Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Scalable user selection for MU-MIMO networks

In a multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) network, an AP with M antennas can only serve up to M users out of a large user population. The M users' rates are inter-coupled and depend on their channel orthogonality. Substantial theoretical studies focused on selecting users to maximize capacity, but they require feedback of channel state information (CSI) from all users. The resulting overhead can easily overwhelm useful data in large scale networks. In this paper, we propose a scalable user selection mechanism called orthogonality probing based user selection (OPUS). OPUS only requires up to M rounds of CSI feedback. In each round, it employs a novel probing mechanism that enables a user to evaluate its orthogonality with existing users, and a distributed contention mechanism that singles out the best user to feedback its CSI. Software-radio based implementation and experimentation shows that OPUS significantly outperforms traditional user selection schemes in both throughput and fairness.
Economic Uncertainty and Commodity Futures Volatility

This paper investigates the dynamics of commodity futures volatility. I derive the variance decomposition for the commodity futures basis to show how unexpected excess returns result from new information about the expected future interest rates, convenience yields, and risk premia. This motivates my empirical analysis of the volatility impact of economic and ination regimes and commodity supply-demand shocks. Using data on major commodity futures markets and global bilateral commodity trade, I analyze the extent to which commodity volatility is related to fundamental uncertainty from increased emerging market demand and macroeconomic forecast uncertainty, while controlling for the potential impact of nancial frictions introduced by changing market structure and commodity index trading. Higher concentration in emerging market importers of a commodity is associated with higher futures volatility. I nd commodity futures volatility is signicantly predictable using variables capturing macroeconomic uncertainty. I examine the conditional variation in the asymmetric relationship between returns and volatility, and how this relates to the futures basis and sensitivity to consumer and producer shocks.
Revealing anelasticity and structural rearrangements in nanoscale metallic glass films using in situ TEM diffraction

ABSTRACT We used a novel diffraction-based method to extract the local, atomic-level elastic strain in nanoscale amorphous TiAl films during in situ transmission electron microscopy deformation, while simultaneously measuring the macroscopic strain. The complementary strain measurements revealed significant anelastic deformation, which was independently confirmed by strain rate experiments. Furthermore, the distribution of first nearest-neighbor distances became narrower during loading and permanent changes were observed in the atomic structure upon unloading, even in the absence of macroscopic plasticity. The results demonstrate the capability of in situ electron diffraction to probe structural rearrangements and decouple elastic and anelastic deformation in metallic glasses. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT IMPACT STATEMENT This paper employs a novel in situ electron diffraction technique to reveal deformation-induced structural rearrangements, and decouple atomic-level elastic strain from larger scale anelastic strain in metallic glasses.
A monograph proposing the use of canine mammary tumours as a model for the study of hereditary breast cancer susceptibility genes in humans

Abstract Canines are excellent models for cancer studies due to their similar physiology and genomic sequence to humans, companion status and limited intra‐breed heterogeneity. Due to their affliction to mammary cancers, canines can serve as powerful genetic models of hereditary breast cancers. Variants within known human breast cancer susceptibility genes only explain a fraction of familial cases. Thus, further discovery is necessary but such efforts have been thwarted by genetic heterogeneity. Reducing heterogeneity is key, and studying isolated human populations have helped in the endeavour. An alternative is to study dog pedigrees, since artificial selection has resulted in extreme homogeneity. Identifying the genetic predisposition to canine mammary tumours can translate to human discoveries – a strategy currently underutilized. To explore this potential, we reviewed published canine mammary tumour genetic studies and proposed benefits of next generation sequencing canine cohorts to facilitate moving beyond incremental advances.
Urothelial CD44 Facilitates Escherichia coli Infection of the Murine Urinary Tract1

Escherichia coli is the most common pathogen found in urinary tract infections (UTIs), mainly affecting children and women. We report that CD44, a hyaluronic acid (HA) binding protein that mediates cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions, facilitates the interaction of E. coli with urothelial cells and thus the infection of the host. We found that CD44 is constitutively expressed on urothelial cells and that HA accumulates in E. coli-induced UTI. In CD44-deficient mice, the bacterial outgrowth was dramatically less compared with wild-type mice despite similar granulocyte influx in the bladder and in the kidney as well as comparable cytokines/chemokines levels in both genotypes. E. coli was able to bind HA, which adhered to CD44-positive tubular epithelial cells. Most importantly, the interaction of CD44 on tubular epithelial cells with HA facilitated the migration of E. coli through the epithelial monolayer. The results provide evidence that CD44 on urothelial cells facilitates E. coli UTI. Disruption of the interaction between CD44 and HA in the bladder may provide a new approach to prevent and to treat UTI.
Mental health of parents with young children in Hong Kong: the roles of parenting stress and parenting self‐efficacy

This study aimed to explore the sources of parenting stress and the mental health of parents with kindergarten and primary school children in Hong Kong. It also examined the intervening effects of parenting self-efficacy on mental health of parents. Results indicated that parents who perceived their children as more demanding, less acceptable and less reinforcing had more parenting stress. Those who found their parental roles to be more restrictive also had more parenting stress. Lastly, parenting self-efficacy moderated the effects of parenting stress on the mental health of parents. Cultural and social factors were put forward to explain these findings and suggestions were made towards reducing the parenting stress experienced by parents with younger children in Hong Kong.
The Role of Emotion in the Construction of Career in Parent—Adolescent Conversations

The role of emotion in the construction of career has not always been clear despite its importance in people's lives and in counseling. Recent conceptualizations suggest that emotion is a complex relational process that is socially constructed. This study illustrates the role of emotion in the construction of career from an action theory perspective. Two parent—adolescent conversations about career from a group of 14 conversations are analysed in detail to demonstrate the ways in which emotions serve to energise action and career and lend context and meaning to the process of constructing career in the family setting.
A dynamic objective function technique for generating multiple solution models in seismic tomography

SUMMARY A new technique designed for generating multiple solutions to seismic tomography problems using gradient based inversion is presented. The basic principle is to exploit information gained from previous solutions to help drive the search for new models. This is achieved by adding a feedback or evolution term to the objective function that creates a local maximum at each point in parameter space occupied by the previously computed models. The advantage of this approach is that it only needs to produce a relatively small ensemble of solutions, since each model will substantially differ from all others to the extent permitted by the data. Common features present across the ensemble are, therefore, likely to be well constrained. A synthetic test using surface wave traveltimes and a highly irregular distribution of sources and receivers shows that a range of different velocity models are produced by the new technique. These models tend to be similar in regions of good path coverage, but can differ substantially elsewhere. A simple measure of the variation across the solution ensemble, given by one standard deviation of the velocity at each point, accurately reflects the robustness of the average solution model. Comparison with a standard bootstrap inversion method unequivocally shows that the new approach is superior in the presence of inhomogeneous data coverage that gives rise to under or mixed-determined inverse problems. Estimates of posterior covariance from linear theory correlate more closely with the dynamic objective function results, but require accurate knowledge of a priori model uncertainty. Application of the new method to traveltimes derived from long-term cross-correlations of ambient noise contained in passive seismic data recorded in the Australian region demonstrates its effectiveness in practice, with results well corroborated by prior information. The dynamic objective function scheme has several drawbacks, including a somewhat arbitrary choice for the shape of the evolution term, and no guarantee of a thorough exploration of parameter space. On the other hand, it is tolerant of non-linearity in the inverse problem, is relatively straightforward to implement, and appears to work well in practice. For many applications, it may be a useful addition to the suite of synthetic resolution tests that are commonly used.
Multiethnic Cities in North America

The growing Hispanic and Asian populations in most major North American cities have drastically transformed the urban demographic landscape to become racially and ethnically diversified. We review literature on multiethnic cities by focusing on three important aspects of urban structures and processes: racial and ethnic residential patterns, ethnic businesses, and the performance of racial and ethnic groups in the labor market. Although the literature has identified many factors that shape these urban structures and processes, our discussion specifically focuses on the effects of multigroup contexts on urban structures and processes. We focus and compare four major racial and ethnic groups: whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. Specific ethnic subgroups of all four groups are also discussed.
Visualizing Relations Using the "Observable Representation"

The observable representation provides an embedding of a discrete space in a low dimensional continuous space. Typically, the discrete space is a model of a complex system. This graphical representation is known to highlight significant properties of the original space and can serendipitously reveal unanticipated relationships. We report on the current status of this technique and give examples of its applications and rationale.
The effects of fire on ant trophic assemblage and sex allocation

Fire plays a key role in ecosystem dynamics worldwide, altering energy flows and species community structure and composition. However, the functional mechanisms underlying these effects are not well understood. Many ground-dwelling animal species can shelter themselves from exposure to heat and therefore rarely suffer direct mortality. However, fire-induced alterations to the environment may change a species' relative trophic level within a food web and its mode of foraging. We assessed how fire could affect ant resource utilization at different scales in a Mediterranean forest. First, we conducted isotopic analyses on entire ant species assemblages and their potential food resources, which included plants and other arthropods, in burned and unburned plots 1 year postfire. Second, we measured the production of males and females by nests of a fire-resilient species, Aphaenogaster gibbosa, and analyzed the differences in isotopic values among workers, males, and females to test whether fire constrained resource allocation. We found that, in spite of major modifications in biotic and abiotic conditions, fire had little impact on the relative trophic position of ant species. The studied assemblage was composed of species with a wide array of diets. They ranged from being mostly herbivorous to completely omnivorous, and a given species' trophic level was the same in burned and unburned plots. In A. gibbosa nests, sexuals had greater δ15N values than workers in both burned and unburned plots, which suggests that the former had a more protein-rich diet than the latter. Fire also appeared to have a major effect on A. gibbosa sex allocation: The proportion of nests that produced male brood was greater on burned zones, as was the mean number of males produced per nest with the same reproductive investment. Our results show that generalist ants with relatively broad diets maintained a constant trophic position, even following a major disturbance like fire. However, the dramatically reduced production of females on burned zones compared to unburned zones 1 year postfire may result in considerably reduced recruitment of new colonies in the mid to long term, which could yield genetic bottlenecks and founder effects. Our study paves the way for future functional analyses of fire-induced modifications in ant populations and communities.
Sun, surf and sustainable housing—cohousing, the Californian experience

Abstract Increasing environmental problems associated with the domestic sector and the decline of local social capital and resident participation in their locality has led the UK government to seek more sustainable housing models. Cohousing could provide one option. However, cohousing has been relatively unsuccessful in the UK so far. The author sets out to prove that cohousing is a more sustainable housing model (using international examples) and that it in fact achieves many of the sustainability objectives of the new urbanist movement. An international comparison of the experience of cohousing in the UK and California and the factors influencing success and failure of cohousing in both locations are then explored. Drawing on the Californian experience the author then tries to provide some indication of how the development of cohousing could be encouraged in the UK in the future.
Parental Participation in Intervention Programs for Children with Cerebral Palsy

Parental participation in intervention programs for children with physical disabilities has become an important issue in recent years, often emphasized by both professionals and parents. In this article, recent studies examining parental involvement in intervention programs for children with cerebral palsy are reviewed. Only a few studies were found that were explicitly designed to study the effects of parental involvement. Most of these studies reported positive results, especially regarding child-related outcomes. The effects on the parents were less clear, with positive and negative results reported. One important variable distinguishing programs with positive effects was the degree to which parents were involved in setting goals for their children's programs. Recommendations for practice and future research are given.
Moved through music: The effect of experienced emotions on performers’ movement characteristics

Do performers who feel sad move differently compared to those who express sadness? Although performers’ expressive movements have been widely studied, little is known about how performers’ experienced emotions affect such movements. To investigate this, we made 72 motion-capture recordings of eight violinists playing a melodic phrase in response to three different instructions. The first instruction was to focus on the technical aspects of playing. The second instruction was to give an expressive performance. Before the third instruction, performers were subjected to a mood induction task. Following this, performers played while focusing on their experienced emotions. After each playing condition, performers were interviewed about their thoughts and feelings. Analyses of the amount, speed, acceleration, and smoothness of movement revealed a different pattern of movement characteristics for each performance condition. In the expressive condition, the amount, speed, acceleration, and jerk of movement were highest. In the emotional condition, performers moved less, slower, and more smoothly. The findings of this exploratory study provide concrete evidence that performers’ experienced emotions affect the movement characteristics of their performance.
Metabolic Fingerprint of PS3-Induced Resistance of Grapevine Leaves against Plasmopara viticola Revealed Differences in Elicitor-Triggered Defenses

Induction of plant resistance against pathogens by defense elicitors constitutes an attractive strategy to reduce the use of fungicides in crop protection. However, all elicitors do not systematically confer protection against pathogens. Elicitor-induced resistance (IR) thus merits to be further characterized in order to understand what makes an elicitor efficient. In this study, the oligosaccharidic defense elicitors H13 and PS3, respectively, ineffective and effective to trigger resistance of grapevine leaves against downy mildew, were used to compare their effect on the global leaf metabolism. Ultra high resolution mass spectrometry (FT-ICR-MS) analysis allowed us to obtain and compare the specific metabolic fingerprint induced by each elicitor and to characterize the associated metabolic pathways. Moreover, erythritol phosphate was identified as a putative marker of elicitor-IR.
Survival among high-risk patients after bariatric surgery.

CONTEXT Existing evidence of the survival associated with bariatric surgery is based on cohort studies of predominantly younger women with a low inherent obesity-related mortality risk. The association of survival and bariatric surgery for older men is less clear. OBJECTIVE To determine whether bariatric surgery is associated with reduced mortality in a multisite cohort of predominantly older male patients who have a high baseline mortality rate. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Retrospective cohort study of bariatric surgery programs in Veterans Affairs medical centers. Mortality was examined for 850 veterans who had bariatric surgery in January 2000 to December 2006 (mean age 49.5 years; SD 8.3; mean body mass index [BMI] 47.4; SD 7.8) and 41,244 nonsurgical controls (mean age 54.7 years, SD 10.2; mean BMI 42.0, SD 5.0) from the same 12 Veteran Integrated Service Networks; the mean follow-up was 6.7 years. Four Cox proportional hazards models were assessed: unadjusted and controlled for baseline covariates on unmatched and propensity-matched cohorts. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE All-cause mortality through December 2008. RESULTS Among patients who had bariatric surgery, the 1-, 2-, and 6-year crude mortality rates were, respectively, 1.5%, 2.2%, and 6.8% compared with 2.2%, 4.6%, and 15.2% for nonsurgical controls. In unadjusted Cox regression, bariatric surgery was associated with reduced mortality (hazard ratio [HR], 0.64; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.51-0.80). After covariate adjustment, bariatric surgery remained associated with reduced mortality (HR, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.63-0.995). In analysis of 1694 propensity-matched patients, bariatric surgery was no longer significantly associated with reduced mortality in unadjusted (HR, 0.83; 95% CI, 0.61-1.14) and time-adjusted (HR, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.64-1.39) Cox regressions. CONCLUSION In propensity score-adjusted analyses of older severely obese patients with high baseline mortality in Veterans Affairs medical centers, the use of bariatric surgery compared with usual care was not associated with decreased mortality during a mean 6.7 years of follow-up.
Singing for Successful Ageing: The Perceived Benefits of Participating in the Golden Oldies Community-Arts Programme

Community-based preventative programmes are increasing in demand as the UK seeks alternative ways of supporting the growing number of older adults. As the use and promotion of preventative programmes increase, so does the need for evidence supporting their effectiveness. Through the use of mixed methods, this study explored a singing community-arts programme, the Golden Oldies, to determine the extent to which the programme contributes to participants' (n = 120) sense of health, self-development and social connectedness. Quantitative analyses found that between 73.1 and 98.3 per cent of participants agreed or strongly agreed that the Golden Oldies contributed to their self-development, health and sense of community as well as revealing a statistically significant increase in self-reported health prior to participation in the programme to the time of the study. Qualitative analysis (n = 5) revealed three themes—the Golden Oldies as: (i) a reduction in social isolation and increase in social contact; (ii) a therapeutic source; and (iii) a new lease for life. The results provide evidence of the preventative nature of the Golden Oldies programme through self-reported improvements in health and social relationships where social connections appeared to be the important thread that contributed to the perceived benefits. Implications for policy, practice and research are discussed.
Pavlovian Reward Prediction and Receipt in Schizophrenia: Relationship to Anhedonia

Reward processing abnormalities have been implicated in the pathophysiology of negative symptoms such as anhedonia and avolition in schizophrenia. However, studies examining neural responses to reward anticipation and receipt have largely relied on instrumental tasks, which may confound reward processing abnormalities with deficits in response selection and execution. 25 chronic, medicated outpatients with schizophrenia and 20 healthy controls underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging using a Pavlovian reward prediction paradigm with no response requirements. Subjects passively viewed cues that predicted subsequent receipt of monetary reward or non-reward, and blood-oxygen-level-dependent signal was measured at the time of cue presentation and receipt. At the group level, neural responses to both reward anticipation and receipt were largely similar between groups. At the time of cue presentation, striatal anticipatory responses did not differ between patients and controls. Right anterior insula demonstrated greater activation for nonreward than reward cues in controls, and for reward than nonreward cues in patients. At the time of receipt, robust responses to receipt of reward vs. nonreward were seen in striatum, midbrain, and frontal cortex in both groups. Furthermore, both groups demonstrated responses to unexpected versus expected outcomes in cortical areas including bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Individual difference analyses in patients revealed an association between physical anhedonia and activity in ventral striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex during anticipation of reward, in which greater anhedonia severity was associated with reduced activation to money versus no-money cues. In ventromedial prefrontal cortex, this relationship held among both controls and patients, suggesting a relationship between anticipatory activity and anhedonia irrespective of diagnosis. These findings suggest that in the absence of response requirements, brain responses to reward receipt are largely intact in medicated individuals with chronic schizophrenia, while reward anticipation responses in left ventral striatum are reduced in those patients with greater anhedonia severity.