Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Collapse of Telomere Homeostasis in Hematopoietic Cells Caused by Heterozygous Mutations in Telomerase Genes

Telomerase activity is readily detectable in extracts from human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells, but appears unable to maintain telomere length with proliferation in vitro and with age in vivo. We performed a detailed study of the telomere length by flow FISH analysis in leukocytes from 835 healthy individuals and 60 individuals with reduced telomerase activity. Healthy individuals showed a broad range in average telomere length in granulocytes and lymphocytes at any given age. The average telomere length declined with age at a rate that differed between age-specific breakpoints and between cell types. Gender differences between leukocyte telomere lengths were observed for all cell subsets studied; interestingly, this trend could already be detected at birth. Heterozygous carriers for mutations in either the telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) or the telomerase RNA template (hTERC) gene displayed striking and comparable telomere length deficits. Further, non-carrier relatives of such heterozygous individuals had somewhat shorter leukocyte telomere lengths than expected; this difference was most profound for granulocytes. Failure to maintain telomere homeostasis as a result of partial telomerase deficiency is thought to trigger cell senescence or cell death, eventually causing tissue failure syndromes. Our data are consistent with these statements and suggest that the likelihood of similar processes occurring in normal individuals increases with age. Our work highlights the essential role of telomerase in the hematopoietic system and supports the notion that telomerase levels in hematopoietic cells, while limiting and unable to prevent overall telomere shortening, are nevertheless crucial to maintain telomere homeostasis with age.
Dual-band bandpass filters using open-/short- circuited stub-loaded quarter-wavelength resonators

Two different types of tunable dual-band bandpass filters (BPFs) based on a pair of open-/short-circuited stub-loaded quarter-wavelength resonators, which share a common short-circuited via hole as a K-inverter, have been presented. Additionally, a source/load cross coupled-line configuration is introduced to improve the frequency selectivity of the proposed filters. These two dual-band BPFs have been demonstrated with good simulated results, which are realized by tuning the configuration of the proposed filter.
A Transform-Based Feature Extraction Approach for Motor Imagery Tasks Classification

In this paper, we present a new motor imagery classification method in the context of electroencephalography (EEG)-based brain-computer interface (BCI). This method uses a signal-dependent orthogonal transform, referred to as linear prediction singular value decomposition (LP-SVD), for feature extraction. The transform defines the mapping as the left singular vectors of the LP coefficient filter impulse response matrix. Using a logistic tree-based model classifier; the extracted features are classified into one of four motor imagery movements. The proposed approach was first benchmarked against two related state-of-the-art feature extraction approaches, namely, discrete cosine transform (DCT) and adaptive autoregressive (AAR)-based methods. By achieving an accuracy of 67.35%, the LP-SVD approach outperformed the other approaches by large margins (25% compared with DCT and 6 % compared with AAR-based methods). To further improve the discriminatory capability of the extracted features and reduce the computational complexity, we enlarged the extracted feature subset by incorporating two extra features, namely, Q- and the Hotelling's $T^{2}$ statistics of the transformed EEG and introduced a new EEG channel selection method. The performance of the EEG classification based on the expanded feature set and channel selection method was compared with that of a number of the state-of-the-art classification methods previously reported with the BCI IIIa competition data set. Our method came second with an average accuracy of 81.38%.
ATOM: Atomic Durability in Non-volatile Memory through Hardware Logging

Non-volatile memory (NVM) is emerging as a fast byte-addressable alternative for storing persistent data. Ensuring atomic durability in NVM requires logging. Existing techniques have proposed software logging either by using streaming stores for an undo log, or, by relying on the combination of clflush and mfence for a redo log. These techniques are suboptimal because they waste precious execution cycles to implement logging, which is fundamentally a data movement operation. We propose ATOM, a hardware log manager based on undo logging that performs the logging operation out of the critical path. We present the design principles behind ATOM and two techniques to optimize its performance. Our results show that ATOM achieves an improvement of 27% to 33% for micro-benchmarks and 60% for TPC-C over a baseline undo log design.
Agroforestry systems: Meta‐analysis of soil carbon stocks, sequestration processes, and future potentials

Agroforestry (AF) has the potential to restore degraded lands, provide a broader range of ecosystem goods and services such as carbon (C) sequestration and high biodiversity, and increase soil fertility and ecosystem stability through additional C input from trees, erosion prevention, and microclimate improvement. Advantages and processes for global C sequestration in AF are unknown. We used a meta‐analysis of 427 soil C stock data pairs grouped into four main AF systems—alley cropping, windbreaks, silvopastures, and homegardens—and evaluated changes in AF and adjacent control cropland or pasture. Mean soil C stocks in AF (1‐m depth) were 126 Mg C·ha−1, which is 19% more than that in cropland or pasture. The highest C stocks in soil were in subtropical homegardens, AF with younger trees, and topsoil (0–20 cm). Increased soil C stocks in AF were lower than aboveground C stocks in most AF systems, except alley cropping. Homegardens stored the highest C in both aboveground and belowground, especially in the subsoil (20–100 cm). Advantages of AF ecosystem services focusing on mechanisms of belowground C sequestration were analyzed. AF could store 5.3 × 109 Mg additional C in soil on 944 Mha globally, with most in the tropics and subtropics. AF systems could greatly contribute to global soil C sequestration if used in larger areas. Future investigations of AF should include (a) mechanistic‐ and process‐based studies (instead of common monitoring and inventories), (b) models linking forest and crop growth with soil water and C and nutrient cycling, and (c) accurate assessments of the AF area worldwide based on the remote sensing approaches.
5-GHz CMOS LC VCOs with wide tuning ranges

A 4.8-GHz LC voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) optimized for maximum tuning range was designed and fabricated using 0.25-/spl mu/m 1P5M CMOS process. The optimized design used an inverse proportionality between the two parasitic capacitances of the inductor and the MOS transistors for minimizing the parasitic capacitance at the oscillation node. The fabricated LC VCO has a wide tuning range of 20.3% from 4.32 GHz to 5.3 GHz with a power dissipation of 7.3 mW. This tuning range performance is comparable to, or better than, those of the reported CMOS LC VCOs in 5-GHz band. The measured phase noise is -82 dBc/Hz and -114.6 dBc/Hz at 100 KHz and 1-MHz offset, respectively.
Third-party regulatory T cells prevent murine acute graft-versus-host disease

Background/Aims Adoptive therapy with regulatory T (Treg) cells to prevent graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) would benefit from a strategy to improve homing to the sites of inflammation following hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Although donor-derived Treg cells have mainly been used in these models, third-party-derived Treg cells are a promising alternative for cell-based immunotherapy, as they can be screened for pathogens and cell activity, and banked for GVHD prevention. In this study, we explored major histocompatibility complex (MHC) disparities between Treg cells and conventional T cells in HSCT to evaluate the impact of these different cell populations on the prevention of acute GVHD, as well as survival after allogeneic transplantation. Methods To induce acute GVHD, lethally irradiated BALB/c (H-2d) mice were transplanted with 5 × 105 T cell-depleted bone marrow cells and 5 × 105 CD4+CD25– splenic T cells from C57BL/6 (H-2b) mice. Recipients were injected with 5 × 105 cultured donor-, host-, or third-party-derived CD4+CD25+CD62L+ Treg cells (bone marrow transplantation + day 1). Results Systemic infusion of three groups of Treg cell improved clinicopathological manifestations and survival in an acute GVHD model. Although donor-derived Treg cells were immunologically the most effective, the third-party-derived Treg cell therapy group displayed equal regulation of expansion of CD4+CD25+- Foxp3+ Treg cells and suppressive CD4+IL-17+ T-helper (Th17) cells in ex vivo assays compared with the donor- and host-derived groups. Conclusions Our findings demonstrate that the use of third-party Treg cells is a viable alternative to donor-derived Treg cellular therapy in clinical settings, in which human leukocyte antigen-matched donors are not always readily available.
A Hybrid Markov Model for Accurate Memory Reference Generation

characterisation and generation is becoming an increasingly important area as hardware and application complexities continue to advance. In this paper, we introduce a concise methodology for workload generation for fast and accurate cache design space exploration. The hybrid model we propose uses an adaptation of the Least Recently Used Stack Model to capture key spatio-temporal locality features and a Markov model is implemented to generate an arbitrary length trace with the given workload characteristics through a dynamically ordered FIFO scheduler. Simulation of a variety of application traces from the SPEC2000 benchmark suite demonstrate the cacheability characteristics of the synthetic memory reference stream is generally very well preserved and similar to its original form.
Knowledge development and creation in email

Newly created knowledge is increasingly viewed as a highly valuable source of competitive advantage for business. Email is explored in its recently recognized role as a place of organizational knowledge development and creation, employing discourse analysis of email conversations as the research approach. This paper describes a knowledge development lifecycle derived from the empirical study, and provides insight into the nature of knowledge development and creation in organizations. We found that in selected email conversations, employees naturally and intuitively build purpose driven new knowledge incrementally and iteratively, crystallizing knowledge under construction by submitting it repeatedly to a range of key stakeholders for comment, until a 'consensus' is reached regarding the outcome. Our findings identify the process of knowledge qualification in organizational knowledge creation, and suggest that organizational knowledge may be politically constructed. The research results have the potential to assist organizations in understanding and facilitating processes and conditions for knowledge creation and development. The study also highlights the potential for email as a key component in a company's formal KM strategy.
Adapting to dynamic registration errors using level of error (LOE) filtering

We describe our initial work on generating augmented reality (AR) displays in the face of dynamically changing errors in the pose (position and orientation) of both the user and objects in the world. Dealing with this problem is particularly important in mobile AR environments, where the tracking accuracy of the user's head can change frequently and dramatically as she moves between areas with radically different tracking systems, such as in and out of buildings. We introduce the notion of level of error filtering, analogous to level of detail culling in 3D graphics systems, to help programmers build interfaces that automatically adapt to changing registration errors.
Modeling the statistical behavior of lexical chains to capture word cohesiveness for automatic story segmentation

We present a mathematically rigorous framework for modeling the statistical behavior of lexical chains for automatic story segmentation of broadcast news audio. Lexical chains were first proposed in [1] to connect related terms within a story, as an embodiment of lexical cohesion. The vocabulary within a story tends to be cohesive, while a change in the vocabulary distribution tends to signify a topic shift that occurs across a story boundary. Previous work focused on the concept and nature of lexical chains but performed story segmentation based on arbitrary thresholding. This work proposes the use of the lognormal distribution to capture the statistical behavior of lexical chains, together with data-driven parameter selection for lexical chain formation. Experimentation based on the TDT-2 Mandarin Corpus shows that the proposed statistical model leads to better story segmentation, where the F1-measure increased from 0.468 to 0.641. Index Terms: story segmentation, spoken document retrieval, Chinese
Packaged BiCMOS embedded RF-MEMS switches with integrated inductive loads

This paper presents packaged BiCMOS embedded RF-MEMS switches with integrated inductive loads for frequency tuning at mm-wave frequencies. The developed technique provides easy optimization to maximize the RF performance at the desired frequency without having an effect on the switch mechanics. Insertion loss less than 0.25 dB and isolation better than 20 dB are achieved from 30 to 100 GHz. A glass cap with a silicon frame is used to package the switch. Single-pole-double-throw (SPDT) switches and a 24 – 77 GHz reconfigurable LNA is also demonstrated as a first time implementation of single chip BiCMOS reconfigurable circuit at such high frequencies.
Minimizing energy dissipation in high-speed multipliers

This paper presents a new two-gate-delay implementation of the Booth encoder and partial product generator, which eliminates the unnecessary glitches associated with the Booth multiplier. In addition, a modified signed/unsigned (MSU) and modified sign-generate (MSG) algorithms, suitable especially for signed/unsigned multipliers, were developed in order to reduce the compression level needed in the Wallace tree, and hence reduce the multiplier hardware. Using these features reduces the multiplier array energy dissipation by about 30% and increases speed by about 10%.
Level of agreement between cardiac output measurements using Nexfin® and thermodilution in morbidly obese patients undergoing laparoscopic surgery

Morbidly obese patients are at increased risk of intra‐operative haemodynamic instability, which may necessitate intensive monitoring. Non‐invasive monitoring is increasingly used to measure cardiac output; however, it is unknown whether the weight‐based algorithm utilised in these devices is applicable to patients with morbid obesity. We compared the level of agreement and trending ability of non‐invasive cardiac output measurements (Nexfin®) with the gold‐standard thermodilution technique in 30 morbidly obese patients undergoing laparoscopic surgery. Bland–Altman analysis revealed a mean (SD) bias of 0.60 (1.62) l.min−1 (limits of agreement −2.67 to 3.86 l.min−1) and the precision error was 46%. Polar plot analysis resulted in an angular bias of 2.61°, radial limits of agreement of −60.08° to 49.82° and angular concordance rate was 77%. Both agreement and trending were outside the Critchley criteria for the comparison of cardiac output devices with a gold‐standard. Nexfin has an unacceptable level of agreement compared with thermodilution for cardiac output measurement in morbidly obese patients.
Tasquinimod inhibits prostate cancer growth in bone through alterations in the bone microenvironment

Tasquinimod (ABR‐215050) is an orally active quinoline‐3‐carboxamide analog that inhibits occurrence of experimental metastasis and delays disease progression of castration resistant prostate cancer in humans. Its mechanism of action is not fully elucidated, but previous studies show immunomodulatory and anti‐angiogenic effects. The aim of the present study was to investigate the tumor inhibiting effect of tasquinimod in bone of castrated mice as well as to elucidate its working mechanism related to bone microenvironment.
Wss1 metalloprotease partners with Cdc48/Doa1 in processing genotoxic SUMO conjugates

Sumoylation during genotoxic stress regulates the composition of DNA repair complexes. The yeast metalloprotease Wss1 clears chromatin-bound sumoylated proteins. Wss1 and its mammalian analog, DVC1/Spartan, belong to minigluzincins family of proteases. Wss1 proteolytic activity is regulated by a cysteine switch mechanism activated by chemical stress and/or DNA binding. Wss1 is required for cell survival following UV irradiation, the smt3-331 mutation and Camptothecin-induced formation of covalent topoisomerase 1 complexes (Top1cc). Wss1 forms a SUMO-specific ternary complex with the AAA ATPase Cdc48 and an adaptor, Doa1. Upon DNA damage Wss1/Cdc48/Doa1 is recruited to sumoylated targets and catalyzes SUMO chain extension through a newly recognized SUMO ligase activity. Activation of Wss1 results in metalloprotease self-cleavage and proteolysis of associated proteins. In cells lacking Tdp1, clearance of topoisomerase covalent complexes becomes SUMO and Wss1-dependent. Upon genotoxic stress, Wss1 is vacuolar, suggesting a link between genotoxic stress and autophagy involving the Doa1 adapter. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.06763. 001
Atmospheric hydrological cycles in the Arctic and Antarctic during the past four decades

Atmospheric hydrological cycles over the Arctic and Antarctic have been investigated in the previous studies and there are some similarity and dissimilarity in the two polar regions. The Arctic and Antarctic are areas of moisture flux convergence through the year. So the precipitation (P) exceeds the evaporation (E) and the net precipitation (P-E) is positive. Therefore, the atmospheric moisture transport is a primary input of water into the polar regions. Meanwhile the climatological seasonal cycles of P-E over these regions are dominated by transient moisture flux associated with cyclone activities, the interannual variations are governed by the stationary flux associated with the Arctic Oscillation and the Antarctic Oscillation (AAO). In addition, recent climate changes influence the polar hydrological cycles. Our analyses using an atmospheric reanalysis up to recent years indicated that there were no significant long-term changes in the poleward moisture transport into both the Arctic and Antarctic during 1979-2016. On the other hand, the water vapor (precipitable water) were clearly increasing over the Arctic and gradually decreasing over the Antarctic during the same period. As expected, the increasing trend of water vapor was due to the large warming over the Arctic. There were two reasons for the gradually decreasing trend of water vapor over the Antarctic. The first one was the positive trend of AAO in summer and the second was deepening trend of the Amundsen low in autumn. The trends in water vapor and temperature during the past 38 years further suggest that both polar regions were getting dryer in several seasons. The trend, however, needs to be confirmed by follow-up climatological analyses.
Auction-based scheduling of wireless testbed resources

Experimentation in testbeds is gaining increasing ground as a necessary validation step for every theoretical study in communication networks. However, the first-come-first-served policy employed today by most testbeds does not ensure the fair and efficient utilization of their resources, which often lie idle. Ideally, every testbed should be utilized as much as possible and serve the most important requests. In this paper we introduce a novel resource scheduling mechanism for the wireless testbed NITOS. The proposed scheme is based on VCG auctions and includes an allocation and a pricing rule which induce the users to judiciously submit experiment requests. We prove theoretically and demonstrate numerically that this scheme ensures that the testbed resources (nodes and channels) are assigned to the users with the highest needs. Our mechanism can be incorporated in the next generation resource management systems for NITOS and similar testbeds.
Position control of Interior Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor using Adaptive Backstepping technique

This paper mainly presents a novel method for developing control algorithm for position control of Interior Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor (IPMSM) for servo drive applications. Adaptive Backstepping technique is used to build the control laws. The control technique incorporates the uncertainties occurring from variable side as well as from the parameter side. Stability of the controller is verified using Lyapunov Stability Theory and it found to be asymptotically stable. Simulation of the proposed control technique has been carried out using MATLAB/Simulink software.
Towards Provable Navigation and Control of Nonholonomically Constrained Convex-Bodied Systems

In this paper, we develop a generic class of control policies that respect nonholonomic constraints and are provably safe with respect to obstacles for a convex-bodied mobile robot. We instantiate this class of policies over local regions of configu- ration space, and compose the resulting local policies to address the global navigation and control problem for a wheeled mobile robot navigating amongst obstacles. Simulation and experimental results are given. I. INTRODUCTION We explore a general solution to the problem of simul- taneously planning and controlling the motion of a convex- bodied vehicle in a cluttered planar environment. Our approach relies on a generic class of local control policies that we instantiate over local regions of the robot's free configuration space (termed cells). The automated sequential application of the local policies effectively solves the global navigation and control problem simultaneously. The result is a global strategy, which, given the current configuration (position and orientation) of the robot determines which local policy to apply, and calculates the control inputs based on that policy. The determination of which policy to apply follows from a partial order of the cells that is determined off line, and each local policy specifies a configuration dependent velocity reference defined over its region of applicability. We guarantee that the resulting essentially global vector field respects the system constraints, and that the policies are composed in such a way that the resulting system trajectories are safe with respect to environmental obstacles. Throughout this paper, we will refer to the combination of a configuration space cell and its associated reference vector field as a policy. We explore these ideas both through a formal outline of their technical correctness, and experimentally in simulation and on a laboratory mobile robot system. Figure 1 presents some representative paths taken from two different rounds of experiments discussed in Sections IV and V.