Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Low-Complexity Null Subcarrier-Assisted OFDM PAPR Reduction With Improved BER

In this letter, we propose a low-complexity data-null subcarrier switching-based peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) reduction scheme for the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing systems, which provides improved bit error rate. We perform the switching between the data and null subcarriers in such a way that distance between any two switched null subcarriers remains constant. This method can achieve up to 6 dB signal-to-noise ratio gain and shed the system complexity by more than 98% of the conventional scheme, with a slight compromise of the PAPR reduction capability.
Plasma zinc, vitamin B12 and α-tocopherol are positively and plasma γ-tocopherol is negatively associated with Hb concentration in early pregnancy in north-west Bangladesh

Abstract Objective The objective of the current analysis was to explore the association of multiple micronutrients with Hb concentration among pregnant women in a South Asian setting, a topic that has not been adequately explored. Design Sociodemographic, anthropometric and micronutrient status (plasma ferritin, transferrin receptor, retinol, α- and γ-tocopherol, folate, vitamin B12, Zn) and Hb concentration were assessed at early pregnancy. Setting The biochemical sub-study was nested within a double-blind, placebo-controlled, community-based vitamin A and β-carotene supplementation trial in rural north-western Bangladesh (JiVitA). All assessments were conducted before trial supplementation was initiated. Subjects A systematic sample of 285 women was selected from those enrolled in the biochemical sub-study. Results Seventeen per cent of women were mildly anaemic; moderate and severe anaemia was uncommon (2·1 %). α-Tocopherol, vitamin B12 and Zn deficiencies were common (43·5 %, 19·7 % and 14·7 %, respectively); however, vitamin A, folate and Fe deficiencies were comparatively rare (7·4 %, 2·8 % and <1 %, respectively). Plasma Zn, vitamin B12 and α-tocopherol were positively associated and plasma γ-tocopherol was negatively associated with Hb (P < 0·05) after adjustment for gestational age, inflammation status, season and nutritional status measured by mid-upper arm circumference. Conclusions Among pregnant women in rural Bangladesh with minimal Fe deficiency, plasma Zn, vitamin B12, and α- and γ-tocopherol concentrations were associated with Hb concentration. Appreciating the influence on Hb of micronutrients in addition to those with known associations with anaemia, such as Fe, folate, and vitamin A, is important when addressing anaemia in similar settings.
Efficacy of Curcuma for Treatment of Osteoarthritis

The objective of this review is to identify, summarize, and evaluate clinical trials to determine the efficacy of curcuma in the treatment of osteoarthritis. A literature search for interventional studies assessing efficacy of curcuma was performed, resulting in 8 clinical trials. Studies have investigated the effect of curcuma on pain, stiffness, and functionality in patients with knee osteoarthritis. Curcuma-containing products consistently demonstrated statistically significant improvement in osteoarthritis-related endpoints compared with placebo, with one exception. When compared with active control, curcuma-containing products were similar to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and potentially to glucosamine. While statistical significant differences in outcomes were reported in a majority of studies, the small magnitude of effect and presence of major study limitations hinder application of these results. Further rigorous studies are needed prior to recommending curcuma as an effective alternative therapy for knee osteoarthritis.
Macular OCT Classification Using a Multi-Scale Convolutional Neural Network Ensemble

Computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) of retinal pathologies is a current active area in medical image analysis. Due to the increasing use of retinal optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging technique, a CAD system in retinal OCT is essential to assist ophthalmologist in the early detection of ocular diseases and treatment monitoring. This paper presents a novel CAD system based on a multi-scale convolutional mixture of expert (MCME) ensemble model to identify normal retina, and two common types of macular pathologies, namely, dry age-related macular degeneration, and diabetic macular edema. The proposed MCME modular model is a data-driven neural structure, which employs a new cost function for discriminative and fast learning of image features by applying convolutional neural networks on multiple-scale sub-images. MCME maximizes the likelihood function of the training data set and ground truth by considering a mixture model, which tries also to model the joint interaction between individual experts by using a correlated multivariate component for each expert module instead of only modeling the marginal distributions by independent Gaussian components. Two different macular OCT data sets from Heidelberg devices were considered for the evaluation of the method, i.e., a local data set of OCT images of 148 subjects and a public data set of 45 OCT acquisitions. For comparison purpose, we performed a wide range of classification measures to compare the results with the best configurations of the MCME method. With the MCME model of four scale-dependent experts, the precision rate of 98.86%, and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.9985 were obtained on average.
Recurrent genetic defects in classical Hodgkin lymphoma cell lines

Abstract Genetic analysis of classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL) has been hampered by the paucity of Hodgkin cells in biopsies and their poor growth in vitro. However, a wealth of information has been obtained from cHL cell lines. Here we report results of whole-exome sequencing and karyotypic analysis of five cHL cell lines. Four genes with potentially pathogenic single nucleotide variants (SNV) were detected in three cell lines. SNV were also detected in seventeen HL-related genes and three mitosis-related genes. Copy number variants were detected in four HL-related genes in all five cell lines. Given the high degree of aneuploidy in HL, mitosis-related genes were screened for defects. One mitotic gene (NCAPD2) was amplified in all five HL cell lines, and two genes (FAM190A, PLK4) were amplified in four cell lines. These results suggest that genomic instability of HL may be due to defects in genes involved in chromosome duplication and segregation.
Effect of Ethylene Glycol on Polymeric Membrane Fabrication for Membrane Distillation

Membrane distillation (MD) is a membrane separation process first introduced in 1963 by Bodell whereby the major driving force is by vapor pressure difference between the feed and permeate induced by temperature gradient. The MD applications mainly focus on seawater desalination and other industry application such as extraction of fruit juice. In this study, hydrophobic polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) hollow fiber membranes were fabricated by wet/dry phase inversion method with 1-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) as solvents and ethylene glycol (EG) as non solvent additives. The effect of the additives on the membrane formation was studied based on the results from membrane morphology investigation through scanning electron microscope (SEM) and porosity calculation based on gravitational method. The SEM image indicated the membrane morphology changed from finger like layer extending from inner to outer surface to a finger like layer separated by microvoid attributed addition of ethylene glycol which might lead to permeate flux enhancement. Furthers, results from the gravitational test reveal that the addition of ethylene glycol demonstrated a positive effect on the porosity of the membrane. Later, the membranes were tested by membrane distillation process in sodium chloride removal varying feed inlet temperature to investigate the permeate flux performance of the membrane.
Low-Density Lipoprotein Uptake Inhibits the Activation and Antitumor Functions of Human Vγ9Vδ2 T Cells

Certain cancer immunotherapies use transferred γδ T cells. LDL-cholesterol inhibited activation and antitumor function of human γδ T cells in models of breast cancer. Management of LDL-cholesterol levels may improve results from immunotherapies based on γδ T cells. Vγ9Vδ2 T cells, the main subset of γδ T lymphocytes in human peripheral blood, are endowed with antitumor functions such as cytotoxicity and IFNγ production. These functions are triggered upon T-cell receptor–dependent activation by non-peptidic prenyl pyrophosphates (“phosphoantigens”) that are selective agonists of Vγ9Vδ2 T cells, and which have been evaluated in clinical studies. Because phosphoantigens have shown interindividual variation in Vγ9Vδ2 T-cell activities, we asked whether metabolic resources, namely lipids such as cholesterol, could affect phosphoantigen-mediated Vγ9Vδ2 T-cell activation and function. We show here that Vγ9Vδ2 T cells express the LDL receptor upon activation and take up LDL cholesterol. Resulting changes, such as decreased mitochondrial mass and reduced ATP production, correlate with downregulation of Vγ9Vδ2 T-cell activation and functionality. In particular, the expression of IFNγ, NKG2D, and DNAM-1 were reduced upon LDL cholesterol treatment of phosphoantigen-expanded Vγ9Vδ2 T cells. As a result, their capacity to target breast cancer cells was compromised both in vitro and in an in vivo xenograft mouse model. Thus, this study describes the role of LDL cholesterol as an inhibitor of the antitumor functions of phosphoantigen-activated Vγ9Vδ2 T cells. Our observations have implications for therapeutic applications dependent on Vγ9Vδ2 T cells. Cancer Immunol Res; 6(4); 448–57. ©2018 AACR.
H3K27me3 dynamics dictate evolving uterine states in pregnancy and parturition

Uncovering the causes of pregnancy complications such as preterm labor requires greater insight into how the uterus remains in a noncontractile state until term and then surmounts this state to enter labor. Here, we show that dynamic generation and erasure of the repressive histone modification tri-methyl histone H3 lysine 27 (H3K27me3) in decidual stromal cells dictate both elements of pregnancy success in mice. In early gestation, H3K27me3-induced transcriptional silencing of select gene targets ensured uterine quiescence by preventing the decidua from expressing parturition-inducing hormone receptors, manifesting type 1 immunity, and most unexpectedly, generating myofibroblasts and associated wound-healing responses. In late gestation, genome-wide H3K27 demethylation allowed for target gene upregulation, decidual activation, and labor entry. Pharmacological inhibition of H3K27 demethylation in late gestation not only prevented term parturition, but also inhibited delivery while maintaining pup viability in a noninflammatory model of preterm parturition. Immunofluorescence analysis of human specimens suggested that similar regulatory events might occur in the human decidua. Together, these results reveal the centrality of regulated gene silencing in the uterine adaptation to pregnancy and suggest new areas in the study and treatment of pregnancy disorders.
Outcome of pediatric advanced Hodgkin lymphoma treated with ABVD and predictors of inferior survival: a multicenter study of 186 patients

Abstract Clinical stage alone is used for risk stratification in treatment of pediatric advanced Hodgkin lymphoma (HL). To identify other risk factors, we collected data from three tertiary centers on 186 patients with advanced stage (IIB–IV) consecutively treated with Adriamycin, bleomycin, vinblastine, Dacarbazine (ABVD) chemotherapy ± radiotherapy. Freedom from treatment failure (FFTF) and overall survival (OS) were end points. With median follow-up period of 57.9 months (range: 1–151 months), five-year FFTF and OS was 84.8% (95% CI 78.6–89.3%) and 95.3% (95% CI 90.78–97.6%), respectively. We identified stage-4 [HR-3.6(1.25, 9.97); p = . 017], high total leukocyte count (>15,000/mm3) [HR-2.6(1.3,8.1); p = . 008] and lymphopenia (lymphocyte count ≤8%) [HR-4.9(1.7,14.1); p = . 002] predictive of inferior FFTF. Patients with none or one of these risk factors had significantly better five-year FFTF (91.9%) as compared to those with risk factors (two risk factor [74.7%; p = .001]; 3,4 risk factors [14.3%; p < .0001]). Patients without these risk factors can be treated with ABVD and may not need intensive therapy.
How do individual differences in children's domain specific and domain general abilities relate to brain activity within the intraparietal sulcus during arithmetic? An fMRI study

Previous research has demonstrated that children recruit the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) during arithmetic, which has largely been attributed to domain‐specific processes such as quantity manipulations. However, the IPS has also been found to be important for domain‐general abilities, such as visuo‐spatial working memory (VSWM). Based on the current literature it is unclear whether individual differences in domain‐specific skills, domain‐general skills, or a combination of the two, are related to the recruitment of the IPS during arithmetic. This study examines how individual differences in both domain general and domain specific competencies relate to brain activity in the IPS during arithmetic, and whether the relationships are related to how brain activity is measured. In a sample of 44 school‐aged children, we found that VSWM was only weakly related to a neural index of arithmetic complexity (neural problem size effect), whereas symbolic number processing skills (symbolic comparison and ordering) were related to overall arithmetic activity (both small and large problems). By simultaneously examining multiple domain‐general and domain specific measures, we were also able to determine that symbolic skills were a stronger predictor of brain activity within the IPS than domain general skills such as VSWM and domain specific skills such as non‐symbolic number processing. Together, these findings highlight that neural problem size effect may reflect different cognitive processes than brain activity across both small and large arithmetic problems, and that symbolic number processing skills are a critical predictor of variability in IPS activity during arithmetic. Hum Brain Mapp 38:3941–3956, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Low Molecular Weight Chitosan-Coated PLGA Nanoparticles for Pulmonary Delivery of Tobramycin for Cystic Fibrosis

(1) Background: Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanoparticles (NPs) loaded with Tobramycin were prepared using a solvent-evaporation method. (2) Methods: The NPs were coated with low molecular weight chitosan (LMWC) to enhance the mucoadhesiveness of PLGA-NPs. The following w/w ratios of tobramycin to LMWC were prepared: control (0:0.50), F0 (1:0.25), F0.5 (1:0.5), and F1 (1:1). (3) Results: The results showed that the size of the particles increased from 220.7 nm to 575.77 nm as the concentration of LMWC used in the formulation increased. The surface charge was also affected by the amount of LMWC, where uncoated-PLGA nanoparticles had negative charges (−2.8 mV), while coated-PLGA NPs had positive charges (+33.47 to +50.13 mV). SEM confirmed the size and the spherical homogeneous morphology of the NPs. Coating the NPs with LMWC enhanced the mucoadhesive properties of the NPs and sustained the tobramycin release over two days. Finally, all NPs had antimicrobial activity that increased as the amount of LMWC increased. (4) Conclusion: In conclusion, the formulation of mucoadhesive, controlled-release, tobramycin-LMWC-PLGA nanoparticles for the treatment of P. aeruginosa in cystic fibrosis patients is possible, and their properties could be controlled by controlling the concentration of LMWC.
Gibberellic Acid Signaling Is Required to Induce Flowering of Chrysanthemums Grown under Both Short and Long Days

Flower bud formation and flowering in chrysanthemums occur under short day conditions (SD), but the molecular basis for the switch to reproductive growth is less well understood than in model plants. Here, a spontaneous mutant able to flower under long days is described. In an attempt to reveal the pathway(s) involved in the formation of flower buds under contrasting daylengths, transcriptome sequencing was carried out in plants grown both under SD and long day conditions (LD). A number of differentially transcribed genes involved in the various known flowering pathways were identified. Both circadian clock genes and Chrysanthemum FLOWERING LOCUS T Like3 (CmFTL3) were up-regulated under SD, thereby inducing floral bud formation and flowering. The gibberellin (GA) signaling pathway-related genes Gibberellin 20-oxidase (GA20ox) and Gibberellin receptor (GID1) were up-regulated in the mutant under LD, while the catabolic genes Gibberellin 2-oxidase (GA2ox) and GA-INSENSITIVE (GAI) were down-regulated, thereby inducing the transcription of SUPPRESSOR OF OVEREXPRESSION OF CONSTANS 1 (SOC1) and LEAFY (LFY). The GA content of the leaf was higher in the mutant than in the wild type (WT) under LD and SD, and the mutant has more branching than WT plants under LD or SD. When treated with GA, the mutant flowered earlier under both SD and LD relative to WT, but there was no detectable phenotype difference between the two lines. The indication was that the photoperiod pathway majorly regulates flower bud formation and flowering time in chrysanthemums under SD. The GA signaling pathway only plays a subsidiary role for flowering. However, the GA signaling pathway predominated for flowering under LD.
Fifteen‐year groin hernia trends in Australia: the era of minimally invasive surgeons

Groin hernia repairs (GHRs) are among the commonest general surgical procedures in the Western population. The introduction of minimally invasive surgery has prompted the development of laparoscopic totally extraperitoneal and trans‐abdominal preperitoneal hernia repairs. We aimed to determine the hernia treatment trends in Australia over the last 15 years.
Experimental and Computational Investigation of Ribbed Channels for Gas Turbine Thermal Management

Researcher: Yash T. Mehta Title: Experimental and Computational Investigation of Ribbed Channels for Gas Turbine Thermal Management. Institution: Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Degree: Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering Year: 2015 This study focuses on the computational benchmarking as well as validation against experimental results of a rib roughed surface in an internal channel of a stationary turbine blade. STAR-CCM+ was utilized to replicate a model from a published article, and to analyze the CFD conjugate heat transfer by determining the turbulence model that best matched the published experimental values. Using those computational conditions and CFD results, an in house experimental rig was validated by comparing convective heat transfer coefficients and pressure profiles. This cooling method, when compared to a smooth channel, enhances turbulent mixing by separating and reattaching the boundary layer which increases the heat transfer. The overall goal is to analyze an effective cooling method, studying the flow physics and effective heat transfer rates as well as minimizing the pressure drop across the channel. Vf turbulence model resulted in matching closest to the experimental results, but due to its unstable nature at high Reynolds number, the EBkε model was used for preliminary testing. Results for EBk-ε showed shorter reattachment lengths giving higher Nusselt number values between the ribs. The heat transfer as well as friction factors match within the uncertainty of 6.8% and 6.6% respectively of the published results. Benchmarked computational results will help validate the experimental setup for further optimization and testing different configurations in rib arrangements.
Processing of Latvian silicate waste into glass-ceramics by powder technology and sintering

The results of an investigation on the production of glass-ceramic materials from various combinations of Latvian inorganic industrial wastes (peat ash and waste glass) and metallurgical iron containing wastes (steel cooling refuse and etching refuse) are reported. The sintering capability of steel cooling refuse in fine powder form, a residue containing high concentration of iron (∼ 90 wt% of iron oxide), was also investigated. The optimisation of the sintering behaviour of mixtures made from the mentioned wastes with clay additions, as well as of the powdered steel cooling refuse, was carried out in the temperature range from 980 to 1300°C. The thermal behaviour, mineralogical and chemical composition, and microstructural characteristics of sintered products were determined. The glass-ceramics obtained have a dense crystalline structure with sintered densities up to 95% of theoretical density. The Vickers' hardness was measured to be 6.1±0.3 GPa for the composition with the highest clay addition (25 wt%), only slightly higher than the hardness of the glass-ceramic with high concentration of steel cooling refuse 5.9±0.4 GPa. The glass-ceramic materials showed relatively high fracture strength values, which were determined using the Brazilian disc test. The values varied between 36 and 55 MPa, depending on composition. The materials produced have potential as building materials for applications such as industrial floors and external wall tiles.
Congenital Human Cytomegalovirus Infection and the Enigma of Maternal Immunity

ABSTRACT Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is the most common viral infection acquired by the developing human fetus and can result in damage to the developing central nervous system. Although vaccine development to modify this congenital infection is ongoing, the unique epidemiology of maternal HCMV infections appears discordant with strategies for vaccine development. Several characteristics of congenital HCMV infections suggest that the efficacy of vaccines designed to induce responses similar to those that follow natural infection will be limited.
Soliton Booting Dynamics in an Ultrafast Anomalous Dispersion Fiber Laser

We reported on the soliton booting dynamics of an ultrafast fiber laser operating in an anomalous dispersion regime. Based on the advanced experimental methodologies of spatio-temporal reconstruction and dispersive Fourier transform (DFT), the soliton booting dynamics are analyzed in the time and spectral domains. The spectral interference pattern with strong intensity oscillation behavior was observed near the mode-locking transition. It was found that the spectral pattern distributions are induced by the transient structured soliton formation during the pulse shaping from the noise background. The experimental results were further verified by the theoretical simulations. The obtained results would provide a general guideline for understanding the soliton booting dynamics in the ultrafast fiber lasers, and will prove to be fruitful to the various communities interested in solitons and fiber lasers.