Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Joint and Separate Detection-Decoding on BPMR Channels

The presence of written-in errors is recognized as a challenging issue that limits the performance of bit-patterned media recording (BPMR). In this paper, we consider the Davey-MacKay coding scheme for a BPMR channel model which consists of a write channel producing dependent insertion, deletion, and substitution errors and a single-track equalized read channel with a GPR target. Three detection-decoding algorithms are proposed to work with an outer LDPC decoder to recover data encoded by the DM coding scheme on the BPMR channel. These include the Bahl-Cocke-Jelinek-Raviv binary input inner decoder (BCJR-BIID) algorithm, the joint detection-decoding algorithm and the separate detection-decoding (SDD) algorithm. Computer simulations show that at low to moderate (resp. high) signal-to-noise ratios, SDD (resp. BCJR-BIID) provides good performance-complexity trade-offs.
Amines in the Earth's Atmosphere: A Density Functional Theory Study of the Thermochemistry of Pre-Nucleation Clusters

The impact of organic species which are present in the Earth’s atmosphere on the burst of new particles is critically important for the understanding of the molecular nature of atmospheric nucleation phenomena. Amines have recently been proposed as possible stabilizers of binary pre-nucleation clusters. In order to advance the understanding of atmospheric nucleation phenomena, a quantum-chemical study of hydrogen-bonded complexes of binary sulfuric acid-water clusters with methyl-, dimethyl- and trimethylamines representing common atmospheric organic species, vegetation products and laboratory impurities has been carried out. The thermochemical stability of the sulfuric acid-amines-water complexes was found to be higher than that of the sulfuric acid-ammonia-water complexes, in qualitative agreement with the previous studies. However, the enhancement in stability due to amines appears to not be large enough to overcome the difference in typical atmospheric concentrations of ammonia and amines. Further research is needed in order to address the existing uncertainties and to reach a final conclusion about the importance of amines for the atmospheric nucleation.
A Comparative Study of Trabecular Bone Mass Distribution in Cursorial and Non‐Cursorial Limb Joints

Skeletal design among cursorial animals is a compromise between a stable body that can withstand locomotor stress and a light design that is energetically inexpensive to grow, maintain, and move. Cursors have been hypothesized to reduce distal musculoskeletal mass to maintain a balance between safety and energetic cost due to an exponential increase in energetic demand observed during the oscillation of the distal limb. Additionally, experimental research shows that the cortical bone in distal limbs experiences higher strains and remodeling rates, apparently maintaining lower mass at the expense of a smaller safety factor. This study tests the hypothesis that the trabecular bone mass in the distal limb epiphyses of cursors is relatively lower than that in the proximal limb epiphyses to minimize the energetic cost of moving the limb. This study utilized peripheral quantitative computed tomography scanning to measure the trabecular mass in the lower and upper limb epiphyses of hominids, cercopithecines, and felids that are considered cursorial and non‐cursorial. One‐way ANOVA with Tukey post hoc corrections was used to test for significant differences in trabecular mass across limb epiphyses. The results indicate that overall, both cursors and non‐cursors exhibit varied trabecular mass in limb epiphyses and, in certain instances, conform to a proximal–distal decrease in mass irrespective of cursoriality. Specifically, hominid and cercopithecine hind limb epiphyses exhibit a proximal–distal decrease in mass irrespective of cursorial adaptations. These results suggest that cursorial mammals employ other energy saving mechanisms to minimize energy costs during running. Anat Rec, 298:797–809, 2015. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Oestrogen receptor b ligand : a novel treatment to enhance endogenous functional remyelination

Demyelinating diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, are characterized by inflammatory demyelination and neurodegeneration of the central nervous system. Therapeutic strategies that induce effective neuroprotection and enhance intrinsic repair mechanisms are central goals for future therapy of multiple sclerosis. Oestrogens and oestrogen receptor ligands are promising treatments to prevent multiple sclerosis-induced neurodegeneration. In the present study we investigated the capacity of oestrogen receptor b ligand treatment to affect callosal axon demyelination and stimulate endogenous myelination in chronic experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis using electrophysiology, electron microscopy, immunohistochemistry and tract-tracing methods. Oestrogen receptor b ligand treatment of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis mice prevented both histopathological and functional abnormalities of callosal axons despite the presence of inflammation. Specifically, there were fewer demyelinated, damaged axons and more myelinated axons with intact nodes of Ranvier in oestrogen receptor b ligand-treated mice. In addition, oestrogen receptor b ligand treatment caused an increase in mature oligodendrocyte numbers, a significant increase in myelin sheath thickness and axon transport. Functional analysis of callosal axon conduction showed a significant improvement in compound action potential amplitudes, latency and in axon refractoriness. These findings show a direct neuroprotective effect of oestrogen receptor b ligand treatment on oligodendrocyte differentiation, myelination and axon conduction during experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis.
Bone mineral density of the hand in rheumatoid arthritis.

OBJECTIVE To determine the reproducibility, accuracy, and linearity of hand bone mineral content (BMC) measurements, and to evaluate the influence of hand posture; to determine the relationship of hand bone mineral density (BMD) to generalized osteopenia in rheumatoid arthritis (RA); and to determine the relationship between hand BMD and disease severity in early RA. METHODS Hand BMD was measured by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA). We studied 70 postmenopausal women with steroid-treated RA (established RA), ages 49-79, and 20 age-matched healthy controls to determine the relationship to generalized osteoporosis; we also studied 20 patients aged 23-74 years with early RA to determine the relationship between disease severity and hand BMD. RESULTS Reproducibility of hand BMD was to within 1%. In established RA, there was a greater decrease in juxtaarticular BMD (23% at the hand) than in generalized BMD (16% at the femoral neck, 11% at the lumbar spine, and 11% total body) compared with that in age-matched controls. Hand BMD correlated with skeletal size and BMD at other skeletal sites. In established RA, there was no effect of disease duration, disability, or steroid therapy. In early RA, hand BMD correlated with age and disease activity. CONCLUSION Measurement of hand BMD by DXA is accurate and precise. Hand BMD reflects BMD at other skeletal sites in patients with RA, and is a marker of disease severity in patients with early disease. It may be a sensitive marker of disease progression and response to therapeutic intervention.
XOR-based hash functions

Bank conflicts can severely reduce the bandwidth of an interleaved multibank memory and conflict misses increase the miss rate of a cache or a predictor. Both occurrences are manifestations of the same problem: objects, which should be mapped to different indices, are accidentally mapped to the same index. Suitable chosen hash functions can avoid conflicts in each of these situations by mapping the most frequently occurring patterns conflict-free. A particularly interesting class of hash functions is the XOR-based hash functions, which compute each set index bit as the exclusive-or of a subset of the address bits. When implementing a XOR-based hash function, it is extremely important to understand what patterns are mapped conflict-free and how a hash function can be constructed to map the most frequently occurring patterns without conflicts. Hereto, this paper presents two ways to reason about hash functions: by their null space and by their column space. The null space helps to quickly determine whether a pattern is mapped conflict-free. The column space is more useful for other purposes, e.g., to reduce the fan-in of the XOR-gates without introducing conflicts or to evaluate interbank dispersion in skewed-associative caches. Examples illustrate how these ideas can be applied to construct conflict-free hash functions.
Analysis and control of a benchmark boiler

Nonlinear control is a prevalent subject for control engineers, but whether or not a nonlinear controller must be used for a nonlinear system should be considered before attempting. In this paper, gap metric is used to tackle this issue for a benchmark boiler. It is shown that the boiler shows severe nonlinearity, but the nonlinearity can be avoided by careful choice of the operating range. A single linear controller can be designed to work in such an operating range. Simulation results are given to verify the conclusions.
Effect of interoception on intra- and inter-network connectivity of human brain — An independent component analysis of fMRI data

Most stimuli in the viscera do not reach conscious perception, although they may activate some cortical structures. However, recent evidences suggest that various forms of subliminal interoceptive inputs may influence brain function. In this study, we used spatial independent component analysis (ICA) as a multivariate method to investigate the effect of interoception on the intra- and inter-network connectivity of the human brain. 15 healthy participants were scanned during the resting-state and a visceral stimulation task. Following a recently suggested ICA framework, we applied a high model order ICA of 75 to the fMRI data, and identified 34 components as non-artifactual intrinsic connectivity networks (ICNs). Results demonstrate significant intra-network connectivity difference within the salience network (SN) and the default mode network (p <; 0.05, family-wise error corrected). Significant inter-network connectivity differences were also found for several ICN pairs, most notably between the SN and the frontoparietal central executive network, and between the SN and the limbic association network (p<;0.05, false discovery rate corrected for multiple comparisons). Taken together, these observations suggest significant effect of interoception on the network connectivity architecture of the human brain especially involving the SN when compared to the resting-state baseline.
Exposure to Perfluorinated Alkyl Substances and Health Outcomes in Children: A Systematic Review of the Epidemiologic Literature

Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), chemicals used to make products stain and stick resistant, have been linked to health effects in adults and adverse birth outcomes. A growing body of literature also addresses health effects in children exposed to PFAS. This review summarizes the epidemiologic evidence for relationships between prenatal and/or childhood exposure to PFAS and health outcomes in children as well as to provide a risk of bias analysis of the literature. A systematic review was performed by searching PubMed for studies on PFAS and child health outcomes. We identified 64 studies for inclusion and performed risk of bias analysis on those studies. We determined that risk of bias across studies was low to moderate. Six categories of health outcomes emerged. These were: immunity/infection/asthma, cardio-metabolic, neurodevelopmental/attention, thyroid, renal, and puberty onset. While there are a limited number of studies for any one particular health outcome, there is evidence for positive associations between PFAS and dyslipidemia, immunity (including vaccine response and asthma), renal function, and age at menarche. One finding of note is that while PFASs are mixtures of multiple compounds few studies examine them as such, therefore the role of these compounds as complex mixtures remains largely unknown.
Enhanced List-based Group-wise overloaded receiver with application to satellite reception

The market trends towards the use of smaller dish antennas for TV satellite receivers, as well as the growing density of broadcasting satellites in orbit require the application of robust adjacent satellite interference (ASI) cancellation algorithms at the receivers. The wider beamwidth of a small size dish and the growing number of satellites in orbit impose an overloaded scenario, i.e., a scenario where the number of transmitting satellites exceeds the number of receiving antennas. For such a scenario, we present a two stage receiver to enhance signal detection from the satellite of interest, i.e., the satellite that the dish is pointing to, while reducing interference from neighboring satellites. Towards this objective, we propose an enhanced List-based Group-wise Search Detection (LGSD) receiver architecture that takes into account the spatially correlated additive noise and uses the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) maximization criterion to improve detection performance. Simulations show that the proposed receiver structure enhances the performance of satellite systems in the presence of ASI when compared to existing methods.
Near-UV photolysis cross sections of CH 3 OOH and HOCH 2 OOH determined via action

Knowledge of molecular photolysis cross sections is important for determining atmospheric lifetimes and fates of many species. A method and laser apparatus for measurement of these cross sections in the near-ultraviolet (UV) region is described. The technique is based on action spectroscopy, where the yield of a photodissociation product (in this case OH) is measured as a function of excitation energy. For compounds yielding OH, this method can be used to measure near-UV photodissociation cross section as low as 10^−23 cm^2 molecule−1. The method is applied to determine the photodissociation cross sections for methyl hydroperoxide (CH3OOH; MHP) and hydroxymethyl hydroperoxide (HOCH2OOH; HMHP) in the 305–365 nm wavelength range. The measured cross sections are in good agreement with previous measurements of absorption cross sections.
Mathematical models of plant–soil interaction

In this paper, we set out to illustrate and discuss how mathematical modelling could and should be applied to aid our understanding of plants and, in particular, plant–soil interactions. Our aim is to persuade members of both the biological and mathematical communities of the need to collaborate in developing quantitative mechanistic models. We believe that such models will lead to a more profound understanding of the fundamental science of plants and may help us with managing real-world problems such as food shortages and global warming. We start the paper by reviewing mathematical models that have been developed to describe nutrient and water uptake by a single root. We discuss briefly the mathematical techniques involved in analysing these models and present some of the analytical results of these models. Then, we describe how the information gained from the single-root scale models can be translated to root system and field scales. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different mathematical approaches and make a case that mechanistic rather than phenomenological models will in the end be more trustworthy. We also discuss the need for a considerable amount of effort on the fundamental mathematics of upscaling and homogenization methods specialized for branched networks such as roots. Finally, we discuss different future avenues of research and how we believe these should be approached so that in the long term it will be possible to develop a valid, quantitative whole-plant model.
APOE-ε4 Allele Altered the Rest-Stimulus Interactions in Healthy Middle-Aged Adults

The apolipoprotein E-ε4 allele is a well-known genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, which also impacts the cognitive functions and brain network connectivity in healthy middle-aged adults without dementia. Previous studies mainly focused on the effects of apolipoprotein E-ε4 allele on single index using task or resting-state fMRI. However, how these evoked and spontaneous BOLD indices interact with each other remains largely unknown. Therefore, we evaluated the ‘rest-stimulus interaction’ between working-memory activation and resting-state connectivity in middle-aged apolipoprotein E-ε4 carriers (n=9) and non-carriers (n=8). Four n-back task scans (n = 0, 1, 2, 3) and one resting-state scan were acquired at a 3T clinical MRI scanner. The working-memory beta maps of low-, moderate-, and high-memory loads and resting-state connectivity maps of default mode, executive control, and hippocampal networks were derived and compared between groups. Apolipoprotein E-ε4 carriers presented declined working-memory activation in the high-memory load across whole brain regions and reduced hippocampal connectivity compared with non-carriers. In addition, disrupted rest-stimulus interactions were found in the right anterior insula and bilateral parahippocampal regions for middle-aged adults with apolipoprotein E-ε4 allele. The rest-stimulus interaction improved the detectability of network integrity changes in apolipoprotein E-ε4 carriers, demonstrating the disrupted intrinsic connectivity within the executive-functional regions and the modulated memory-encoding capability within hippocampus-related regions.
Isolation, Characterization, and Spatial Distribution of Cardiac Progenitor Cells in the Sheep Heart.

BACKGROUND Laboratory large animal models are important for establishing the efficacy of stem cell therapies that may be translated into clinical use. The similarity of ovine and human cardiovascular systems provides an opportunity to use the sheep as a large animal model in which to optimize cell-based treatments for the heart. Recent clinical trials in humans using endogenous cardiovascular progenitor cells report significant improvement in cardiac function following stem cell-based therapy. To date, however, endogenous cardiovascular progenitor cells have not been isolated from the sheep heart. METHODS Cardiovascular cells expressing SSEA-4, CD105 and c-kit were isolated by flow cytometry and cloned from the right atrium of neonatal sheep. The expression of GATA-4, c-kit, and Isl1 was identified by PCR in the cloned cells. Immunohistochemical staining was used to compare the number of SSEA-4 positive cells in the right auricle, right atrium, left ventricle and the apex of the heart of fetal, neonatal and adult sheep. The number of SSEA4+cells was also compared in fetal, pregnant and non-pregnant adult sheep. RESULTS Four distinct cardiac progenitor cell sub-populations were identified in sheep, including CD105+SSEA-4+c-kit+Isl1+GATA-4+cells, CD105+SSEA-4+c-kit+Isl1+GATA-4-cells, CD105+SSEA-4-c-kit-Isl1+GATA-4-cells, and CD105+SSEA-4-c-kit+Isl1+GATA-4-cells. Immunohistochemical staining for SSEA-4 showed that labeled cells were most abundant in the right atrium of fetal hearts where niches of progenitor cells could be identified. CONCLUSION We determined the phenotype and distribution of cardiac progenitor cells in the sheep heart. The availability of cloned endogenous cardiac progenitor cells from sheep will provide a valuable resource for optimizing the conditions for cardiac repair in the ovine model.
Continuing current intensity in positive ground flashes

The highest directly measured lightning currents and the largest charge transfers to ground are thought to be associated with positive lightning. Brook at al. [1] for one positive lightning in a winter storm in Japan, inferred a charge transfer in excess of 300 coulomb (C) during de first 4ms. But charge transfers to beyond 3000C were reported from direct current measurements, by Miyake et al.[1] for positive winter lightning in Japan. Positive strokes may have high peak currents followed by long continuing current (CC), and thus combine these two threatening features for lightning protection. Although positive flashes are usually less frequent than negative lightning, the special characteristics of their CC make the understanding of positive lightning an important issue. Positive lightning were recorded in southeastern Brazil during the summers of 2009-2011. This study presents some CC intensity estimates obtained from an electric field capacitive antenna. Most CC intensities were much higher than the usual intensity values of CC in negative flashes.
Upper extremity musculoskeletal symptoms and functional impairment associated with computer use among college students.

PURPOSE Occupational computer use has been associated with upper extremity musculoskeletal disorders among working-age adults, but little is known about computer-related musculoskeletal problems among college students. We carried out a descriptive epidemiological study of computer use-associated symptoms, functional limitations, and medication and health care utilization in this population. SUBJECTS AND METHODS Cross-sectional survey of 240 undergraduates in the second through fourth years at a residential dormitory at a four-year college with random housing assignments. RESULTS 194 students returned useable surveys (81% response rate). 42% reported upper extremity pain or discomfort when using a computer in the preceding two weeks. 41% said this pain or discomfort caused functional limitation and 9% said that these symptoms hindered academic or extracurricular performance. 23% reported taking medications for upper extremity pain related to computing (4% regularly) and 16% had seen a health care provider for computer-related symptoms. Female students, students of racial/ethnic minority groups, and students who experienced symptoms with < or = 1 hour of computer use were more likely to report symptom-related functional limitation than others. CONCLUSION College students report high rates of computer use-associated upper extremity musculoskeletal symptoms and symptom-related functional limitation. Future studies should more closely examine exposure, demographic, and ergonomic correlates of these symptoms and outcomes.
Sex and Ethnic Differences in Outcomes of Acute Coronary Syndrome and Stable Angina Patients With Obstructive Coronary Artery Disease

Background—The joint contribution of sex, ethnicity, and initial clinical presentation to the long-term outcomes of patients undergoing coronary angiography for acute coronary syndrome (ACS) or stable angina, in whom there is angiographic evidence for obstructive coronary artery disease, remains unknown. Methods and Results—We conducted a population-based cohort study on 49 556 adult ACS or stable angina patients with angiographic evidence of obstructive coronary artery disease (≥50% stenosis) in British Columbia. The 2-year composite outcome was all-cause death and hospital readmissions for myocardial infarction, heart failure, cerebrovascular accident, or angina after the index angiography. Sex and ethnic differences in the composite outcome were examined by clinical presentation using the Cox proportional-hazards and logistic regression models. Overall, 25.6% were women, 9.5% were South Asians, 3.0% were Chinese, and 65.9% presented with ACS. Regardless of ethnicity, women were more likely than men to have adverse outcomes, but the magnitude of the sex difference was greater in the ACS patients (Pinteraction for sex and clinical presentation=0.03). Angina readmission accounted for 45% of the composite outcome and was the main component for all groups with the exception of Chinese women with ACS. Furthermore, women were more likely than men to be readmitted for angina (odds ratio [95% confidence interval], 1.13 [1.04–1.22]). Conclusions—Higher rates of adverse events among women with obstructive coronary artery disease, regardless of ethnicity, as well as high rates of angina readmission, highlight the need for more targeted interventions to reduce the burden of angina because this presentation is clearly not benign.