1.65 μg dL−1; P < 0.05). In multivariable analysis, living near a high traffic road was identified as an independent risk factor for higher adjusted GMBLC (3.05 μg dL−1 vs. 2.19 μg dL−1; P = 0.01). While our findings indicate that GMBLC in Jamaican children has dropped by at least 62% during the past two decades, children living in Jamaica still have GMBLC that is twice that of children in more developed countries. In addition, we have identified significant risk factors for higher blood lead concentrations in Jamaican children. We believe increasing awareness among parents regarding these risk factors could potentially lead to a lower level of lead exposure in Jamaican children.
OCCUPATIONAL DIVERSITY AND ENDOGENOUS INEQUALITY

A traditional view of markets is that they equalize wealth across individuals. A more recent literature suggests that markets are inherently disequalizing. A third viewpoint argues that initial history is crucial in determining whether inequalities persist or not. By constructing a theory of equilibrium investment allocation between human capital and financial assets in the presence of borrowing constraints, we address these views in a unified way. Two attributes of occupational diversity turn out to be central to our understanding: span, the range of training costs across occupations, and richness, the variety of different training costs contained within the span. The former is used to generate a necessary and sufficient condition for markets to be disequalizing, while the latter is shown to be directly connected to the question of history-dependence.
Fluorination mechanisms of silicone rubbers and surface properties

Silicone rubber (SIR) has multiple formulations and is normally categorized as room temperature vulcanized (RTV), high temperature vulcanized (HTV) and liquid SIRs. This report presents surface physicochemical characteristics after the several types of SIR are fluorinated by the F2/N2 mixture gas, based on ATR-IR analysis and SEM imaging. This report demonstrates a close association between change in surface wettability and material formulation, and a change in surface electrical conduction after direct fluorination, on the basis of measurements on water contact angle and surface potential decay, respectively. This report makes a brief discussion on the inconsistent changes in surface wettability between the SIRs, although fluorine atoms are introduced into the surface layer dominantly by replacing hydrogen atoms in methyl groups, forming a fluorinated layer with a roughed surface, for all of them.
Late Holocene forest contraction and fragmentation in central Africa

Abstract During the warmer Holocene Period, two major climatic crises affected the Central African rainforests. The first crisis, around 4000 cal yr BP, caused the contraction of the forest in favor of savanna expansion at its northern and southern periphery. The second crisis, around 2500 cal yr BP, resulted in major perturbation at the forest core, leading to forest disturbance and fragmentation with a rapid expansion of pioneer-type vegetation, and a marked erosional phase. The major driver of these two climatic crises appears to be rapid sea-surface temperature variations in the equatorial eastern Atlantic, which modified the regional atmospheric circulation. The change between ca. 2500 to 2000 cal yr BP led to a large increase in thunderstorm activity, which explains the phase of forest fragmentation. Ultimately, climatic data obtained recently show that the present-day major rise in thunderstorms and lightning activity in Central Africa could result from some kind of solar influence, and hence the phase of forest fragmentation between ca. 2500 to 2000 cal yr BP may provide a model for the present-day global warming-related environmental changes in this region.
Combined extrinsic and intrinsic manipulations exert complementary neuronal enrichment in embryonic rat neural precursor cultures: An in vitro and in vivo analysis

Numerous central nervous system (CNS) disorders share a common pathology in dysregulation of γ‐aminobutyric acid (GABA) inhibitory signaling. Transplantation of GABA‐releasing cells at the site of disinhibition holds promise for alleviating disease symptoms with fewer side effects than traditional drug therapies. We manipulated fibroblast growth factor (FGF)‐2 deprivation and mammalian achaete‐scute homolog (MASH)1 transcription factor levels in an attempt to amplify the default GABAergic neuronal fate in cultured rat embryonic neural precursor cells (NPCs) for use in transplantation studies. Naïve and MASH1 lentivirus‐transduced NPCs were maintained in FGF‐2 or deprived of FGF‐2 for varying lengths of time. Immunostaining and quantitative analysis showed that GABA‐ and β‐III‐tubulin‐immunoreactive cells generally decreased through successive passages, suggesting a loss of neurogenic potential in rat neurospheres expanded in vitro. However, FGF‐2 deprivation resulted in a small, but significantly increased population of GABAergic cells derived from passaged neurospheres. In contrast to naïve and GFP lentivirus‐transduced clones, MASH1 transduction resulted in increased bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) incorporation and clonal colony size. Western blotting showed that MASH1 overexpression and FGF‐2 deprivation additively increased β‐III‐tubulin and decreased cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase (CNPase) expression, whereas FGF‐2 deprivation alone attenuated glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) expression. These results suggest that low FGF‐2 signaling and MASH1 activity can operate in concert to enrich NPC cultures for a GABA neuronal phenotype. When transplanted into the adult rat spinal cord, this combination also yielded GABAergic neurons. These findings indicate that, even for successful utilization of the default GABAergic neuronal precursor fate, a combination of both extrinsic and intrinsic manipulations will likely be necessary to realize the full potential of NSC grafts in restoring function. J. Comp. Neurol. 515:56–71, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Analysis of resistance factors for LRFD of soil nail pullout limit state using default FHWA load and resistance models

Abstract Resistance factors for load and resistance factor design (LRFD) of pullout limit state of both permanent and temporary soil nails are calibrated against a wide design space using the current Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) nail load and resistance models. The calculated resistance factors were shown to scatter broadly among design scenarios that differ in wall face batter, soil friction angle, nail ultimate bond strength, and surcharge live load. An important lesson learned from the analysis results is that the current practice of using a single resistance factor for LRFD of nail pullout limit state could not result in uniform reliabilities across different design scenarios. Simple artificial neural network (ANN) models were developed for computation of resistance factors. Design examples demonstrated the ability of the ANN models in providing resistance factors that yield satisfactory and consistent reliabilities in different nail pullout designs.
Loss of the matriptase inhibitor HAI‐2 during prostate cancer progression

Prostate cancer progression is accompanied by increased levels of extracellular proteases that are capable of remodeling the extracellular matrix as well as cleaving and activating growth factors and their receptors that are critically involved in pro‐cancerous signaling pathways. The membrane anchored serine protease matriptase (also known as MT‐SP1, epithin, and TADG15) has been implicated in prostate cancer. Several studies have demonstrated that the expression of this protease, both on the RNA and protein level is significantly increased during prostate cancer progression. Hepatocyte activator growth factor inhibitor‐2 (HAI‐2) has recently been identified as a physiological inhibitor of matriptase. It has been proposed that the increase of matriptase with a concomitant loss of its inhibitors may play a critical role in cancer progression.