Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Image restoration through l0 analysis-based sparse optimization in tight frames

Sparse optimization in overcomplete frames has been widely applied in recent years to ill-conditioned inverse problems. In particular, analysis-based sparse optimization consists of achieving a certain trade-off between fidelity to the observation and sparsity in a given linear representation, typically measured by some ℓp quasi-norm. Whereas most popular choice for p is 1 (convex optimization case), there is an increasing evidence on both the computational feasibility and higher performance potential of non-convex approaches (0 ≤ p ≪ 1). The extreme p = 0 case is especial, because analysis coefficients of typical images obtained using typical pyramidal frames are not strictly sparse, but rather compressible. Here we model the analysis coefficients as a strictly sparse vector plus a Gaussian correction term. This statistical formulation allows for an elegant iterated marginal optimization. We also show that it provides state-of-the-art performance, in a least-squares error sense, in standard deconvolution tests.
A computational paradigm for dynamic logic-gates in neuronal activity

In 1943 McCulloch and Pitts suggested that the brain is composed of reliable logic-gates similar to the logic at the core of today's computers. This framework had a limited impact on neuroscience, since neurons exhibit far richer dynamics. Here we propose a new experimentally corroborated paradigm in which the truth tables of the brain's logic-gates are time dependent, i.e., dynamic logic-gates (DLGs). The truth tables of the DLGs depend on the history of their activity and the stimulation frequencies of their input neurons. Our experimental results are based on a procedure where conditioned stimulations were enforced on circuits of neurons embedded within a large-scale network of cortical cells in-vitro. We demonstrate that the underlying biological mechanism is the unavoidable increase of neuronal response latencies to ongoing stimulations, which imposes a non-uniform gradual stretching of network delays. The limited experimental results are confirmed and extended by simulations and theoretical arguments based on identical neurons with a fixed increase of the neuronal response latency per evoked spike. We anticipate our results to lead to better understanding of the suitability of this computational paradigm to account for the brain's functionalities and will require the development of new systematic mathematical methods beyond the methods developed for traditional Boolean algebra.
Deadbolt: locking down android disk encryption

Android devices use volume encryption to protect private data storage. While this paradigm has been widely adopted for safeguarding PC storage, the always-on mobile usage model makes volume encryption a weaker proposition for data confidentiality on mobile devices. PCs are routinely shut down which effectively secures private data and encryption keys. Mobile devices, on the other hand, typically remain powered-on for long periods and rely on a lock-screen for protection. This leaves lock-screen protection, something routinely bypassed, as the only barrier securing private data and encryption keys. Users are unlikely to embrace a practice of shutting down their mobile phones, as it impairs their communication and computing abilities. We propose Deadbolt: a method for maintaining most mobile computing functionality, while offering the security benefits of a powered off device with respect to storage encryption. Deadbolt prevents access to internal storage even if the adversary can exploit a lock screen bypass vulnerability or perform a cold boot attack. Users can gracefully switch between the Deadbolt and unlocked modes in less time than a system reboot. Deadbolt offers the additional benefit of an incognito environment in which logs and actions will not be recorded.
Urinary albumin : creatinine ratio predicts prediabetes progression to diabetes and reversal to normoglycemia: Role of associated insulin resistance, inflammatory cytokines and low vitamin D (尿白蛋白:肌酐比值预测糖尿病前期进展为糖尿病以及逆转到正常血糖的能力：相关的胰岛素抵抗、炎性细胞因子以及低维生素D水平的作用)

Background The relationship between albumin : creatinine ratio (ACR), insulin resistance (IR), cytokines, dyslipidemia, and 25-hydroxy vitamin D (25-OHD) in individuals with prediabetes (IPD) was investigated to evaluate their role in predicting future risk of progression to diabetes. Methods The aforementioned parameters were evaluated in 147 IPD with persistent impaired fasting glucose and/or impaired glucose tolerance over two oral glucose tolerance tests, who were then followed up at 3-monthly intervals for progression to diabetes or reversal to normoglycemia. Results Data were analyzed for 137 IPD with at least 1-year follow-up. Forty-three IPD reversed to normoglycemia (Group I), 69 continued with prediabetes (Group II), and 25 progressed to diabetes (Group III) over a mean follow-up period of 28.36 ± 8.19 months. Baseline fasting blood glucose levels (BGLs), 2-h post-glucose BGLs, and ACR were lowest in Group I and highest in Group III. Of the 137 IPD, 54.75% (n = 75) had microalbuminuria. The IPD in the lowest ACR quartile had the highest reversal to normoglycemia. Cox regression revealed that baseline IL-6 was predictive of progression to diabetes (P = 0.03) and ACR was an independent predictor of reversal to normoglycemia (P = 0.007). Kaplan–Meier analysis showed higher reversal to normoglycemia in IPD without microalbuminuria (P < 0.001). Conclusion An increased ACR is associated with higher creatinine, IR, and cytokine levels and lower 25-OHD levels in IPD. Microalbuminuria is associated with decreased reversal to normoglycemia and increased progression to diabetes. Low 25-OHD may be associated with increased progression to diabetes, perhaps via modulation of the ACR.
USP2-45 Is a Circadian Clock Output Effector Regulating Calcium Absorption at the Post-Translational Level

The mammalian circadian clock influences most aspects of physiology and behavior through the transcriptional control of a wide variety of genes, mostly in a tissue-specific manner. About 20 clock-controlled genes (CCGs) oscillate in virtually all mammalian tissues and are generally considered as core clock components. One of them is Ubiquitin-Specific Protease 2 (Usp2), whose status remains controversial, as it may be a cogwheel regulating the stability or activity of core cogwheels or an output effector. We report here that Usp2 is a clock output effector related to bodily Ca2+ homeostasis, a feature that is conserved across evolution. Drosophila with a whole-body knockdown of the orthologue of Usp2, CG14619 (dUsp2-kd), predominantly die during pupation but are rescued by dietary Ca2+ supplementation. Usp2-KO mice show hyperabsorption of dietary Ca2+ in small intestine, likely due to strong overexpression of the membrane scaffold protein NHERF4, a regulator of the Ca2+ channel TRPV6 mediating dietary Ca2+ uptake. In this tissue, USP2-45 is found in membrane fractions and negatively regulates NHERF4 protein abundance in a rhythmic manner at the protein level. In clock mutant animals (Cry1/Cry2-dKO), rhythmic USP2-45 expression is lost, as well as the one of NHERF4, confirming the inverse relationship between USP2-45 and NHERF4 protein levels. Finally, USP2-45 interacts in vitro with NHERF4 and endogenous Clathrin Heavy Chain. Taken together these data prompt us to define USP2-45 as the first clock output effector acting at the post-translational level at cell membranes and possibly regulating membrane permeability of Ca2+.
Neutrophil differentiation from human‐induced pluripotent stem cells

Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells are of potential value not only for regenerative medicine, but also for disease investigation. The present study describes the development of a neutrophil differentiation system from human iPS cells (hiPSCs) and the analysis of neutrophil function and differentiation. The culture system used consisted of the transfer of hiPSCs onto OP9 cells and their culture with vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). After 10 days, TRA 1‐85+CD34+VEGF receptor‐2 (VEGFR‐2)high cells were sorted and co‐cultured with OP9 cells in the presence of hematopoietic cytokines for 30 days. Floating cells were collected and subjected to morphological and functional analysis. These hiPSC‐derived neutrophils were similar to peripheral blood mature neutrophils in morphology, contained functional neutrophil specific granules, and were equipped with the basic functions such as phagocytosis, superoxide production, and chemotaxis. In the process of differentiation, myeloid cells appeared sequentially from immature myeloblasts to mature segmented neutrophils. Expression patterns of surface antigen, transcription factors, and granule proteins during differentiation were also similar to those of granulopoiesis in normal bone marrow. In conclusion, differentiation of mature neutrophils from hiPSCs was successfully induced in a similar process to normal granulopoiesis using an OP9 co‐culture system. This system may be applied to elucidate the pathogenesis of various hematological diseases that affect neutrophils. J. Cell. Physiol. 226: 1283–1291, 2011. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Cognitive-radio wireless-sensor based on energy detection with improved accuracy: Performance and hardware perspectives

This paper presents new system-level design for the cognitive sensor based on energy detection to boast the performance accuracy by maintaining a queue of energy samples and computing their average to determine the decision threshold. Thereafter, these values summed over average number of samples are again compared with the recent energy value to decide whether the spectrum is occupied or unoccupied more accurately. The performance of such technique is evaluated analytically for various decision thresholds. Such evaluations indicate that the some advancements made to the energy detection algorithm has demonstrated improvements in the spectrum sensing accuracy under varying signal to noise ratio (SNR) values. Subsequently, we have shown the benefits of the proposed scheme in increasing the agility of cognitive radio systems. The performance is measured by using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves under varying number of levels for different SNR values like: −5 dB, −10 dB, −15 dB and −20 dB. With small tradeoffs between the detection probability and the false alarm probability, the scheme improves the spectrum sensing ability greatly in low SNR situations when tested with 10, 100, 1000, 10000 and 100000 samples. Thereby, enhancing the performance of such hardware friendly sensors under low SNR has been a potential achievement of our work. Finally, field-programmable gate-array (FPGA) prototyping of the proposed sensor architecture has been carried out and it has a latency of 21760 nS.
Fast and Concurrent RDF Queries with RDMA-Based Distributed Graph Exploration

Many public knowledge bases are represented and stored as RDF graphs, where users can issue structured queries on such graphs using SPARQL. With massive queries over large and constantly growing RDF data, it is imperative that an RDF graph store should provide low latency and high throughput for concurrent query processing. However, prior systems still experience high per-query latency over large datasets and most prior designs have poor resource utilization such that each query is processed in sequence. We present Wukong, a distributed graph-based RDF store that leverages RDMA-based graph exploration to provide highly concurrent and low-latency queries over large data sets. Wukong is novel in three ways. First, Wukong provides an RDMA-friendly distributed key/- value store that provides differentiated encoding and fine-grained partitioning of graph data to reduce RDMA transfers. Second, Wukong leverages full-history pruning to avoid the cost of expensive final join operations, based on the observation that the cost of one-sided RDMA operations is largely oblivious to the payload size to a certain extent. Third, countering conventional wisdom of preferring migration of execution over data, Wukong seamlessly combines data migration for low latency and execution distribution for high throughput by leveraging the low latency and high throughput of one-sided RDMA operations, and proposes a worker-obliger model for efficient load balancing. Evaluation on a 6-node RDMA-capable cluster shows that Wukong significantly outperforms state-of-the-art systems like TriAD and Trinity.RDF for both latency and throughput, usually at the scale of orders of magnitude.
Microstrip Patch Antenna array design for WLAN application

When greater directivity is required that can't be obtained by a single antenna, antenna arrays are used, this way, a Microstrip Patch Antenna (MPA) provides features such as low cost, light weight, thin profile, with appropriate size dimensions for be assembled with other components into a small case, moreover, it should satisfy gain, resonance frequency, impedance, as well as bandwidth requirements. But a problem inherent to phased arrays antennas is strong mutual coupling between element, producing degradation of the overall performance of the antenna array, so, in order to reduce this disadvantage, the designed antenna is altered by a defected ground structure. This way, the focus of this work is a microstrip patch antenna array design for wireless lan application (2.45 GHz), using the HFSS simulation software and carrying experimental tests out in the electromagnetic compatibility laboratory.
Sources of Top–Down Control in Visual Search

Endogenous control of visual search can influence search guidance at the level of a supradimensional topographic saliency map [Wolfe, J. M. Guided Search 2.0: A revised model of visual search. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 1, 202–238, 1994], and modulate nonspatial mechanisms coding saliency in dimension-specific input modules [Müller, H. J., Reimann, B. , & Krummenacher, J. Visual search for singleton feature targets across dimensions: Stimulus- and expectancy-driven effects in dimensional weighting. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 29, 1021–1035, 2003]. The current experiment used fMRI to dissociate these mechanisms in a singleton feature search task in which the likely target dimension (color or orientation) was semantically precued and target saliency in each dimension was varied parametrically. BOLD signal increases associated with increased demands for top–down guidance were observed within the fronto-parietal attention network and in the right anterior middle frontal gyrus. Decreasing requirements for top–down control led to BOLD signal increases in medial anterior prefrontal cortex, consistent with a gating mechanism in favor of stimulus-related processing [Burgess, P. W. , Dumontheil, I. , & Gilbert, S. J. The gateway hypothesis of rostral prefrontal cortex (area 10) function. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11, 290–298, 2007]. Another network of brain areas consisting of left lateral fronto-polar cortex, the left supramarginal gyrus, and the cerebellum, as well as a bilateral network consisting of the posterior orbital gyrus, the inferior frontal gyrus, and the pre-SMA were associated with top–down dimensional (re-) orienting. These data argue in favor of distinct endogenous control systems for visuospatial and dimension-based attentional processing. Finally, cue validity modulated saliency processing in the left temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), pointing to a crucial role of the left TPJ in integrating an endogenous dimension-based attention set with bottom–up saliency signals.
Identifying Metabolic Syndrome in African American Children Using Fasting HOMA-IR in Place of Glucose

Introduction Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is increasing among young people. We compared the use of homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) with the use of fasting blood glucose to identify MetS in African American children. Methods We performed a cross-sectional analysis of data from a sample of 105 children (45 boys, 60 girls) aged 9 to 13 years with body mass indexes at or above the 85th percentile for age and sex. Waist circumference, blood pressure, and fasting levels of blood glucose, insulin, triglycerides, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol were measured. Results We found that HOMA-IR is a stronger indicator of MetS in children than blood glucose. Using HOMA-IR as 1 of the 5 components, we found a 38% prevalence of MetS in this sample of African American children and the proportion of false negatives decreased from 94% with blood glucose alone to 13% with HOMA-IR. The prevalence of MetS was higher in obese than overweight children and higher among girls than boys. Conclusion Using HOMA-IR was preferred to fasting blood glucose because insulin resistance was more significantly interrelated with the other 4 MetS components.
Elektropüskürtme Yönteminin Probiyotik Mikroorganizmaların Mikrokapsülasyonunda Kullanımı

Probiyotik bir urunden beklenen faydalarin saglanabilmesi icin urunun raf omru sonuna kadar en az 10 8 -10 9 kob/g duzeyinde canli probiyotik mikroorganizma bulundurmasi gerekmektedir. Probiyotik mikroorganizmalari olumsuz kosullara karsi korumak amaciyla cok sayida yontem gelistirilmistir. Konu ile ilgili yapilan calismalar, probiyotik mikroorganizmalarin canliligini korumada en etkili yontemlerden birinin mikrokapsulasyon oldugunu gostermektedir. Bununla birlikte, mikrokapsulasyon islemi sirasinda probiyotik mikroorganizmalar yuksek sicaklik, dehidrasyon, yuksek osmolarite gibi olumsuz kosullara maruz kalabilmektedir. Elektrohidrodinamik atomizasyon yani elektroegirme ve elektropuskurtme yontemleri kullanilarak soz konusu olumsuz kosullarin ustesinden gelinebilmektedir. Son zamanlarda yapilan calismalarda; yuksek voltaj altinda kapsuller (elektropuskurtme) veya lifler (elektroegirme) uretilmesini saglayan elektrohidrodinamik atomizasyon tekniginin, probiyotik mikroorganizmalarin canliliklarinin korunmasi acisindan diger mikrokapsulasyon yontemlerine alternatif olabilecegi belirtilmistir. Bu derlemede, elektrohidrodinamik atomizasyon tekniginin temelleri ve elektropuskurtme yonteminin probiyotik mikroorganizmalarin mikrokapsulasyonunda kullanim olanaklari ile ilgili bilgi verilmesi amaclanmistir.
Implementing a Smart SDN Switch with LISP Control Plane as Network Function (Short Paper)

Software Defined Network (SDN) is considered as the key paradigm for the development of future networks, but there is still a lack of operational solutions, especially for an Internet Service Provider environment. In this work we propose the idea of an advanced SDN device, referred to as Smart SDN Forwarding Device (SSFD), able to implement Network Functions (NFs) on top of the Data Plane: in this way, it will be possible to realize hybrid SDN/IP networks and to reduce the load on the SDN Controller. We also provide a prototype, realized by means of open source software, that represents a first step toward the deployment of an operational device. The performance evaluation realized connecting the SSFD prototype to the experimental LISP network, shows that its performance are very close to the ones of a legacy device: the delay introduced for the control level operations is limited and negligible from an user perspective.
Full Genomic Characterization of a Lentogenic Newcastle Disease Virus Isolated from Farm-Reared Ostriches (Struthio camelus) in Northwest China

ABSTRACT To our knowledge, our study is the first to report the whole-genome sequence of an ostrich-origin Newcastle disease virus (NDV) isolate, abbreviated as Ostrich/SX-01/06. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that this isolate belongs to the subgenotype c in class II. The identification of the complete genome will provide useful information regarding ostrich diseases, especially NDV.
Relational Variational Autoencoder for Link Prediction with Multimedia Data

As a fundamental task, link prediction has pervasive applications in social networks, webpage networks, information retrieval and bioinformatics. Among link prediction methods, latent variable models, such as relational topic model and its variants, which jointly model both network structure and node attributes, have shown promising performance for predicting network structures and discovering latent representations. However, these methods are still limited in their representation learning capability from high-dimensional data or consider only text modality of the content. Thus they are very limited in current multimedia scenario. This paper proposes a Bayesian deep generative model called relational variational autoencoder (RVAE) that considers both links and content for link prediction in the multimedia scenario. The model learns deep latent representations from content data in an unsupervised manner, and also learns network structures from both content and link information. Unlike previous deep learning methods with denoising criteria, the proposed RVAE learns a latent distribution for content in latent space, instead of observation space, through an inference network, and can be easily extended to multimedia modalities other than text. Experiments show that RVAE is able to significantly outperform the state-of-the-art link prediction methods with more robust performance.
The Reliability, Validity, and Responsiveness of the Lysholm Score and Tegner Activity Scale for Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injuries of the Knee

Background In 1982, the Lysholm score was first published as a physician-administered score in the American Journal of Sports Medicine. The Tegner activity scale was published in 1985. Hypothesis The Lysholm and Tegner scores are valid as patient-administered scores and responsive at early time points after treatment of anterior cruciate ligament tears. Study Design Cohort study (Diagnosis); Level of evidence, 1. Methods All patients were treated for an anterior cruciate ligament tear. For responsiveness, the Lysholm score (n = 1075) and Tegner activity level (n = 505) were measured preoperatively and 6, 9, 12, and 24 months postoperatively. For test-retest (n = 50), scores were measured at 2 years postoperatively and again within 4 weeks by questionnaire. For criterion validity (n = 170), patients completed the Short Form-12 and the International Knee Documentation Committee score in addition to Lysholm and Tegner instruments. For all other analyses, preoperative Lysholm score (n = 1783) or Tegner activity levels (n = 687) were collected. Results There was acceptable test-retest reliability for both the Lysholm (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.9) and Tegner (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.8) scores. The minimum detectable change for Lysholm was 8.9 and for Tegner was 1. The Lysholm demonstrated acceptable internal consistency. The Lysholm correlated with the International Knee Documentation Committee (r = .8) and the Short Form-12 (r = .4), and Tegner correlated with the Short Form-12 (r = .2). Both scores had acceptable floor and ceiling effects and all hypotheses were significant. The Lysholm and Tegner were responsive to change at each of the time points. Conclusion After 25 years of changes in treatment of anterior cruciate ligament injuries, the Lysholm knee score and the Tegner activity scale demonstrated acceptable psychometric parameters as patient-administered scores and showed acceptable responsiveness to be used in early return to function after anterior cruciate ligament treatment.