Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Deterministic channel modeling and performance simulation of microcellular wide-band communication systems

To evaluate the performance of future microcellular IMT-2000 modems, simple physical models are required, so that a number of system characteristics, such as the signal bandwidth, the antenna beamwidth, or the base station height can be accounted for at a limited computational cost. This paper describes a deterministic three-dimensional electromagnetic model, which allows simulation of the radiowave propagation for microcellular wide-band communication systems in urban areas. The model is based on a UTD ray-tracing tool and makes use of an improved mirror method. Simulated power-delay profiles are plotted against measured power-delay profiles recorded at 1.87 GHz in a street of Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, by means of an 80-MHz channel sounder. Despite several discrepancies, a satisfying matching is found considering three orders of reflection and single diffraction. Predictions of rms delay-spread accounting for the sounder limited bandwidth are presented. Finally, simulated and measured channels are also compared through the resulting performance of a typical IMT-2000 service in the presence of multiple access interference.
Reasons for the absence of a history of recurrent genital infections in mothers of neonates infected with herpes simplex virus.

Thirty-one cases of neonatal herpes simplex (HSV) infection were evaluated to determine how often mothers of infected infants lacked a history of recurrent genital infections and the reasons for its absence. A history of recurrent genital infections was elicited from eight (26%) of the mothers. Nine (29%) of the mothers had primary infections; three of these were oral and six were genital. The mother was not the source of infection in three (9.6%) cases. In eleven (35%) cases, the mother had antibody to HSV but did not have a history or findings of primary or recurrent infection. Two of these mothers had positive cervical or vaginal cultures, but neither had genital lesions typical of HSV in the perinatal period. Two mothers had recurrent HSV infections documented later. The source of the HSV infection remained uncertain in 23% of cases including two in which only the father had a history of recurrent genital infection. When mothers with primary infections in the perinatal period were excluded, the HSV neutralization titers of the mothers of infected infants were similar to the titers of the mothers with recurrent genital infections whose infants were not infected. In contrast, the infected infants had titers fourfold lower than their mother's titer as well as fourfold lower than the 16 infants exposed to HSV who remained uninfected. This discrepancy suggests that the mothers may have had a rise in titer late in pregnancy or that placental transport of antibody was limited. Although 26% of the mothers of infected infants had recurrent genital infections, only three (9.6%) had an easily elicitable history. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Intratracheal Pulmonary Ventilation versus Conventional Mechanical Ventilation in a Rabbit Model of Surfactant Deficiency

ABSTRACT: Intratracheal pulmonary ventilation (ITPV) enhances the clearance of CO2 from dead space and lungs by a bias flow of gas administered in the distal trachea. ITPV flow is continuously administered through a separate catheter placed within an endotracheal tube (ETT). After exiting from catheter's tip in the distal trachea, the flow of gas is redirected outward away from the lungs. We hypothesized that, compared with conventional mechanical ventilation (CMV), ITPV may increase minute CO2 clearance (Vco2), reduce the partial pressure of CO2 dioxide in arterial gas (Paco2), and reduce distal tracheal peak inspiratory pressure (dPIP). We induced surfactant deficiency in 15 adult rabbits by lung lavage with 10 mL/kg normal saline. Animals were ventilated through a double-lumen 4.0 ETT, inserted through a tracheotomy incision. dPIP, distal positive end expiratory pressure, and distal mean airway pressure were monitored, and the mean exhaled CO2 concentration was measured. For ventilator rates (respiratory rate) of 30, 45, and 70 breaths/min, the study included two phases: phase I compared CO2 clearance and Paco2 between ITPV and CMV using similar ventilatory pressures; phase II evaluated the effectiveness of ITPV in reducing dPIP and tidal volume (Vt), compared with CMV, while maintaining eucapnea. When comparing ITPV and CMV, the following results (mean ± SD) were achieved at respiratory rate of 30, 45, and 70 breaths/min, respectively. Phase I ITPV resulted in mean percent reduction of Paco2 by 31.4 ± 10%, 37.1 ± 9.7% and 38.3 ± 9%; mean percent increase in Vco2 by 61.3 ± 29%, 56 ± 23%, and 98 ± 40%, compared with CMV. Phase II ITPV resulted in mean percent reduction of dPIP by 35.5 ± 14%, 38 ± 10.8%, and 37.2 ± 13.7%, and mean percent reduction in Vt by 34.7 ± 12.9%, 36.4 ± 15%, and 52.7 ± 10.7%, compared with CMV. The changes in Paco2, Vco2 (phase I), and dPIP and Vt (phase II) were all significantly more than 25% (p < 0.05). Oxygenation and pH were not significantly different between ITPV and CMV. We conclude that, in a surfactant deficiency rabbit model, ITPV is an efficient mode of assisted ventilation that increases CO2 clearance and reduces ventilator pressures required for adequate ventilation. We speculate that ITPV can minimize lung barotrauma associated with mechanical ventilation.
Dissociation between volume blood flow and laser-Doppler signal from rat muscle during changes in vascular tone.

Although the laser-Doppler flowmetry (LDF) signal from skeletal muscle has been shown to provide a good measure of blood flow under some conditions, its behavior during administration of vasoactive substances has never been addressed. The aims of this study were to compare 1) changes in LDF signal with those in total muscle blood flow measured with radioactive microspheres after ganglionic blockade (chlorisondamine) and during administration of angiotensin II (ANG II), phenylephrine (PE), and isoproterenol (Iso) and 2) changes in vascular resistance estimated by the two techniques. The LDF signal from the biceps femoris muscle was investigated in anesthetized male Wistar rats. Ganglionic blockade led to a significant ( P < 0.05) fall in mean arterial pressure (MAP) [medians (lower, upper quartiles): 78 (72, 83) vs. 127 (114, 138) mmHg under basal conditions], muscle blood flow (MBF, microsphere technique; 61%), and the LDF signal (29%). Muscle vascular resistance (MVR = MAP/MBF) was increased (64%, P < 0.05), but vascular resistance estimated as MAP/LDF signal (MVRLDF) was unchanged. During ANG II and PE infusions, MAP rose ( P< 0.05) to 178 (155, 194) and 127 (124, 142) mmHg, respectively; MBF did not change compared with the preinfusion (postganglionic blockade) level and remained significantly ( P< 0.05) lower than baseline, whereas the LDF signal increased up to a level not different from baseline. MVR rose and was significantly ( P < 0.05) higher than baseline, whereas MVRLDF did not differ significantly from baseline. During Iso infusion, MAP fell [58 (56, 60) vs. 94 (92, 102) mmHg, P < 0.05], the LDF signal was reduced (49%, P < 0.05) despite a large increase in MBF (139%, P < 0.05), and MVR fell (74%, P < 0.05), whereas MVRLDF did not change vs. preinfusion level. Our results suggest that 1) changes in the LDF signal from muscle may not correlate with changes in total muscle blood flow measured by the microsphere technique during infusion of vasoactive substances and 2) the use of LDF data for estimation of MVR during changes in vascular tone in rat skeletal muscle is probably not appropriate.
Increased Interleukin-17 in Peripheral Blood and Cerebrospinal Fluid of Neurosyphilis Patients

Background Treponema pallidum infection evokes vigorous immune responses, resulting in tissue damage. Several studies have demonstrated that IL-17 may be involved in the pathogenesis of syphilis. However, the role of Th17 response in neurosyphilis remains unclear. Methodology/Principal Findings In this study, Th17 in peripheral blood from 103 neurosyphilis patients, 69 syphilis patients without neurological involvement, and 70 healthy donors were analyzed by flow cytometry. The level of IL-17 in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) was quantified by ELISA. One-year follow up for 44 neurosyphilis patients was further monitored to investigate the role of Th17/IL-17 in neurosyphilis. We found that the frequency of Th17 cells was significantly increased in peripheral blood of patients with neurosyphilis, in comparison to healthy donors. IL-17 in CSF were detected from 55.3% neurosyphilis patients (in average of 2.29 (0–59.83) pg/ml), especially in those with symptomatic neurosyphilis (61.9%). CSF IL-17 was predominantly derived from Th17 cells in neurosyphilis patients. Levels of IL-17 in CSF of neurosyphilis patients were positively associated with total CSF protein levels and CSF VDRL (Venereal Disease Research Laboratory) titers. Notably, neurosyphilis patients with undetectable CSF IL-17 were more likely to confer to CSF VDRL negative after treatment. Conclusions These findings indicate that Th17 response may be involved in central nervous system damage and associated with clinical symptoms in neurosyphilis patients. Th17/IL-17 may be used as an alternative surrogate marker for assessing the efficacy of clinical treatment of neurosyphilis patients.
Modulation of BOLD Response in Motion-sensitive Lateral Temporal Cortex by Real and Fictive Motion Sentences

Can linguistic semantics affect neural processing in feature-specific visual regions? Specifically, when we hear a sentence describing a situation that includes motion, do we engage neural processes that are part of the visual perception of motion? How about if a motion verb was used figuratively, not literally? We used fMRI to investigate whether semantic content can “penetrate” and modulate neural populations that are selective to specific visual properties during natural language comprehension. Participants were presented audiovisually with three kinds of sentences: motion sentences (“The wild horse crossed the barren field.”), static sentences, (“The black horse stood in the barren field.”), and fictive motion sentences (“The hiking trail crossed the barren field.”). Motion-sensitive visual areas (MT+) were localized individually in each participant as well as face-selective visual regions (fusiform face area; FFA). MT+ was activated significantly more for motion sentences than the other sentence types. Fictive motion sentences also activated MT+ more than the static sentences. Importantly, no modulation of neural responses was found in FFA. Our findings suggest that the neural substrates of linguistic semantics include early visual areas specifically related to the represented semantics and that figurative uses of motion verbs also engage these neural systems, but to a lesser extent. These data are consistent with a view of language comprehension as an embodied process, with neural substrates as far reaching as early sensory brain areas that are specifically related to the represented semantics.
NDM carbapenemases in the United Kingdom: an analysis of the first 250 cases.

OBJECTIVES Gram-negative bacteria with diverse carbapenemases, including New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase (NDM) enzymes, have been increasingly recorded in the UK since 2007. We analysed patient data for NDM-positive isolates confirmed by the national reference laboratory from UK laboratories from February 2008 to July 2013. METHODS Isolates resistant to carbapenems and with imipenem MICs reduced ≥8-fold by EDTA were tested by PCR for genes encoding acquired class B carbapenemases. MICs were determined by BSAC agar dilution methodology. When requested by the sender, or when they were members of apparent clusters, NDM-positive isolates were typed by variable number tandem repeat (VNTR) analysis or PFGE. Data provided by the sending laboratories were collated and reviewed. RESULTS From February 2008 to July 2013 the reference laboratory confirmed 326 NDM-positive isolates from 250 patients, submitted by 83 laboratories. Most (85%, 213/250) patients were already hospitalized when the NDM-positive bacteria were detected, were male (61%, 152/250) and were aged >60 years (58%, 145/250). Travel history was available for only 40% of patients, but 52% (53/101) of these had documented healthcare contact within or travel to the Indian subcontinent. Most NDM-positive isolates (94%, 306/326) were Enterobacteriaceae with just 6% (20/326) non-fermenters; the predominant hosts were Klebsiella spp. (55%, 180/326) and Escherichia coli (25%, 80/326). Almost all NDM-positive isolates were resistant to multiple antibiotic classes, but 90% remained susceptible to colistin. CONCLUSIONS Gram-negative bacteria with NDM carbapenemases are a growing challenge, especially for elderly hospitalized patients, including those with healthcare contact in the Indian subcontinent, and leave few therapeutic options. UK outbreaks remain rare and contained.
A Robust Optimization Model for Managing Elective Admission in a Public Hospital

The admission of emergency patients in a hospital is unscheduled, urgent, and takes priority over elective patients, who are usually scheduled several days in advance. Hospital beds are a critical resource, and the management of elective admissions by enforcing quotas could reduce incidents of shortfall. We propose a distributionally robust optimization approach for managing elective admissions to determine these quotas. Based on an ambiguous set of probability distributions, we propose an optimized budget of variation approach that maximizes the level of uncertainty the admission system can withstand without violating the expected bed shortfall constraint. We solve the robust optimization model by deriving a second order conic problem (SOCP) equivalent of the model. The proposed model is tested in simulations based on real hospital admission data, and we report favorable results for adopting the robust optimization models.
On the impact of cracking on unsaturated hydrous properties of porous materials

To elucidate the question of evolution of effective unsaturated permeability of porous media with cracking, an original numerical approach is developed in this work. It consists of a discrete modeling of pores network as a connected channels (1D elements) of various shapes. While number studies and observations confirm an increase of intrinsic permeability of porous materials when an increasing cracking takes place, little is known about evolution of unsaturated characteristics such as isotherm absorption curve or relative permeability of a porous material when cracking state evolves. Spatial distribution of pores, as well as the distribution of hydraulic conductivity and specific surfaces of pores, follows some chosen statistical laws empirically defined from observations and characterization of the structure of studied material (mercury porosimetery, image analysis and so on). In fully saturated conditions the hydraulic conductivity of a tube is defined using a Kozeny-Carman like-equation. In partially saturated conditions, only tubes with smaller radius that the critical one defined by Kelvin-Laplace law could be fully or partially water-filled. In that case, the flow through a pipe depends not only on the hydraulic load difference on the pipe extremities and its section but also on the capillary forces of meniscus. We use this procedure to quantify the impact of crack evolution on effective properties of a partially saturated stone. In order to count for the cracking evolution, whose origins are not count for in this paper, an increasing number of tubes is introduced into the initial pores network. The partially saturated effective properties of damaged stone are then identified numerically. The results of numerical simulations show that cracking modifies significantly not only the intrinsic permeability of stone but also the retention curve and its relative permeability. These modifications are such that close to saturation for a given suction, the damaged material is under-saturated as compared to healthy one. In the simulations performed here, the intrinsic permeability of damaged material is up to three orders greater than the one of undamaged material. Otherwise, the relative permeability of damaged stone is found to be smaller than that of undamaged material.
Learning Representations Using Complex-Valued Nets

Complex-valued neural networks (CVNNs) are an emerging field of research in neural networks due to their potential representational properties for audio, image, and physiological signals. It is common in signal processing to transform sequences of real values to the complex domain via a set of complex basis functions, such as the Fourier transform. We show how CVNNs can be used to learn complex representations of real valued time-series data. We present methods and results using a framework that can compose holomorphic and non-holomorphic functions in a multi-layer network using a theoretical result called the Wirtinger derivative. We test our methods on a representation learning task for real-valued signals, recurrent complex-valued networks and their real-valued counterparts. Our results show that recurrent complex-valued networks can perform as well as their real-valued counterparts while learning filters that are representative of the domain of the data.
Birth month affects lifetime disease risk: a phenome-wide method

Objective An individual’s birth month has a significant impact on the diseases they develop during their lifetime. Previous studies reveal relationships between birth month and several diseases including atherothrombosis, asthma, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and myopia, leaving most diseases completely unexplored. This retrospective population study systematically explores the relationship between seasonal affects at birth and lifetime disease risk for 1688 conditions. Methods We developed a hypothesis-free method that minimizes publication and disease selection biases by systematically investigating disease-birth month patterns across all conditions. Our dataset includes 1 749 400 individuals with records at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center born between 1900 and 2000 inclusive. We modeled associations between birth month and 1688 diseases using logistic regression. Significance was tested using a chi-squared test with multiplicity correction. Results We found 55 diseases that were significantly dependent on birth month. Of these 19 were previously reported in the literature (P < .001), 20 were for conditions with close relationships to those reported, and 16 were previously unreported. We found distinct incidence patterns across disease categories. Conclusions Lifetime disease risk is affected by birth month. Seasonally dependent early developmental mechanisms may play a role in increasing lifetime risk of disease.
Lipofuscin as an indicator of age in crustaceans: analysis of the pigment in the American lobster Homarus americanus

Lipofuscln content was determined in the brains of 41 American lobsters Homarus amencanus (Milne-Edwards) aged 4, 13 and 27 mo reared individually at 19 to 20°C. Llpofuscin was quantified by fluorescence microscopy and image analysis. Lipofuscin granules occurred In each age group and in the oldest group appeared as large aggregations collectively averaging 2.1 % of the area of histological sections of the olfactory lobe cell mass. Carapace length-corrected lipofuscin area % gave the highest correlation with age (r = 0.99, p < 0 0001) and a non-linear best fit regression (y = 0.00264 X ~ g e ~ ' ~ ) . The size and number of l~pofuscln granules and carapace length were also significantly related to age. Lipofuscln concentrat~on was not significantly correlated with carapace length wthin any of the 3 age classes (4 mo: r = -0.078, 13 mo: r = -0.20, 27 mo. r = -0.351). These results suggest the possibility that the lipofuscin technique can differentiate cohorts In natural populations. However, environmental temperature and the possibility of other factors affecting metabolic rate may need to be taken into account when attempting to apply the laboratory model to wild populations.
Effect of Seed Priming with Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR) on Agronomic Traits and Yield of Barley Cultivars

2 Abstract: In order to evaluate the effects of seed priming with Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR) on grain yield and agronomic traits of barley cultivars, a factorial experiment based on randomized complete block design with three replications was conducted in 2009. Factors were: seed priming with Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria in three levels containing, without priming (as control), priming with Azotobacter, Azospirillium, Azotobacter + Azospirillium three plus barley cultivars (Makoei, Bahman and CB-7910). The results showed that seed priming with Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria affected plant height, spike length, number of spike per area, grains per spike, 1000-grain weight and grain yield, significantly. Maximum of these traits were obtained by the plots in which seeds were inoculated with Azospirillium bacteria. The highest grain yield (3063.4 kg.ha ) was obtained in cultivar of Makori. According to the results of this 1 experiment, application of PGPR bacteria (especially Azospirillum) had an appropriate performance and could increase grain yield to an acceptable level, so it could be considered as a suitable substitute for chemical fertilizer in organic agricultural systems.
Aspirin is associated with lower melanoma risk among postmenopausal Caucasian women

Nonsteroidal anti‐inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) have been associated with decreased risk of gastric, colorectal, and breast cancer. However, the impact of NSAIDs on the risk of melanoma has been inconsistent. The authors evaluated the association between NSAID use and cutaneous melanoma risk in the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) Observational Study (OS).
Discrete series characters and the Lefschetz formula for Hecke operators

This paper consists of three independent but related parts. In the rst part (xx1{ 6) we give a combinatorial formula for the constants appearing in the \numerators" of characters of stable discrete series representations of real groups (see x3) as well as an analogous formula for individual discrete series representations (see x6). Moreover we give an explicit formula (Theorem 5.1) for certain stable virtual characters on real groups; by Theorem 5.2 these include the stable discrete series characters, and thus we recover the results of x3 in a more natural way. In the second part (x7) we use the character formula given in Theorem 5.1 to rewrite the Lefschetz formula of [GM] (for the local contribution at a single xed point component to the trace of a Hecke operator on weighted cohomology) in the same spirit as that of Arthur's Lefschetz formula [A]: in terms of stable virtual characters on real groups (see Theorem 7.14.B). We then sum the contributions of the various xed point components and show that, in the case of middle weighted cohomology, the resulting global Lefschetz xed point formula agrees with Arthur's Lefschetz formula. This gives a topological proof of Arthur's formula.