Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ligand-mediated internalization, recycling, and downregulation of the epidermal growth factor receptor in vivo [published erratum appears in J Cell Biol 1990 Jan;110(1):following 227]

EGF receptor internalization, recycling,a nd downregulation were evaluated in liver parenchyma as a function of increasing doses of injected EGF. The effect of ligand occupancy in vivo on the kinetics and extent of internalization was studied with changes in the receptor content of isolated plasmalemma and endosome fractions evaluated by direct binding, Scatchard analysis, and Western blotting. For all doses of injected EGF, receptor was lost from the plasmalemma and accumulated in endosomes in a time- and dose-dependent fashion. However, at doses of injected EGF equivalent to less than or equal to 50% surface receptor occupancy (i.e., less than or equal to 1 microgram/100 g body weight), receptor levels returned by 120 min to initial values. This return was resistant to cycloheximide and therefore did not represent newly synthesized receptor. Neither was the return due to replenishment by an intracellular pool of low-affinity receptors as such a pool could not be detected by Scatchard analysis or Western blotting. Therefore, receptor return was due to the recycling of previously internalized receptor. At doses of injected EGF greater than 50% receptor occupancy, net receptor loss-i.e., downregulation-was observed by evaluating the receptor content of total particulate fractions of liver homogenates. At the higher saturating doses of injected EGF (5 and 10 micrograms/100 g body weight), the majority of surface receptor content was lost by 15 min and remained low for at least an additional 105 min. As the kinetics of ligand clearance from the circulation and liver parenchyma were similar for all doses of EGF injected, then the ligand-mediated regulation of surface receptor content and downregulation were not a result of a prolonged temporal interaction of ligand with receptor. Rather, the phenomena must be a consequence of the absolute concentrations of EGF interacting with receptor at the cell surface and/or in endosomes.
Learning-Based Distributed Radio-Environment Observation for Dynamic Spectrum Sharing

Distributed real-time spectrum sensing is a key enabler for dynamic spectrum sharing; however, communication cost for observed-data transmission is crucial especially when massive numbers of spectrum sensors are deployed. In considering the use of low-cost wireless connections provided for machine-to-machine communication, data rates should be less than tens of kilobits per second (kbps). To cope with this issue, proposed spectrum sensors learn ambient radio environment in real-time and create a time-spectral model, of which parameters are shared with servers operating in the edge-computing layer. This process makes it possible to drastically reduce communication cost of the sensors because frequent data transmission is no longer needed while enabling the edge servers to keep up on current status of the radio environment. On the basis of the created time-spectral model, sharable spectrum resources are dynamically harvested and allocated in terms of geospatial, temporal, and frequency-spectral domains when accepting an application for secondary-spectrum use. A web-based prototype spectrum-management system is implemented using ten servers and dozens of sensors. The measurement results show that proposed approach can reduce data traffic between the sensors and servers by 97%, achieving an average data rate of 10 kbps.
Misclassification of income quintiles derived from area-based measures. A comparison of enumeration area and forward sortation area.

BACKGROUND Census-based methods are often used to estimate socioeconomic status. We assessed the agreement between Forward Sortation Area (FSA) and Enumeration Area (EA) derived income levels for all patients undergoing cardiac catheterization in Alberta, Canada, from 1995-1998. METHODS Income quintiles were calculated from census data for FSA and EA level. FSA- and EA-derived income measures were compared for misclassification. Both methods were then applied to the data to determine 4-year survival by income grouping in 21,446 patients following catheterization. RESULTS The variability in EA-derived incomes for any given FSA-derived income is large. Only 40% of income quintiles are in agreement between the methods. For EA-based analyses, there is a linear relationship between higher income and lower mortality across all quintiles, while for FSA-based analyses, only the lowest income quintile had significantly higher mortality. DISCUSSION Assuming that FSA-based methods are more likely to misclassify income compared to EA-based measures, the results for the FSA-based analyses are more likely to be erroneous. EA-derived measures should therefore be used when individual data are not available.
Progression from Graphene and Graphene Oxide to High Performance Polymer-Based Nanocomposite: A Review

In this article, various types of carbon nanofiller and modification of graphene oxide and graphene for the preparation of polymer-based nanocomposites are reviewed. Recently, polymer/graphene and graphene oxide-based materials have attracted tremendous interest due to high performance even at low filler content. The property enhancement is due to the high aspect ratio, high surface area and excellent electrical, thermal and mechanical properties of nanofiller. Different techniques have been employed to fabricate polymer/graphene and graphene oxide nanocomposite with uniform dispersion due to fine matrix/nanofiller interaction. Here we discuss the structure, properties and preparation of these nanocomposites. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
Relationships between Signaling Pathway Usage and Sensitivity to a Pathway Inhibitor: Examination of Trametinib Responses in Cultured Breast Cancer Lines

Cellular signaling pathways involving mTOR, PI3K and ERK have dominated recent studies of breast cancer biology, and inhibitors of these pathways have formed a focus of numerous clinical trials. We have chosen trametinib, a drug targeting MEK in the ERK pathway, to address two questions. Firstly, does inhibition of a signaling pathway, as measured by protein phosphorylation, predict the antiproliferative activity of trametinib? Secondly, do inhibitors of the mTOR and PI3K pathways synergize with trametinib in their effects on cell proliferation? A panel of 30 human breast cancer cell lines was chosen to include lines that could be classified according to whether they were ER and PR positive, HER2 over-expressing, and “triple negative”. Everolimus (targeting mTOR), NVP-BEZ235 and GSK2126458 (both targeting PI3K/mTOR) were chosen for combination experiments. Inhibition of cell proliferation was measured by IC50 values and pathway utilization was measured by phosphorylation of signaling kinases. Overall, no correlation was found between trametinib IC50 values and inhibition of ERK signaling. Inhibition of ERK phosphorylation was observed at trametinib concentrations not affecting proliferation, and sensitivity of cell proliferation to trametinib was found in cell lines with low ERK phosphorylation. Evidence was found for synergy between trametinib and either everolimus, NVP-BEZ235 or GSK2126458, but this was cell line specific. The results have implications for the clinical application of PI3K/mTOR and MEK inhibitors.
A Novel Compact Preamble Structure for Timing Synchronization in MIMO- OFDM Systems Using CAZAC Sequences

To increase the throughput of transmission systems, MIMO-OFDM technology allows for a better reach and rate of transmission and improves the reception. The synchronization between the transmitter and the receiver has become a big challenge. A bad timing synchronization causes the loss of a lot of information in a MIMO-OFDM system. In this paper, a novel timing synchronization method is proposed for a MIMO-OFDM systems with Nt transmit antennas and Nr receive antennas. The proposed method is based on transmit an orthogonal CAZAC sequences over different transmit antennas. Simulations results show that the proposed solution presents a good performance at a low SNR in AWGN and multipath fading Rayleigh channels. Furthermore, this method can be implemented for MIMO-OFDM system up to 8 x 8 as well. In the proposed method, the coarse and fine timing synchronization are done at the same time at each receive antenna due to the different training sequences transmitted over different transmit antennas.
Tree based hierarchical reinforcement learning

Abstract : In this thesis, the author investigates methods for speeding up automatic control algorithms. Specifically, he provides new abstraction techniques for Reinforcement Learning and Semi-Markov Decision Processes (SMDPs). He also introduces the use of policies as temporally abstract actions. This is different from previous definitions of temporally abstract actions as he does not have termination criteria. He provides an approach for processing previously solved problems to extract these policies. He also contributes a method for using supplied or extracted policies to guide and speed up the solving of new problems. He treats extracting policies as a supervised learning task and introduces the Lumberjack algorithm, which extracts repeated sub-structure within a decision tree. He then introduces the TTree algorithm, which combines state and temporal abstraction to increase problem solving speed on new problems. TTree solves SMDPs by using both user- and machine-supplied policies as temporally abstract actions while generating its own tree-based abstract state representation. By combining state and temporal abstraction in this way, TTree is the only known SMDP algorithm that is able to ignore irrelevant or harmful subregions within a supplied abstract action while still making use of other parts of the abstract action.
The ‘network economy’ and models of the employment contract

The development of the ‘network economy’ and project-based work challenge established methods of regulating employment relationships. There appears to be an unsatisfied demand for its greater use, especially among employers, and this may be blocked by the lack of suitable contractual forms. Project-based work seeks to retain some of the open-ended flexibility of the standard employment relationship in relation to its task content but not its duration. The paper argues the success of the standard employment relationship stems from articulation of its psychological, economic/incentive, and legal aspects. As yet, this appears to be lacking for more transient forms of relationship.
Multi-Modal Image Retrieval for Complex Queries using Small Codes

We propose a unified framework for image retrieval capable of handling complex and descriptive queries of multiple modalities in a scalable manner. A novel aspect of our approach is that it supports query specification in terms of objects, attributes and spatial relationships, thereby allowing for substantially more complex and descriptive queries. We allow these complex queries to be specified in three different modalities - images, sketches and structured textual descriptions. Furthermore, we propose a unique multi-modal hashing algorithm capable of mapping queries of different modalities to the same binary representation, enabling efficient and scalable image retrieval based on multi-modal queries. Extensive experimental evaluation shows that our approach outperforms the state-of-the-art image retrieval and hashing techniques on the MSRC and SUN09 datasets by about 100%, while the performance on a dataset of 1M images, from Flickr, demonstrates its scalability.
Skim reading by satisficing: evidence from eye tracking

Readers on the Web often skim through text to cope with the volume of available information. In a previous study, Duggan and Payne [11] tracked readers' eye movements as they skimmed through expository text under time pressure. This article presents novel analyses of these eye-movement data. Results indicated that readers were able to explicitly direct attention to the most important information in the text and that this improved performance on a subsequent test of memory for the meaning of text. We suggest readers achieve this by satisficing reading through text until the rate of information gain drops below threshold and then skipping to the next section of text. Further analyses of gaze patterns for paragraphs and pages supported this explanation. Combining satisficing with some form of scanning or sampling behaviour could explain patterns of reading found on the Web. A greater understanding of the way that text is read on the Web would assist many producers of online content.
Block CUR : Decomposing Large Distributed Matrices

A common problem in large-scale data analysis is to approximate a matrix using a combination of specifically sampled rows and columns, known as CUR decomposition. Unfortunately, in many real-world environments, the ability to sample specific individual rows or columns of the matrix is limited by either system constraints or cost. In this paper, we consider matrix approximation by sampling predefined blocks of columns (or rows) from the matrix. This regime is commonly found when data is distributed across multiple nodes in a compute cluster, where such blocks correspond to columns (or rows) of the matrix stored on the same node, which can be retrieved with much less overhead than retrieving individual columns stored across different nodes. We propose a novel algorithm for sampling useful column blocks and provide guarantees for the quality of the approximation. We demonstrate the practical utility of this algorithm for computing the block CUR decomposition of large matrices in a distributed setting using Apache Spark. Using our proposed block CUR algorithms, we can achieve a significant speed-up compared to a regular CUR decomposition with the same quality of approximation.
A Case–Control Study to Assess the Urinary Pneumococcal Antigen Test in Childhood Pneumonia

Urinary pneumococcal antigen is a rapid noninvasive test that may indicate recent invasive pneumococcal infection or carriage, and guide appropriate antibiotic therapy. It has good sensitivity (100%) and (although limited specificity, 56%) in children with suspected pneumococcal disease but is confounded as a diagnostic test by nasopharyngeal carriage where up to 21% may be positive. Urinary pneumococcal antigen may also be positive in 4% healthy nasopharyngeal culturenegative children. In fact, because of the increased sensitivity of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) compared with culture, it is likely that nasopharyngeal culturenegative children would have pneumococcal carriage if tested by PCR. Thus, a positive urinary antigen in a child with pneumonia and no pneumococcal nasopharyngeal carriage by PCR is likely to reflect invasive pneumococcal disease. We therefore aimed to investigate the association of urinary pneumococcal antigen with pneumococcal infection in childhood pneumonia.
Fusion of MSCT imaging, Electro-Anatomical Mapping and Speckle Tracking Echocardiography for the characterization of local electro-mechanical delays in CRT optimization

In this work, we sought to assist the optimization of Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy (CRT) through the characterization of electro-mechanical delays for each region of the Left Ventricle. This characterization is based on the fusion of electrical, mechanical and anatomical data acquired from Electro-Anatomical Mapping (EAM), Speckle Tracking Echocardiography (STE) and Multislice CT (MSCT) imaging, respectively. Using MSCT as a reference, the first step is the registration of EAM 3D maps and STE 2D Contours on extracted MSCT LV-surfaces. After this registration step, local electrical and mechanical activation times can be displayed in the same space through 2D quantitative maps, therefore allowing the computation of local electro-mechanical delays. Local and global electro-mechanical delays from septal and lateral walls were calculated for three patients. The complementary information obtained may be useful for a better patient selection for CRT.
Refinable Function : An Object-oriented Approach to Procedure Modularity

Modularity is the fundamental aspect of modern software engineering, however many advanced modularity techniques requires prospective technologies as part of development and operation process. In this paper, we present Refinable Function, an object-oriented approach to advanced language-based, symmetric modularity technique for the procedure. We conceptually compare Refinable Function to existing technique to substantiate benefits of modularity can be implemented in on well-established object-oriented language without compiler support. We introduce concepts of inheritance, encapsulation, and polymorphism of function for bringing object-orientation to procedure modularity and describe the design and implementation of Refinable Function in JavaScript to validate our approach to practical web application development. We introduce the practical aspect of Refinable Function implementation by discussing concerns of applying modularity on asynchronous processing. We tested and implemented Refinable Function to substantiate its relevance to web application development and product line implementation.
Image annotation using adapted Gaussian mixture model

In this paper, an automatic image annotation (AIA) method using Gaussian mixture model (GMM) is discussed. Supervised multiclass labeling (SML), which is a notable AIA method using GMM, has a problem of low annotation performances of labels that have a few training samples because of over fitting. In the present study, we propose to introduce a cross entropy based constraint into SML. According to the proposed method, while probabilistic models of labels are trained independently as is the case with SML, the optimization of whole probabilistic models is achieved, and therefore over fitting is suppressed. As the result of extensive evaluation tests, the proposed method obtained the best annotation performance in existing parametric methods of AIA.
A class of singularly perturbed semilinear differential equations with interior layers

In this paper singularly perturbed semilinear differential equations with a discontinuous source term are examined. A numerical method is constructed for these problems which involves an appropriate piecewise-uniform mesh. The method is shown to be uniformly convergent with respect to the singular perturbation parameter. Numerical results are presented that validate the theoretical results.
Czochralski growth of Ti:sapphire laser crystals

The laser efficiency of Ti3+:Al2O3 (Ti:Sapphire) is affected by residual absorption in the infrared region (800 nm) of the laser emission caused by Ti3+-Ti4+ pairs. Consequently, the ratio of the absorption coefficients at pump wavelength and at maximum of residual absorption forms the most important figure of merit (FoM) of Ti:Sapphire laser crystals. In general, to achieve sufficient FoM commercial Ti:Sapphire crystals are subject to a post-growth annealing under strongly reducing atmosphere to shift the balance between Ti3+ and Ti4+ ions in favour of the former ion. However, due to the low diffusion velocities under these conditions, this process is very time-consuming, especially for larger crystals. To save this step the crystal growth process of Ti:Sapphire was performed in a special gas mixture to stabilize the Ti3+ ions during the growth. The stability range of Ti3+ at growth temperature was estimated on the basis of thermodynamic equilibrium calculations. Ti3+ ions exist at about 2050°C only in very small "window" regarding the oxygen partial pressure. This "window" remains very small during cooling too. To meet these conditions, i.e. to create the optimum growth atmosphere the oxygen partial pressure of different gas mixtures was calculated. That way a gas mixture was found which allowed the growth of Ti:Sapphire crystals with diameter up to 55 mm and a FoM > 100 without subsequent annealing. Under these conditions the formation of aluminium suboxides and therewith of oxygen which can be trapped in the crystal as gaseous inclusions was suppressed efficiently.
Simple Life-History Omnivory: Responses to Enrichment and Harvesting in Systems with Intraguild Predation

This article analyzes the nature of top-down and bottom-up effects and alternative states in systems characterized by life-history omnivory. The analysis is based on a three-species food web with intraguild predation (IGP). The top predator population has juvenile and adult stages, which consume the basal resource and the intermediate prey, respectively; the prey consumes only the resource. The per capita reproduction of the adult predators depends on their consumption rate of prey, while the maturation rate of the juvenile predators depends on their resource consumption rate. Enriching the resource can increase or decrease the abundances of one or both of the two consumer species; an increased density is more likely in the intermediate species than in the systems where IGP is not based on stage differences. Alternative states that have or lack the predator occur frequently, particularly when the prey population is capable of reducing the resource to very low densities. These results differ from those of several other recent models of life-history omnivory. They suggest that life-history omnivory may be one of the primary reasons why exploited populations undergo sudden collapses and why collapsed populations fail to recover in spite of large reductions in the exploitation rate.
Feedback gain in multiple antenna systems

Multiple antenna transmission and reception have been shown to significantly increase the achievable data rates of wireless systems. However, most of the existing analysis assumes perfect or no channel information at the receiver and transmitter. The performance gap between these extreme channel assumptions is large and most practical systems lie in between. Therefore, it is important to analyze multiple antenna systems in the presence of partial channel information. We upper bound the outage probability performance of multiple antenna systems with preamble-based channel estimation and quantized feedback. We design causal feedback and power control schemes to minimize this upper bound on outage probability. We consider the following practical issues in our analysis and design: (1) the channel information is imperfect both at the receiver and at the transmitter and (2) part of the total available resources for the system need to be used for estimation and feedback. Our results demonstrate that for block fading channels, sending a periodic preamble and causally receiving channel state information via a feedback channel can lead to substantial gains in the outage performance over any nonfeedback scheme. Most of the gains achieved by perfect feedback can be achieved by very few bits of feedback. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that these outage probability gains can be translated into improvements in frame error rate performance of systems using space-time codes. Thus, implementing a power control, even at the cost of reduced spectral resources for the forward channel is beneficial for block fading channels.