Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quantum charge transport in 10-nanometer scale suspended graphene transistors

Since the discovery of graphene there has been a growing interest in fabricating and studying nanometer scale graphene devices for future nanoelectronic applications. We developed a nanoetching technique called electromigration to fabricate approximately 10 nm scale suspended and clean graphene quantum dots (QD) and ballistic transistors. Because these devices are so small, we were able to explore the fundamental quantum properties of their relativistic-like charge carriers. Using our electromigration technique, we tailored the shape and size of suspended graphene channels, forming ultra-short devices which behave as graphene QDs if they are narrow (approximately 30 nm) or ballistic transistors if they are wider (approximately 100 nm). Our approximately 30x30 nm suspended graphene QDs are, to our knowledge, the smallest suspended graphene QDs made to date. We measured electron transport across these devices and observed a variable charging energy as a function of the charge occupation of the dot, as expected due to the chaotic billiard transport of Dirac fermions. We observed signatures of electron-vibron (e-v) coupling in our suspended QDs and measured their self-actuated out-of-plane vibron resonances (bending mode), whose frequencies range up to 100 GHz. We used a gold film to locally gate graphene and create ultra-short p-n junctions. We fabricated approximately 20-100 nm long suspended graphene ballistic transistors and measured n-p-n junctions (down to approximately 10 nm p-n junctions). We observed coherent ballistic transport in agreement with the theory of Dirac fermions, and measured Fabry-Perot interferences in our devices. We measured coherence lengths up to approximately 700 nm in our graphene transistors, which is much longer than the length of the channels of the transistors. This showed that the graphene contacts (gold covered) are also ballistic. The fabrication method we developed to make ultra-short suspended graphene devices, combined with the observation of clear signatures of quantum coherent transport, opens the way to explore graphene physics and applications at the 10 nm scale.
Networks, Matroids, and Non-Shannon Information Inequalities

We define a class of networks, called matroidal networks, which includes as special cases all scalar-linearly solvable networks, and in particular solvable multicast networks. We then present a method for constructing matroidal networks from known matroids. We specifically construct networks that play an important role in proving results in the literature, such as the insufficiency of linear network coding and the unachievability of network coding capacity. We also construct a new network, from the Vamos matroid, which we call the Vamos network, and use it to prove that Shannon-type information inequalities are in general not sufficient for computing network coding capacities. To accomplish this, we obtain a capacity upper bound for the Vamos network using a non-Shannon-type information inequality discovered in 1998 by Zhang and Yeung, and then show that it is smaller than any such bound derived from Shannon-type information inequalities. This is the first application of a non-Shannon-type inequality to network coding. We also compute the exact routing capacity and linear coding capacity of the Vamos network. Finally, using a variation of the Vamos network, we prove that Shannon-type information inequalities are insufficient even for computing network coding capacities of multiple-unicast networks.
Exploring The Impact of Tourism Development and Governance on Economic Growth of Developing Economies: Evidence from Driscol-Kraay Approach

This study undertakes a comprehensive panel data evaluation of 28 developing countries to explore the interconnected dynamics of tourism development, governance, and economic growth in developing economies. GDP is used as a proxy for economic growth and taken as dependent variable while International tourism receipts are used as tourism development and governance stability (GS) was used for governance. FDI and labor force are taken as control variable. In this study, analysis is based on descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, Breusch and Pagan cross section dependency test and second generation unit root tests (occurrence of cross-sectional dependency) have been applied. Moreover, Driscoll and Kraay (DK) standard error (based on fixed effects estimation) technique are used because of Heteroskedasticity, Autocorrelation, and Cross-sectional dependency. The findings indicate a robust positive influence of both tourism development and governance on the economic growth of developing economies. Nevertheless, effective policy interventions are imperative to address governance challenges prevalent in these economies.
Repetitive Concussive Traumatic Brain Injury Interacts with Post-Injury Foot Shock Stress to Worsen Social and Depression-Like Behavior in Mice

The debilitating effects of repetitive concussive traumatic brain injury (rcTBI) have been increasingly recognized in both military and civilian populations. rcTBI may result in significant neurological, cognitive, and affective sequelae, and is often followed by physical and/or psychological post-injury stressors that may exacerbate the effects of the injury and prolong the recovery period for injured patients. However, the consequences of post-injury stressors and their subsequent effects on social and emotional behavior in the context of rcTBI have been relatively little studied in animal models. Here, we use a mouse model of rcTBI with two closed-skull blunt impacts 24 hours apart and social and emotional behavior testing to examine the consequences of a stressor (foot shock fear conditioning) following brain injury (rcTBI). rcTBI alone did not affect cued or contextual fear conditioning or extinction compared to uninjured sham animals. In the sucrose preference test, rcTBI animals had decreased preference for sucrose, an anhedonia-like behavior, regardless of whether they experienced foot shock stress or were non-shocked controls. However, rcTBI and post-injury foot shock stress had synergistic effects in tests of social recognition and depression-like behavior. In the social recognition test, animals with both injury and shock were more impaired than either non-shocked injured mice or shocked but uninjured mice. In the tail suspension test, injured mice had increased depression-like behavior compared with uninjured mice, and shock stress worsened the depression-like behavior only in the injured mice with no effect in the uninjured mice. These results provide a model of subtle emotional behavioral deficits after combined concussive brain injury and stress, and may provide a platform for testing treatment and prevention strategies for social behavior deficits and mood disorders that are tailored to patients with traumatic brain injury.
Coffee Polyphenols Change the Expression of STAT5B and ATF-2 Modifying Cyclin D1 Levels in Cancer Cells

Background. Epidemiological studies suggest that coffee consumption reduces the risk of cancer, but the molecular mechanisms of its chemopreventive effects remain unknown. Objective. To identify differentially expressed genes upon incubation of HT29 colon cancer cells with instant caffeinated coffee (ICC) or caffeic acid (CA) using whole-genome microarrays. Results. ICC incubation of HT29 cells caused the overexpression of 57 genes and the underexpression of 161, while CA incubation induced the overexpression of 12 genes and the underexpression of 32. Using Venn-Diagrams, we built a list of five overexpressed genes and twelve underexpressed genes in common between the two experimental conditions. This list was used to generate a biological association network in which STAT5B and ATF-2 appeared as highly interconnected nodes. STAT5B overexpression was confirmed at the mRNA and protein levels. For ATF-2, the changes in mRNA levels were confirmed for both ICC and CA, whereas the decrease in protein levels was only observed in CA-treated cells. The levels of cyclin D1, a target gene for both STAT5B and ATF-2, were downregulated by CA in colon cancer cells and by ICC and CA in breast cancer cells. Conclusions. Coffee polyphenols are able to affect cyclin D1 expression in cancer cells through the modulation of STAT5B and ATF-2.
Macrofouling communities and the degradation of plastic bags in the sea: an in situ experiment

The increasing amount of plastic littered into the sea may provide a new substratum for benthic organisms. These marine fouling communities on plastic have not received much scientific attention. We present, to our knowledge, the first comprehensive analysis of their macroscopic community composition, their primary production and the polymer degradation comparing conventional polyethylene (PE) and a biodegradable starch-based plastic blend in coastal benthic and pelagic habitats in the Mediterranean Sea. The biomass of the fouling layer increased significantly over time and all samples became heavy enough to sink to the seafloor. The fouling communities, consisting of 21 families, were distinct between habitats, but not between polymer types. Positive primary production was measured in the pelagic, but not in the benthic habitat, suggesting that large accumulations of floating plastic could pose a source of oxygen for local ecosystems, as well as a carbon sink. Contrary to PE, the biodegradable plastic showed a significant loss of tensile strength and disintegrated over time in both habitats. These results indicate that in the marine environment, biodegradable polymers may disintegrate at higher rates than conventional polymers. This should be considered for the development of new materials, environmental risk assessment and waste management strategies.
Modeling Overlapping Speech using Vector Taylor Series

Current speaker diarization systems typically fail to successfully assign multiple speakers speaking simultaneously. According to previous studies, overlapping errors account for a large proportion of the total errors in multi-party speech diarization. In this work, we propose a new approach using Vector Taylor Series (VTS) to obtain overlapping speech models assuming individual speaker models are available, e.g. from the diarization output. We extend the VTS framework to use multiple acoustic classes to account for the non-stationarity of corrupting speaker speech. We propose a system using multiclass VTS to detect single-speaker and two-speaker overlapping speech as well as the speakers involved. We show the effectivity of the approach on distant microphone meeting data, especially with the multi-class approach performing at the state-of-the-art.
Is El Niño really changing?

El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the leading mode of tropical Pacific climate variability, with global impacts. Understanding how the statistics of ENSO events may be changing in response to global warming is of great interest and importance for society. A clear detection of such signals in observations has, however, been obscured by large event‐to‐event differences and apparent “regime shifts” such as that of the late 1970s. In particular, despite extensive research, it is not clear to what extent the observed long‐term changes are systemic or random. Here we show using a multicomponent linear inverse modeling technique that statistically significant systemic changes have indeed occurred in ENSO dynamics since the late 1970s and have affected the evolution of El Niño and La Niña events from their embryonic to fully mature stages.
Proteinase‐activated receptors 1 and 2 and the regulation of porcine coronary artery contractility: a role for distinct tyrosine kinase pathways

Because angiotensin‐II‐mediated porcine coronary artery (PCA) vasoconstriction is blocked by protein tyrosine kinase (PYK) inhibitors, we hypothesized that proteinase‐activated receptors (PARs), known to regulate vascular tension, like angiotensin‐II, would also cause PCA contractions via PYK‐dependent signalling pathways.
Tests of Equal Predictive Ability With Real-Time Data

This paper examines the asymptotic and finite-sample properties of tests of equal forecast accuracy applied to direct, multistep predictions from both nonnested and nested linear regression models. In contrast to earlier work in the literature, our asymptotics take account of the real-time, revised nature of the data. Monte Carlo simulations indicate that our asymptotic approximations yield reasonable size and power properties in most circumstances. The paper concludes with an examination of the real-time predictive content of various measures of economic activity for inflation. This article has supplementary material online.
Human substance P receptor lacking the C‐terminal domain remains competent to desensitize and internalize

Substance P receptor (SPR) and its naturally occurring splice‐variant, lacking the C‐terminal tail, are found in brain and spinal cord. Whether C‐terminally truncated SPR desensitizes like full‐length SPR is controversial. We used a multivaried approach to determine whether human SPR (hSPR) and a C‐terminally truncated mutant, hSPRΔ325, differ in their desensitization and internalization. In HEK‐293 cells expressing either hSPRΔ325 or hSPR, SP‐induced desensitization of the two receptors was similar when measured by inositol triphosphate accumulation or by transient translocation of coexpressed PKCβII‐GFP to the plasma membrane. Moreover, translocation of β‐arrestin 1 or 2‐GFP (βarr1‐GFP or βarr2‐GFP) to the plasma membrane, and receptor internalization were also similar. However, hSPR and hSPRΔ325 differ in their phosphorylation and in their ability to form β‐arrestin‐containing endocytic vesicles. Unlike hSPR, hSPRΔ325 is not phosphorylated to a detectable level in intact HEK293 cells, and whereas hSPR forms vesicles containing either βarr1‐GFP or βarr2‐GFP, hSPRΔ325 does not form any vesicles with βarr1‐GFP, and forms fewer vesicles with βarr2‐GFP. We conclude that truncated hSPR undergoes agonist‐dependent desensitization and internalization without detectable receptor phosphorylation.
Pulmonary and psychosocial findings at enrollment in the ACCESS study.

AIM To assess lung involvement and the association of demographic and psychosocial factors with respiratory health in 736 persons with sarcoidosis at enrollment in A Case Control Etiologic Study of Sarcoidosis (ACCESS). METHODS 736 patients with biopsy diagnosis of sarcoidosis within 6 months of enrollment were studied at 10 US centers. Lung involvement was evaluated by chest radiography, spirometry and dyspnea questionnaire. Demographics, number of involved extrathoracic organ systems, comorbidities, and health-related quality of life (HRQL) were assessed. RESULTS 95% of patients had lung involvement. 8% were Scadding Stage 0, 40% I, 37% II, 10% III, and 5% IV 51% reported dyspnea. Increasing radiographic lung stage was associated with decreasing Forced Vital Capacity (FVC) (p < 0.01). Patients with higher stages had more airways obstruction and dyspnea. 46% of cases and 27% of controls had Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) scores of 9 or greater, (p < 0.001). Age > or = 40, African-American race, body mass index > or = 30kg/m2, and CES-D scores > 9 were associated with decreased FVC and greater dyspnea. Impaired spirometry and greater dyspnea were associated with poorer quality of life. CONCLUSION A "global" approach to the sarcoidosis patient, including careful assessment of dyspnea and health related quality of life, as well as of lung function and radiographic changes, and any extrathoracic involvement, is important, not only in management of the individual patient, but should also prove beneficial in assessing outcomes in clinical trials in the future.
Probing Mechanical Properties of Jurkat Cells under the Effect of ART Using Oscillating Optical Tweezers

Acute lymphoid leukemia is a common type of blood cancer and chemotherapy is the initial treatment of choice. Quantifying the effect of a chemotherapeutic drug at the cellular level plays an important role in the process of the treatment. In this study, an oscillating optical tweezer was employed to characterize the frequency-dependent mechanical properties of Jurkat cells exposed to the chemotherapeutic agent, artesunate (ART). A motion equation for a bead bound to a cell was applied to describe the mechanical characteristics of the cell cytoskeleton. By comparing between the modeling results and experimental results from the optical tweezer, the stiffness and viscosity of the Jurkat cells before and after the ART treatment were obtained. The results demonstrate a weak power-law dependency of cell stiffness with frequency. Furthermore, the stiffness and viscosity were increased after the treatment. Therefore, the cytoskeleton cell stiffness as the well as power-law coefficient can provide a useful insight into the chemo-mechanical relationship of drug treated cancer cells and may serve as another tool for evaluating therapeutic performance quantitatively.
Gas/Particle Partitioning of Semivolatile Organic Compounds To Model Inorganic, Organic, and Ambient Smog Aerosols

Gas/particle (G/P) partitioning is an important process that affects the deposition, chemical reactions, long-range transport, and impact on human and ecosystem health of atmospheric semivolatile organic compounds (SOCs). Gas/particle partitioning coefficients (Kp) were measured in an outdoor chamber for a group of polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and n-alkanes sorbing to three types of model aerosol materials: solid ammonium sulfate, liquid dioctyl phthalate (DOP), and secondary organic aerosol (SOA) generated from the photooxidation of whole gasoline vapor. Kp values were also measured for ambient n-alkanes sorbing to urban particulate material (UPM) during summer smog episodes in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Based on the Kp values obtained for the aerosols studied here, for environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), and for a quartz surface, we conclude that G/P partitioning of SOCs to UPM during summer smog episodes is dominated by absorption into the organic fraction in the aerosol. Comparison.
Generation of an environmental niche for neural stem cell development by the extracellular matrix molecule tenascin C

Stem cells in the embryonic mammalian CNS are initially responsive to fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2). They then undergo a developmental programme in which they acquire epidermal growth factor (EGF) responsiveness, switch from the production of neuronal to glial precursors and become localized in specialized germinal zones such as the subventricular zone (SVZ). Here we show that extracellular matrix molecules act as regulators of this programme. Tenascin C is highly expressed in the SVZ, and transgenic mice lacking tenascin C show delayed acquisition of the EGF receptor. This results from alterations in the response of the stem cells to the growth factors FGF2 and bone morphogenic protein 4 (BMP4), which normally promote and inhibit acquisition of the EGF receptor, respectively. Tenascin C-deficient mice also have altered numbers of CNS stem cells and these stem cells have an increased probability of generating neurones when grown in cell culture. We conclude that tenascin C contributes to the generation of a stem cell `niche' within the SVZ, acting to orchestrate growth factor signalling so as to accelerate neural stem cell development.
Local extrema in random permutations and the structure of longest alternating subsequences

Let asn denote the length of a longest alternating subsequence in a uniformly random permutation of order n. Stanley studied the distribution of asn using algebraic methods, and showed in particular that E(asn) = (4n+1)=6 and Var(asn) = (32n 13)=180. From Stanley's result it can be shown that after rescaling, asn converges in the limit to the Gaussian distribution. In this extended abstract we present a new approach to the study of asn by relating it to the sequence of local extrema of a random permutation, which is shown to form a "canonical" longest alternating subsequence. Using this connection we reprove the abovementioned results in a more probabilistic and transparent way. We also study the distribution of the values of the local minima and maxima, and prove that in the limit the joint distribution of successive minimum-maximum pairs converges to the two-dimensional distribution whose density function is given by f(s;t) = 3(1 s)te t s . R´
‘If you sound like me, you must be more human’: On the interplay of robot and user features on human-robot acceptance and anthropomorphism

In an experiment we manipulated a robot's voice in two ways: First, we varied robot gender; second, we equipped the robot with a human-like or a robot-like synthesized voice. Moreover, we took into account user gender and tested effects of these factors on human-robot acceptance, psychological closeness and psychological anthropomorphism. When participants formed an impression of a same-gender robot, the robot was perceived more positively. Participants also felt more psychological closeness to the same-gender robot. Similarly, the same-gender robot was anthropomorphized more strongly, but only when it utilized a human-like voice. Results indicate that a projection mechanism could underlie these effects.
Model parameter estimation of humanoid robots using static contact force measurements

Model based controllers are widely used to control motions of humanoid robots. In most cases these are based on the center of mass (CoM) model of the humanoid. For this it is important that the parameters of this model are accurately known. In this paper we contribute a method to estimate the base parameters of the full 3D CoM model of humanoid robots. This method only uses measurements of the joint angles and static contact forces for a number of postures. We also contribute a method to determine optimal stable measurement postures. The estimation method is verified in experiments on humanoid robot TUlip and a statistical analysis is performed to check the reliability of the estimated base parameters.
Cystatin C as a biomarker for estimating glomerular filtration rate

Purpose of reviewGlomerular filtration rate (GFR) is rarely measured in clinical practice because of the complexity of the measurement. As such, kidney function is typically estimated using validated study equations, which use readily available data including age, sex, race, and serum creatinine as filtration marker. Contemporary research suggests that cystatin C may be an improved alternative to creatinine for inclusion in GFR estimating equations. The purpose of this article is to evaluate the benefits and limitations of using cystatin C as a biomarker of filtration. Recent findingsCystatin C has fewer non-GFR determinants, when compared with serum creatinine. Use of serum cystatin C avoids the limitations related to both diet and muscle mass that affect serum creatinine. Cystatin C may be more accurate than serum creatinine in estimating GFR, and is more strongly associated with all-cause mortality and cardiovascular events. SummaryCystatin C has some advantages over serum creatinine in estimating GFR. The use of cystatin C as a confirmatory biomarker in deciding medication dosages or as a confirmatory test in patients with an uncertain diagnosis of chronic kidney disease may be beneficial.