Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Correction of Wavefront Tilt Caused by Atmospheric Turbulence Using Quadrant Detectors for Enabling Fast Free-Space Quantum Communications in Daylight

Low photon-level signals used in most free-space quantum communication systems require a narrow field of view in the receiver to minimize the amount of background noise coupled into the single photon detectors. This can be achieved through beam tracking techniques, which compensate atmospheric effects, such as beam wander, in the receiver, reducing the long-term beam area. However, reducing the diameter of this area below a few microns, typically necessary to achieve a low level of solar background noise and successful daylight quantum transmission, require fine tracking precision and diffraction-limited optics. We demonstrate that this can be done with standard voice-coil fast steering mirrors and cheap commercially-available quadrant detectors. Two correcting strategies (open and closed loop) are experimentally tested and analyzed for their applicability in metropolitan (~km range) free-space quantum communications. The area containing the random fluctuations of the beam centroid caused by atmospheric turbulence at the focal plane of the receiver was reduced by a factor of 4 with an open-loop configuration, and up to a factor of nine with a closed loop configuration. This is equivalent to a reduction in the quantum bit error rate caused by background solar noise of up to one order of magnitude, which, combined with spectral filtering techniques, enable the possibility of fast daylight quantum key distribution.
NGF steers microglia toward a neuroprotective phenotype

Microglia are the sentinels of the brain but a clear understanding of the factors that modulate their activation in physiological and pathological conditions is still lacking. Here we demonstrate that Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) acts on microglia by steering them toward a neuroprotective and anti‐inflammatory phenotype. We show that microglial cells express functional NGF receptors in vitro and ex vivo. Our transcriptomic analysis reveals how, in primary microglia, NGF treatment leads to a modulation of motility, phagocytosis and degradation pathways. At the functional level, NGF induces an increase in membrane dynamics and macropinocytosis and, in vivo, it activates an outward rectifying current that appears to modulate glutamatergic neurotransmission in nearby neurons. Since microglia are supposed to be a major player in Aβ peptide clearance in the brain, we tested the effects of NGF on its phagocytosis. NGF was shown to promote TrkA‐mediated engulfment of Aβ by microglia, and to enhance its degradation. Additionally, the proinflammatory activation induced by Aβ treatment is counteracted by the concomitant administration of NGF. Moreover, by acting specifically on microglia, NGF protects neurons from the Aβ‐induced loss of dendritic spines and inhibition of long term potentiation. Finally, in an ex‐vivo setup of acute brain slices, we observed a similar increase in Aβ engulfment by microglial cells under the influence of NGF. Our work substantiates a role for NGF in the regulation of microglial homeostatic activities and points toward this neurotrophin as a neuroprotective agent in Aβ accumulation pathologies, via its anti‐inflammatory activity on microglia.
Cointegration in Fractional Systems with Unkown Integration Orders

The semiparametric local Whittle or Gaussian estimate of the long memory parameter is known to have especially nice limiting distributional properties, being asymptotically normal with a limiting variance that is completely known. However in moderate samples the normal approximation may not be very good, so we consider a refined, Edgeworth, approximation, for both a tapered estimate, and the original untapered one. For the tapered estimate, our higher-order correction involves two terms, one of order 1/√m (where m is the bandwidth number in the estimation), the other a bias term, which increases in m; depending on the relative magnitude of the terms, one or the other may dominate, or they may balance. For the untapered estimate we obtain an expansion in which, for m increasing fast enough, the correction consists only of a bias term. We discuss applications of our expansions to improved statistical inference and bandwidth choice. We assume Gaussianity, but in other respects our assumptions seem mild.
Laser induced damage in optical materials: 1988

Calcium Fluoride (CaF2) crystals are grown in a vacuum at approximately 1400 Deg C via a Bridgman-Stockbarger method. This process traditionally has limitations in the size of the single crystals that can be produced. Another limitation, in current practice, is the randomness of the crystallographic orientation of the crystals. A new process for producing large, single, crystallographically oriented crystals of calcium fluoride that overcomes these limitations is described. This process has been reduced to practice to produce single oriented crystals 17.5 x 17.5 x 5 cm''. Currently under construction is a system for producing 35 x 35 x 7.3 cm-' crystals. This process is considered scalable to 1 meter square. The concept employed in the growth process plus seeding the crystal growth provides sufficient control over the entire process to produce a single oriented crystal. This crystal growing process makes possible the fabrication of very large CaF2 windows suitable for high power lasers.
&bgr;-Blocker use and mortality in cancer patients: systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies

A number of epidemiologic studies have attempted to link the use of &bgr; blockers to mortality in cancer patients, but their findings have been inconclusive. A meta-analysis was carried out to derive a more precise estimation. Relevant studies were identified by searching PubMed and EMBASE to May 2015. We calculated the summary hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) using random-effects models. Twenty cohort studies and four case–control studies involving 76 538 participants were included. The overall results showed that patients who used &bgr; blockers after diagnosis had an HR of 0.89 (95% CI 0.81–0.98) for all-cause mortality compared with nonusers. Those who used &bgr; blockers after diagnosis (vs. nonusers) had an HR of 0.89 (95% CI 0.79–0.99) for cancer-specific mortality. Prediagnostic use of &bgr; blockers showed no beneficial effect on all-cause mortality or cancer-specific mortality. Stratifying by cancer type, only breast cancer patients who used &bgr; blockers after diagnosis had a prolonged overall survival. A linear but nonsignificant trend was found between postdiagnostic &bgr;-blocker use and mortality of cancer patients. In conclusion, the average effect of &bgr;-blocker use after diagnosis but not before diagnosis is beneficial for the survival of cancer patients.
A 0.013-mm2 0.53-mW/Gb/s 32-Gb/s Hybrid Analog Equalizer Under 21-dB Channel Loss in 65-nm CMOS

Low-power and low-jitter equalization techniques become increasingly crucial for the wire-line receivers operating at data rates more than tens of gigabits per second. This brief reports an inductorless and power-efficient 32-Gb/s hybrid analog equalizer. The hybrid analog equalizer utilizes a triple-gate control to achieve equalization over a range of channel loss resulting in an inductorless and area-efficient design. The triple-gate controls entail that a low-frequency equalization is achieved in addition to the intermediate and high-frequency equalization, at minimum area overhead. The prototype is realized in a 65-nm CMOS, occupying a compact active area of 0.013 mm2. The maximum equalization achieved is 21 dB at Nyquist with a measured peak-to-peak data jitter of 5.25 ps (0.17 unit interval) at 32 Gb/s for a 231 – 1 pseudorandom bit sequence signal. The measurement shows a vertical eye-opening recovery rate of up to 61% at 32 Gb/s, for a channel loss of 21 dB. The prototype exhibits a competitive power efficiency of 0.53 mW/Gb/s under a supply voltage of 1.2 V.
Microdomains bounded by endoplasmic reticulum segregate cell cycle calcium transients in syncytial Drosophila embryos

Cell cycle calcium signals are generated by the inositol trisphosphate (InsP3)–mediated release of calcium from internal stores (Ciapa, B., D. Pesando, M. Wilding, and M. Whitaker. 1994. Nature. 368:875–878; Groigno, L., and M. Whitaker. 1998. Cell. 92:193–204). The major internal calcium store is the endoplasmic reticulum (ER); thus, the spatial organization of the ER during mitosis may be important in shaping and defining calcium signals. In early Drosophila melanogaster embryos, ER surrounds the nucleus and mitotic spindle during mitosis, offering an opportunity to determine whether perinuclear localization of ER conditions calcium signaling during mitosis. We establish that the nuclear divisions in syncytial Drosophila embryos are accompanied by both cortical and nuclear localized calcium transients. Constructs that chelate InsP3 also prevent nuclear division. An analysis of nuclear calcium concentrations demonstrates that they are differentially regulated. These observations demonstrate that mitotic calcium signals in Drosophila embryos are confined to mitotic microdomains and offer an explanation for the apparent absence of detectable global calcium signals during mitosis in some cell types.
Wearable mobile augmented reality: evaluating outdoor user experience

Augmented Reality (AR) technologies offer the potential to aid users in a number of professional areas. However, to date, most studies have been tested in controlled laboratory conditions. This paper outlines a user experience study of a wearable mobile augmented reality system in an outdoor urban environment. We describe the use case of using a see-through monocular head-mounted display (HMD) with augmented imagery for orientation, and the use of gesture input for interacting with information while on-the-move. Participants had to navigate to a target location, whilst receiving information updates, and complete a series of gesture-based tasks. Despite participants managing to complete the tasks after some assistance, it was found that more improvements to the user experience are required for it to be viable in outdoor-use. In particular, better visibility, when see-through HMDs are used in a bright environment, and improved situation awareness. This paper further highlights the difficulties in using gesture input, and points to a number of areas requiring further research into the use of wearable mobile AR systems in the context of this work.
Technology of high-birefringent photonic crystal fibers for sensing applications

Paper described fabrication methods of high birefringence index guided holey fibers made from silica and high silica glasses. Several kinds of high birefringence holey fibers are described in the point of view their fabrication technology and basic characterization. There are: triple defect fiber with shape induced birefringence, two kinds of fibers with filling factor asymmetry induced birefringence, fibers with filling factor asymmetry induced birefringence and germanium doped core designed for Bragg gratings writing, fiber with filling factor asymmetry induced birefringence and neodymium doped core designed for fiber amplifiers and lasers, dual core fiber with circular and weakly separated cores. Methods of manufacturing we used were: MCVD method for silica and high silica glass preparation as optical fiber preform manufacturing and OVD method for porous silica glass fabrication including additional processes as hydroxylation, impregnation with suitable salts solutions, thermal decomposition, dehydroxylation and sintering lead to silica, high silica and rare earth doped glass preparation in the form of elements for microstructured fiber preforms compose.
Species recognition using audio processing algorithm

Small of the smallest living creature is the part of the whole ecosystem. Monitoring and maintaining this environmental health has become a task of prime importance, since human activity and climate change has placed the greater pressure on biodiversity. This helps in monitoring dangerous situations to planes caused by birds near airports and also in saving endangered species. Powerful audio signal processing techniques makes it possible to introduce automated methods for the detection of such vocalizations. The complete identification procedure essentially involves collection of recorded vocalizations of different species, audio pre-processing to remove the noise and silence, segmentation to select the most representative characterizing elements of the signal called syllable, extraction of different features commonly found in sound classification and speech recognition to obtain relevant characteristics, and decision procedures for identification, where Machine Learning (ML) algorithms are used to train employed classifiers using labelled database of previously known species of interest. Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) with probabilistic approach is used for recognition of bird species. The required class probabilities are obtained from linear scores function.
A review of black-hole attack mitigation techniques and its drawbacks in Mobile Ad-hoc Network

Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET) is a prominent technology in the wireless networking field in which the movables nodes operates in distributed manner and collaborates with each other in order to provide the multi-hop communication between the source and destination nodes. Generally, the main assumption considered in the MANET is that each node is trusted node. However, in the real scenario, there are some unreliable nodes which perform black hole attack in which the misbehaving nodes attract all the traffic towards itself by giving false information of having the minimum path towards the destination with a very high destination sequence number and drops all the data packets. In the paper, we have presented different categories for black hole attack mitigation techniques and also presented the summary of various techniques along with its drawbacks that need to be considered while designing an efficient protocol.
Optimal design of GaN-AlGaN Bragg-confined structures for intersubband absorption in the near-infrared spectral range

A method is proposed for the design and optimization of structural parameters of GaN-AlGaN Bragg-confined structures with respect to peak intersubband absorption from the ground to the first excited state,1 /spl rarr/ 2 electronic transition, in the near infrared spectral range. An above-the-barrier bound state was used to extend the range of transition energies above the values available in conventional quantum wells. Intrinsic polarization fields and nonparabolicity effects were taken into account. The selection of optimal parameters, maximizing the absorption at wavelengths of 1.55 and 1.3 /spl mu/m, was performed by using a simulated annealing algorithm, and optimal structures with infinite superlattices as confinement regions were thus designed. These optimal parameters were then used to set realistic, finite structures with a small number of layers, the performance of which was re-evaluated by solving the Schrodinger-Poisson equation self-consistently for a few different levels and profiles of doping.
Towards traceability management in continuous integration with SAT-analyzer

Software system engineering is rapidly growing to larger scales and software maintenance tends to be complex. The number of involving software artefacts increases with the growth of software systems. Thus, different software development methodologies, processes and practices are getting introduced to ease the software management. Consequently, the management of excessive software artefacts is also important towards a successful maintenance. Therefore, the notion of traceability management of software artefacts is given prominence along with continuous integration. This paper explores the existing traceability management approaches to propose an optimized framework that overcomes current limitations. Hence, the previous work of this research, SAT-Analyzer, which is a prototype tool, is extended to support continuous integration with DevOps practices.
A novel highly potent trivalent TGF-β receptor trap inhibits early-stage tumorigenesis and tumor cell invasion in murine Pten-deficient prostate glands

The effects of transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) signaling on prostate tumorigenesis has been shown to be strongly dependent on the stage of development, with TGF-β functioning as a tumor suppressor in early stages of disease and as a promoter in later stages. To study in further detail the paradoxical tumor-suppressive and tumor-promoting roles of the TGF-β pathway, we investigated the effect of systemic treatment with a TGF-β inhibitor on early stages of prostate tumorigenesis. To ensure effective inhibition, we developed and employed a novel trivalent TGF-β receptor trap, RER, comprised of domains derived from the TGF-β type II and type III receptors. This trap was shown to completely block TβRII binding, to antagonize TGF-β1 and TGF-β3 signaling in cultured epithelial cells at low picomolar concentrations, and it showed equal or better anti-TGF-β activities than a pan TGF-β neutralizing antibody and a TGF-β receptor I kinase inhibitor in various prostate cancer cell lines. Systemic administration of RER inhibited prostate tumor cell proliferation as indicated by reduced Ki67 positive cells and invasion potential of tumor cells in high grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PIN) lesions in the prostate glands of Pten conditional null mice. These results provide evidence that TGF-β acts as a promoter rather than a suppressor in the relatively early stages of this spontaneous prostate tumorigenesis model. Thus, inhibition of TGF-β signaling in early stages of prostate cancer may be a novel therapeutic strategy to inhibit the progression as well as the metastatic potential in patients with prostate cancer.
Fuzzy logic applied to speed control of a stepping motor drive

Nowadays, thanks to the development of microprocessors, stepping motors are widely used in robotics and in the numerical control of machine tools where they have to perform high-precision positioning operations. Nevertheless, the variations of the mechanical configuration of the drive, which are common to these two applications, can lead to a loss of synchronism for high stepping rates. Moreover, the classical open-loop speed control is weak and a closed-loop control becomes necessary. In this paper, the fuzzy logic principle is applied to control the speed of a stepping motor drive with feedback. An advanced test bed is used in order to evaluate the tracking properties and the robustness capacities of the fuzzy logic controller when variations of the mechanical configuration occur. The experiment has been performed using a low-cost 16 bit microcontroller in order to verify the design performance.
Surface Treatment of Polyetheretherketone (PEEK) Composites by Plasma Activation

Abstract Carbon-fiber-reinforced PEEK composites (APC 2, ICI plc) were plasma treated for adhesive bonding. This was done in a microwave plasma in argon or oxygen. An epoxy-based film adhesive (AF 191, 3M) was employed for adhesive bonding (1 h curing at 175°C, 30 N/cm2). Both plasma treatments resulted in a high level of lap shear strength (Ar: > 40 MPa, 25°C). The environmental behaviour (42 d, 70°C hot water) of the adhesively bonded composites has also shown that good bonds could be obtained. Regarding the stability of the freshly-treated surfaces against exposure to the surrounding atmosphere only a small decrease in lap shear strength was observed. After storage for 4 weeks in air the strength was still almost 85% of that when the bonding was done directly after the treatment. ESCA measurements revealed an increase in carbon-oxygen groups by the plasma treatment and a strong cleavage of the PEEK chemical structure.
A DC-to-1-GHz Continuously Tunable Bandpass ADC

This paper proposes a dc-to-1-GHz continuously tunable bandpass (BP) analog-to-digital converter (ADC). The tunability is realized by modifying the pipelined ADC-based $f_{S}/4$ BP-ADC. A passive switched capacitor-based error-delaying circuitry is used to delay the quantization noise generated by a pipelined ADC by programmable number of cycles to realize various noise transfer functions and a continuum of notches that cover dc to 1 GHz. A prototype was designed and simulated in Global Foundry 55-nm LP CMOS process. It achieves signal-to-noise ratio in excess of 80 dB in 15.625-MHz bandwidth while sampling at 500 MHz. The proposed architecture uses subsampling and aliasing to quantize signals from 54 to 890 MHz, which covers the over-the-air broadcast channels for North American Television system.
Fracture Analysis for Damaged Aircraft Fuselage Using Substructure Method

This paper primarily describes the development and application of substructure computational analysis techniques to determine stress intensity factors for the damaged panels subjected to fatigue internal pressure. A program based on substructure analysis technique has been developed for the fracture analysis of curved aircraft panels containing cracks. This program may create whole model which consists of substructure superelements and obtain fracture parameter of the crack by expanding results in superelement automatically. For instance, a typical test curved panel model consists of 7 frames and 8 stringers is calculated. This numerical approach has been validated through comparison between the calculation SIF results and available experimental data of a typical test panel with a longitudinal crack. The technique that has been established here is also applied to the other analysis of a test series of cracked panel with 7 frames and 10 stringers. SIFs of four cracks in it with different crack lengths are obtained efficiently.
Combined use of x-ray reflectometry and spectroscopic ellipsometry for characterization of thin film optical properties

Accurate characterization of the optical properties of thin film materials used in semiconductor manufacturing is essential for many metrology applications in the fab, including film thickness measurement and scatterometry. The most common method for measuring these optical properties is spectroscopic ellipsometry. In this work X-ray reflectometry is used as a means of independently determining the thickness of a film to be characterized. This information is then used in the conventional analysis of spectroscopic ellipsometry data to extract the optical properties. In addition, the use of a Cauchy dispersion model fitted to the transparent region of the spectrum (if it exists) was used to determine the film thickness. Once the thickness was determined, a point-by-point regression was performed on the ellipsometry data to extract the optical properties. The results from these techniques were compared with each other and with conventional analysis of the ellipsometry data using common dispersion models.