Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Weighted Sum Rate Maximizing Transceiver Design in MIMO Interference Channel

This paper is concerned with transmit and receive filter optimization for the K-user MIMO interference channel. Specifically, linear transmit and receive filter sets are designed which maximize the weighted sum rate while allowing each transmitter to utilize only the local channel state information. Our approach is based on extending the existing method of minimizing the weighted mean squared error (MSE) for the MIMO broadcast channel to the K-user interference channel at hand. For the case of the individual transmitter power constraint, however, a straightforward generalization of the existing method does not reveal a viable solution. It is in fact shown that there exists no closed-form solution for the transmit filter but simple one-dimensional parameter search yields the desired solution. Compared to the direct filter optimization using gradient-based search, our solution requires considerably less computational complexity and a smaller amount of feedback resources while achieving essentially the same level of weighted sum rate.
Increased STAT1 Signaling in Endocrine-Resistant Breast Cancer

Proteomic profiling of the estrogen/tamoxifen-sensitive MCF-7 cell line and its partially sensitive (MCF-7/LCC1) and fully resistant (MCF-7/LCC9) variants was performed to identify modifiers of endocrine sensitivity in breast cancer. Analysis of the expression of 120 paired phosphorylated and non-phosphorylated epitopes in key oncogenic and tumor suppressor pathways revealed that STAT1 and several phosphorylated epitopes (phospho-STAT1(Tyr701) and phospho-STAT3(Ser727)) were differentially expressed between endocrine resistant and parental controls, confirmed by qRT-PCR and western blotting. The STAT1 inhibitor EGCG was a more effective inhibitor of the endocrine resistant MCF-7/LCC1 and MCF-7/LCC9 lines than parental MCF-7 cells, while STAT3 inhibitors Stattic and WP1066 were equally effective in endocrine-resistant and parental lines. The effects of the STAT inhibitors were additive, rather than synergistic, when tested in combination with tamoxifen in vitro. Expression of STAT1 and STAT3 were measured by quantitative immunofluorescence in invasive breast cancers and matched lymph nodes. When lymph node expression was compared to its paired primary breast cancer expression, there was greater expression of cytoplasmic STAT1 (∼3.1 fold), phospho-STAT3(Ser727) (∼1.8 fold), and STAT5 (∼1.5 fold) and nuclear phospho-STAT3(Ser727) (∼1.5 fold) in the nodes. Expression levels of STAT1 and STAT3 transcript were analysed in 550 breast cancers from publicly available gene expression datasets (GSE2990, GSE12093, GSE6532). When treatment with tamoxifen was considered, STAT1 gene expression was nearly predictive of distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS, log-rank p = 0.067), while STAT3 gene expression was predictive of DMFS (log-rank p<0.0001). Analysis of STAT1 and STAT3 protein expression in a series of 546 breast cancers also indicated that high expression of STAT3 protein was associated with improved survival (DMFS, p = 0.006). These results suggest that STAT signaling is important in endocrine resistance, and that STAT inhibitors may represent potential therapies in breast cancer, even in the resistant setting.
Metabolic effects associated with atypical antipsychotic treatment in the developmentally disabled.

OBJECTIVE Atypical antipsychotics, especially clozapine and olanzapine, have been increasingly associated with weight gain and other adverse metabolic events (diabetes mellitus, hyperlipidemia) in non-mentally retarded populations. This report explores the incidence of this phenomenon in an institution-dwelling population of individuals with developmental disabilities. METHOD A retrospective longitudinal analysis was performed for a sample of 41 adults with developmental disabilities and comorbid psychiatric and/or behavioral syndromes for whom treatment was converted from typical antipsychotics to olanzapine or risperidone for a minimum period of 2 years. Data were collected from October 1998 to September 2002. Among parameters analyzed were chlorpromazine equivalent dosage of antipsychotic, metabolic parameters, body mass index (BMI), level of concurrent medications, and concomitant dietary restrictions. RESULTS Thirty-two study subjects (78.0%) were men. The mean age of the study subjects was 43.6 years (at the end of the study). Thirty-seven (90.2%) had severe-to-profound mental retardation. Eight (19.5%) were on a restricted diet. Twenty-three subjects (56.1%) were switched from a typical antipsychotic to olanzapine, and 18 subjects (43.9%) were switched from a typical antipsychotic to risperidone. Of the subsample of subjects who were switched from a typical antipsychotic to risperidone, 12 (66.7%) went on to be switched to olanzapine because of either emergent side effects or lack of efficacy. For the overall sample (N = 41), there was a 19.3% increase in chlorpromazine-equivalent antipsychotic dosage from baseline to the 2-year endpoint along with a 5.6% decrease in fasting blood glucose from baseline to the 2-year endpoint. There were no significant differences between baseline and endpoint values for BMI, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, or triglycerides. CONCLUSION The findings of this 2-year evaluation suggest that clinically or statistically significant BMI increases as well as blood glucose and lipid elevations are not unavoidably correlated with the use of the atypical antipsychotic agents olanzapine and risperi-done and may be minimized by careful monitoring, a regimen of dietary control, and a moderate activity level in a residential population of individuals with mental retardation.
Chemical composition of the essential oil from Kelussia odoratissima Mozaff. and the evaluation of its sedative and anxiolytic effects in mice

OBJECTIVE: The present study aimed to evaluate the sedative and anxiolytic effects of the essential oils and hydroalcoholic extract of Kelussia odoratissima Mozaff. (K. odoratissima) in mice by utilizing an elevated plus maze. The chemical composition of its essential oil was also determined. METHODS: The hydroalcoholic extract or essential oil fraction from this plant were administered intraperitoneally to male mice at various doses 30 min before testing. The anxiolytic and sedative effects were determined by an elevated plus maze and locomotor activity tests, respectively. RESULTS: According to the results, none of the administered doses of hydroalcoholic extract or essential oil fraction of K. odoratissima changed the percentage of the time spent or number of entries into the open arms of the elevated plus maze. In contrast, the cumulative spontaneous locomotor activity of mice treated with the essential oil or hydroalcoholic extract was significantly decreased. Chemical analysis of the essential oil by Gas chromatography-mass spectromentry (GC-MS) showed that 3-butylidene-4,5-dihydrophthalide (85.9%) was the major component. CONCLUSION: These data confirm the sedative properties of K. odoratissima, yet there were no profound anxiolytic effects observed.
Outbreak of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli infection with an unusually long duration of illness.

BACKGROUND Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) is an emerging cause of foodborne outbreaks of infection in the United States, yet its epidemiology is not completely understood. METHODS In September 2004, we investigated an outbreak of infection due to ETEC at an Illinois corporation following a meal served to approximately 700 employees. Clinical samples were negative for enteric pathogens and were tested for ETEC using stool culture and polymerase chain reaction (PCR). An environmental investigation was conducted to determine whether food-service practices or conditions led to this outbreak. A case of illness caused by ETEC was defined as onset of diarrhea and > or =1 of the following symptoms during 23-30 September 2004: cramps, vomiting, nausea, headache, or weight loss. RESULTS The 111 ill employees interviewed had only 1 meal in common. Cucumber salad and noodle salad from that meal were associated with illness; no food was available for testing. A PCR test for ETEC in stool was positive in samples from 6 of 11 patients; 3 ETEC serotypes were detected. The environmental investigation revealed no critical violations. The median duration of diarrhea (7 days) was longer than that observed for the majority of outbreaks of ETEC infection (4 days) and was associated with consumption of carbonated beverages (odds ratio, 4.5; 95% confidence interval, 2.0-10.3). CONCLUSIONS Emerging features of ETEC identified in this outbreak include the organism's role in domestic outbreaks and its ability to cause prolonged diarrheal illness. Additionally, integrating the results of nonculture-based diagnostic techniques into foodborne outbreak surveillance presents challenges under the current guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A Correlation between Cytotoxicity and Reductase-Mediated Metabolism in Cell Lines Treated with Doxorubicin and Daunorubicin

The role of metabolism in daunorubicin (DAUN)- and doxorubicin (DOX)-associated toxicity in cancer patients is dependent on whether the parent drugs or major metabolites, doxorubicinol (DOXol) and daunorubicinol (DAUNol), are the more toxic species. Therefore, we examined whether an association exists between cytotoxicity and the metabolism of these drugs in cell lines from nine different tissues. Cytotoxicity studies using MTT [3-(4,5-dimethythiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide] cell viability assays revealed that four cell lines [HepG2 (liver), HCT-15 (colon), NCI-H460 (lung), and A-498 (kidney)] were more tolerant to DAUN and DOX than the five remaining cell lines [H9c2 (heart), PC-3 (prostate), OVCAR-4 (ovary), PANC-1 (pancreas), and MCF-7 (breast)], based on significantly higher LC50 values at incubation times of 6, 24, and 48 hours. Each cell line was also assessed for its efficiency at metabolizing DAUN and DOX. The four drug-tolerant cell lines converted DAUN/DOX to DAUNol/DOXol more rapidly than the five drug-sensitive cell lines. We also determined whether exposure to DAUN or DOX induced an increase in metabolic activity among any of these nine different cell types. All nine cell types showed a significant increase in their ability to metabolize DAUN or DOX in response to pre-exposure to the drug. Western blot analyses demonstrated that the increased metabolic activity toward DAUN and DOX correlated with a greater abundance of eight aldo-keto and two carbonyl reductases following exposure to either drug. Overall, our findings indicate an inverse relationship between cytotoxicity and DAUN or DOX metabolism in these nine cell lines.
Long‐term effectiveness of modified grid laser photocoagulation for diffuse diabetic macular edema

Abstract Fifty eyes of 42 patients with background diabetic retinopathy and diffuse macular edema were included in a prospective, randomized, clinical study to determine the long‐term visual results of modified grid laser photocoagulation compared with the natural course of the disease. At the end of the three annual follow‐up visits there were more eyes with improved visual acuity in the treatment group and more eyes with worse visual acuity in the control group. However, statistical analysis of the data showed that only at the end of the first and the second year was there a significant statistical difference between the two groups. At the end of the third year no statistically significant difference was found. These results suggest that modified grid laser photocoagulation is not an effective procedure for the long‐term management of diffuse diabetic macular edema compared with the natural course of the disease.
How Customers Trust Mobile Marketing Applications

Smartphone applications for marketing purposes like free advertising games or mobile loyalty programs are becoming increasingly prevalent. Unfortunately, due to recurring news about the excessive use of personal data, many customers consider such applications as suspicious. As a key driver for adoption, organizations try to facilitate customers’ perceived trust in the applications. In this paper, we propose a third-order trust model to evaluate the influence of technology-related trust dimensions and determinants. To evaluate their impact, we conducted a free online experiment. Surprisingly, the results of our study show that the process dimension has no significant impact on trust, indicating that users are not concerned with the underlying mechanisms of the IT artifact. Nevertheless, performance and purpose with their corresponding determinants have a significant impact on trust. Thus, by examining technology-related trust determinants for mobile marketing applications, we offer design implications to address users trust in the application development.
SRN: Side-Output Residual Network for Object Symmetry Detection in the Wild

In this paper, we establish a baseline for object symmetry detection in complex backgrounds by presenting a new benchmark and an end-to-end deep learning approach, opening up a promising direction for symmetry detection in the wild. The new benchmark, named Sym-PASCAL, spans challenges including object diversity, multi-objects, part-invisibility, and various complex backgrounds that are far beyond those in existing datasets. The proposed symmetry detection approach, named Side-output Residual Network (SRN), leverages output Residual Units (RUs) to fit the errors between the object symmetry ground-truth and the outputs of RUs. By stacking RUs in a deep-to-shallow manner, SRN exploits the flow of errors among multiple scales to ease the problems of fitting complex outputs with limited layers, suppressing the complex backgrounds, and effectively matching object symmetry of different scales. Experimental results validate both the benchmark and its challenging aspects related to real-world images, and the state-of-the-art performance of our symmetry detection approach. The benchmark and the code for SRN are publicly available at https://github.com/KevinKecc/SRN.
Multi-Peak Fitting Analysis of Visible Raman Spectra on DLC Coatings Deposited by Vacuum Arc

The typical two-Gaussian fitting of Raman spectra is widely used in disordered and amorphous carbon. However, two-peak fitting method was not always suitable for all amorphous carbons, which made it important to choose appropriate fitting method for different carbon coatings. In this study the diamond-like carbon (DLC) coatings were deposited on steel (P2000) by a vacuum arc adjustable from anodic to cathodic operation mode. The ID/IG ratios of DLC coatings were investigated by visible Raman spectroscopy with multi-peak fitting analysis. It is found that for Raman spectra of DLC coatings deposited by vacuum arc four-peak Gaussian fitting is the most suitable method which is conducive to revealing fine structure of DLC films. Furthermore, by comparing with two-peak and three-peak fitting methods, the four-peak fitting method have lower ID/IG ratio. It is shown that the values of ID1/IG1 and I(D1+D2)/I(G1+G2) of four-peak Gaussian function are consistent nearly.
The dual impact of ecology and management on social incentives in marine common-pool resource systems

Understanding how and when cooperative human behaviour forms in common-pool resource systems is critical to illuminating social–ecological systems and designing governance institutions that promote sustainable resource use. Before assessing the full complexity of social dynamics, it is essential to understand, concretely and mechanistically, how resource dynamics and human actions interact to create incentives and pay-offs for social behaviours. Here, we investigated how such incentives for information sharing are affected by spatial dynamics and management in a common-pool resource system. Using interviews with fishermen to inform an agent-based model, we reveal generic mechanisms through which, for a given ecological setting characterized by the spatial dynamics of the resource, the two ‘human factors’ of information sharing and management may heterogeneously impact various members of a group for whom theory would otherwise predict the same strategy. When users can deplete the resource, these interactions are further affected by the management approach. Finally, we discuss the implications of alternative motivations, such as equity among fishermen and consistency of the fleet's output. Our results indicate that resource spatial dynamics, form of management and level of depletion can interact to alter the sociality of people in common-pool resource systems, providing necessary insight for future study of strategic decision processes.
Potential energy landscape of finite-size mean-field models for glasses

We analyze the properties of the energy landscape of finite-size fully connected spin-glass models with a discontinuous transition. In the thermodynamic limit the equilibrium properties in the high-temperature phase are described by the schematic mode coupling theory of super-cooled liquids. We show that finite-size fully connected spin-glass models do exhibit properties typical of Lennard-Jones systems when both are near the critical glass transition, where thermodynamics is ruled by energy minima distribution. Our study opens the way to consider activated processes in real glasses through finite-size corrections (i.e. calculations beyond the saddle-point approximation) in mean-field spin-glass models.
Activating chronic kidney disease patients and family members through the Internet to promote integration of care

Abstract Purpose To describe the potential role of the Internet as a vehicle for improving integration of care through activating chronic kidney disease patients and their family members. Also, to describe how that potential is being developed through a website sponsored by the Medicare program in the United States. Background The Internet is expanding at a rapid rate, and health-related websites are one of its most popular features. Efforts to promote integration of care have focused mainly on providers up to now, and more emphasis is needed on the potential roles of patients. Chronically ill patients have particular needs for improved education about their conditions and enhanced involvement in care planning and treatment decisions. Medicare developed the Dialysis Facility Compare website to serve those goals for people with chronic kidney disease. Methods We conducted qualitative research with 140 chronic kidney disease patients and family members, and 130 renal care professionals to evaluate and improve the Dialysis Facility Compare website. A series of 19 focus groups, 13 triads (small focus groups), and 56 individual interviews were conducted in four regions of the United States and by telephone. Results We found that the Dialysis Facility Compare website has the potential to improve integration of care for people with chronic kidney disease in at least three ways. First: by expanding the roles of patients as members of the multi-disciplinary team of caregivers treating their disease. Second: through better integration of the informal care provided in the home and community with the formal care provided by health professionals. Third: by improving coordination of between care provided in the pre-dialysis and dialysis phases of the disease. Discussion We developed recommendations for revising and enhancing the Dialysis Facility Compare website in a number of ways to better promote patient activation and integration of care. The unique features of the Internet, such as its different dimensions of interactivity, and applications of behavioural theories for website design should also be further explored.
Development and Validation of a Virtual Human Vignette to Compare Nurses’ Assessment and Intervention Choices for Pain in Critically Ill Children

Introduction As virtual experiences are increasingly used in health care training and research, it is important that adequate processes are applied for developing valid scenarios. We describe the development and validation of virtual human (VH) vignettes, computer-generated scenarios with animated patients and clinical information, for a mixed-methods study regarding nurses’ assessment and intervention choices for critically ill children’s pain. Methods We followed the case development and review process for high-fidelity simulation case scenarios, including the use of validated written vignettes and content experts. Forty nurses described their pain assessment and intervention choices for the newly derived VH vignettes and completed a pain questionnaire. Nurses’ reports of VH vignette consistency with their professional experience and recognition of VH facial expressions were evaluated to establish face validity. Their pain ratings for the VH and written (questionnaire) vignettes were evaluated for convergent validity. Qualitative content analysis, descriptive statistics, correlations, and paired t tests were used. Results Most nurses (68.4%) supported vignette consistency with their professional experience. Facial expression recognition was 98.4%. Smiling children’s pain was rated significantly lower than grimacing children in both VH and written vignettes. Pain was rated significantly lower for grimacing children in the VH vignettes than the written vignettes. Virtual human vignette pain ratings were strongly correlated with their written counterparts. Conclusions This process was effective for developing VH vignettes that demonstrated good face validity with participants and convergent validity with written vignettes. Virtual human vignettes may be useful in studying the influence of facial actions on nurses’ choices for children’s pain assessment and treatment.
The Functional Connectivity Landscape of the Human Brain

Functional brain networks emerge and dissipate over a primarily static anatomical foundation. The dynamic basis of these networks is inter-regional communication involving local and distal regions. It is assumed that inter-regional distances play a pivotal role in modulating network dynamics. Using three different neuroimaging modalities, 6 datasets were evaluated to determine whether experimental manipulations asymmetrically affect functional relationships based on the distance between brain regions in human participants. Contrary to previous assumptions, here we show that short- and long-range connections are equally likely to strengthen or weaken in response to task demands. Additionally, connections between homotopic areas are the most stable and less likely to change compared to any other type of connection. Our results point to a functional connectivity landscape characterized by fluid transitions between local specialization and global integration. This ability to mediate functional properties irrespective of spatial distance may engender a diverse repertoire of cognitive processes when faced with a dynamic environment.
Phospholipase A2 group IIA expression in gastric adenocarcinoma is associated with prolonged survival and less frequent metastasis

We analyzed gene expression patterns in human gastric cancers by using cDNA microarrays representing ≈30,300 genes. Expression of PLA2G2A, a gene previously implicated as a modifier of the ApcMin/+ (multiple intestinal neoplasia 1) mutant phenotype in the mouse, was significantly correlated with patient survival. We confirmed this observation in an independent set of patient samples by using quantitative RT-PCR. Beyond its potential diagnostic and prognostic significance, this result suggests the intriguing possibility that the activity of PLA2G2A may suppress progression or metastasis of human gastric cancer.