Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Compensation of Phase Noise in OFDM Wireless Systems

Phase noise causes significant degradation in the performance of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based wireless communication systems. The presence of phase noise can reduce the effective signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the receiver, and consequently, limit the bit error rate (BER) and data rate. In this paper, the effect of phase noise on OFDM wireless systems is studied, and a compensation scheme is proposed to mitigate the common phase error and intercarrier interference (ICI) caused by phase noise. In the proposed scheme, the communication between the transmitter and receiver blocks consists of two stages. In the first stage, block-type pilot symbols are transmitted and the channel coefficients are jointly estimated with the phase noise in the time domain. In the second stage, comb-type OFDM symbols are transmitted such that the receiver can jointly estimate the data symbols and the phase noise. It is shown both by theory and computer simulations that the proposed scheme can effectively mitigate the ICI caused by phase noise and improve the BER of OFDM systems. Another benefit of the proposed scheme is that the sensitivity of OFDM receivers to phase noise can be significantly lowered, which helps simplify the oscillator and circuitry design in terms of implementation cost and power consumption.
Nitric oxide promotes endothelial cell survival signaling through S-nitrosylation and activation of dynamin-2

Endothelial cell-based angiogenesis requires activation of survival signals that generate resistance to external apoptotic stimuli, such as tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), during pathobiologic settings. Mechanisms by which this is achieved are not fully defined. Here, we use a model in which the multifunctional cytokine nitric oxide counterbalances TNF-α-induced apoptosis, to define a role for membrane trafficking in the process of endothelial cell survival signaling. By perturbing dynamin GTPase function, we identify a key role of dynamin for ensuing downstream endothelial cell survival signals and vascular tube formation. Furthermore, nitric oxide is directly demonstrated to promote dynamin function through specific cysteine residue nitrosylation, which promotes endocytosis and endothelial cell survival signaling. Thus, these studies identify a novel role for dynamin as a survival factor in endothelial cells, through a mechanism by which dynamin S-nitrosylation regulates the counterbalances of TNF-α-induced apoptosis and nitric oxide-dependent survival signals, with implications highly relevant to angiogenesis.
Modeling flexible configurable processes applied to the enrollment process in higher education institutions

Modern information systems need to be able to deal with uncertainty and variability, as well as to support the evolution of business processes. In this work, we apply two flexible and configurable modeling approaches to model the process of the student enrollment at a higher education institution. A model based on the configuration of the reference model requires a comprehensive reference model, while the model based on the model structure adaptation contains a minimal reference model. Both modeling approaches proved to be applicable to modeling the process of the student enrollment at a higher education institution.
Tie2/TEK Modulates the Interaction of Glioma and Brain Tumor Stem Cells with Endothelial Cells and Promotes an Invasive Phenotype

Malignant gliomas are the prototype of highly infiltrative tumors and this characteristic is the main factor for the inevitable tumor recurrence and short survival after most aggressive therapies. The aberrant communication between glioma cells and tumor microenvironment represents one of the major factors regulating brain tumor dispersal. Our group has previously reported that the tyrosine kinase receptor Tie2/TEK is expressed in glioma cells and brain tumor stem cells and is associated with the malignant progression of these tumors. In this study, we sought to determine whether the angiopoietin 1 (Ang1)/Tie2 axis regulates crosstalk between glioma cells and endothelial cells. We found that Ang1 enhanced the adhesion of Tie2-expressing glioma and brain tumor stem cells to endothelial cells. Conversely, specific small interfering RNA (siRNA) knockdown of Tie2 expression inhibited the adhesion capability of glioma cells. Tie2 activation induced integrin β1 and N-cadherin upregulation, and neutralizing antibodies against these molecules inhibited the adhesion of Tie2-positive glioma cells to endothelial cells. In 2D and 3D cultures, we observed that Ang1/Tie2 axis activation was related to increased glioma cell invasion, which was inhibited by using Tie2 siRNA. Importantly, intracranial co-implantation of Tie2-positive glioma cells and endothelial cells in a mouse model resulted in diffusely invasive tumors with cell clusters surrounding glomeruloid vessels mimicking a tumoral niche distribution. Collectively, our results provide new information about the Tie2 signaling in glioma cells that regulates the cross-talk between glioma cells and tumor microenvironment, envisioning Tie2 as a multi-compartmental target for glioma therapy.
Internal Employment Opportunity and External Employment Opportunity: Independent or Interactive Retention Effects?

Contemporary attrition/retention frameworks suggest that internal mobility opportunities (e.g., promotions) and external mobility opportunities (i.e., alternative sources of employment) impact turnover decisions. The present study used data collected' from 413 U.S. Air Force enlistees to estimate the joint effects of internal mobility opportunities (i.e., training/career broadening opportunities) and external mobility opportunities (e.g., existing job offers) on reenlistment. Logistic regression analysis revealed that internal and external mobility opportunities had additive effects on the study's attrition criterion. Moderated regressions failed to detect interactive effects among the study's mobility variables. Implications of the findings for turnover frameworks and retention of military personnel are discussed.
Backing Up Your Data to the Cloud: Want to Pay Less?

In this paper we present CAB, a Cost-Aware cloud Backup system, designed for users owning multiple connected devices. Putting client-side monetary cost reduction first, CAB allows users to access their data via multiple devices and applies file updates to the cloud backup with low time delay. We describe some of the optimizations necessary to achieve cost reduction, including data de-duplication, a log-structured data layout, garbage collection, and novel metadata management. Using two one-month long real-world traces, evaluation of a prototype implementation of CAB shows it reduces cost by 16 - 44% compared to a cost-oblivious baseline backup system. Our current prototype implementation stores data in Amazon S3, but is portable to different cloud providers that support REST protocol.
Highly efficient and accurate package electrical modeling automation

In recent years, the requirement of high-end electronic product is higher signal speed, storage capacity and lower power, the bandwidth of package physical design becomes more critical, such as layer count reduction, package routing density. Therefore, there are many electrical validations in a package design, including PDN (Power Distribution Network) and SSN (Simultaneous Switching Noise). In order to control the accuracy and consistency of the electrical models, and shorten engineering time in the modeling cycle time, we develop a tool, XPAE (Xilinx PowerSI Automated Extraction), for package electrical model auto-extraction based on Cadence PowerSI.
UNDERSTANDING ATTRIBUTES OF SUPER-USERS OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS

The role of super-users is important in being able to utilize information systems (IS) successfully in organizations. In this research, we propose using the Repertory Grid technique to understand attributes of super-users of information systems. Super-users are distinguished from other users by their level of accomplishment that far exceeds other users. By identifying the attributes of super-users, we can more readily understand the factors that contribute to higher level IS competence. These findings may give indications of attributes that can potentially be fostered in other users. Word Count: 2,456 (excluding references)
Nonlinear Stability of Bifurcating Front Solutions for the Taylor-Couette Problem

We consider the Taylor-Couette problem in an infinitely extended cylindrical domain. There exist modulated front solutions which describe the spreading of the stable Taylor vortices into the region of the unstable Couette flow. These transient solutions have the form of a front-like envelope advancing in the laboratory frame and leaving behind the stationary, spatially periodic Taylor vortices. We prove the nonlinear stability of these solutions with respect to small spatially localized perturbations.
Validation of the EDI-2 in one clinical and two nonclinical populations

Summary The present study establishes the validity of the Dutch translation of the EDI-2 by determining its factor structure, construct validity and its effectiveness for screening using a clinical and two nonclinical populations. An earlier study had shown that item transformation damaged the validity of the EDI-1 in a nonclinical population of female high-school students. Therefore, the issue of the use of transformed (0-3) versus untransformed (1-6) item responses was addressed first. The present study replicated the earlier finding for the EDI-2 in the same population and similar results were also found in another nonclinical population of female college students. Furthermore, untransformed responses were found to also work well in a clinical population of female patients suffering from eating disorders. Accordingly, further analyses were based on untransformed responses. The factorial integrity of the original 64-item EDI-1 was best supported in the clinical group and the nonclinical group of college.
Genetic Diversity in the Protective Antigen Gene ofBacillus anthracis

ABSTRACT Bacillus anthracis is a gram-positive spore-forming bacterium that causes the disease anthrax. The anthrax toxin contains three components, including the protective antigen (PA), which binds to eucaryotic cell surface receptors and mediates the transport of toxins into the cell. In this study, the entire 2,294-nucleotide protective antigen gene (pag) was sequenced from 26 of the most diverse B. anthracis strains to identify potential variation in the toxin and to further our understanding of B. anthracis evolution. Five point mutations, three synonymous and two missense, were identified. These differences correspond to six different haploid types, which translate into three different amino acid sequences. The two amino acid changes were shown to be located in an area near a highly antigenic region critical to lethal factor binding. Nested primers were used to amplify and sequence this same region of pag from necropsy samples taken from victims of the 1979 Sverdlovsk incident. This investigation uncovered five different alleles among the strains present in the tissues, including two not seen in the 26-sample survey. One of these two alleles included a novel missense mutation, again located just adjacent to the highly antigenic region. Phylogenetic (cladistic) analysis of thepag corresponded with previous strain grouping based on chromosomal variation, suggesting that plasmid evolution in B. anthracis has occurred with little or no horizontal transfer between the different strains.
What Is System Hang and How to Handle It

Almost every computer user has encountered an un-responsive system failure or system hang, which leaves the user no choice but to power off the computer. In this paper, the causes of such failures are analyzed in detail and one empirical hypothesis for detecting system hang is proposed. This hypothesis exploits a small set of system performance metrics provided by the OS itself, thereby avoiding modifying the OS kernel and introducing additional cost (e.g., hardware modules). Under this hypothesis, we propose SHFH, a self-healing framework to handle system hang, which can be deployed on OS dynamically. One unique feature of SHFH is that its "light-heavy" detection strategy is designed to make intelligent tradeoffs between the performance overhead and the false positive rate induced by system hang detection. Another feature is that its diagnosis-based recovery strategy offers a better granularity to recover from system hang. Our experimental results show that SHFH can cover 95.34% of system hang scenarios, with a false positive rate of 0.58% and 0.6% performance overhead, validating the effectiveness of our empirical hypothesis.
Exploring the Importance of the Advisee and Advisor Bond

Advisor/advisee (A/A) mentoring programs are designed to increase student attachment to faculty and school, and to provide support for a student's academic success and personal growth by pairing each student with an adult advisor. Two hypotheses regarding students' bond with their advisor were examined using student data from a suburban middle and high school (N = 304) A/A program. The first hypothesis, that student perceptions of parental involvement, social benefits and academic progress would differ between students who did and did not experience a significant bond with their advisor, was supported. Also supported by the data was the second hypothesis, that students' self-perceived bond with their advisor would be a better predictor of student perceptions of goal attainment through A/A participation than other variables related to A/A participations, such as student perceptions of increased parental involvement and social benefits. Both hypotheses were derived from a theory outlined in the paper, that the nexus between teacher and student is the prevailing influence on student evaluations of A/A program benefits. The overall positive student perceptions of A/A program benefits and structure, if explained according to this model, may be founded on the quality of the advisor/advisee relationship.
Multi-Word Expression-Sensitive Word Alignment

This paper presents a new word alignment method which incorporates knowledge about Bilingual Multi-Word Expressions (BMWEs). Our method of word alignment first extracts such BMWEs in a bidirectional way for a given corpus and then starts conventional word alignment, considering the properties of BMWEs in their grouping as well as their alignment links. We give partial annotation of alignment links as prior knowledge to the word alignment process; by replacing the maximum likelihood estimate in the M-step of the IBM Models with the Maximum A Posteriori (MAP) estimate, prior knowledge about BMWEs is embedded in the prior in this MAP estimate. In our experiments, we saw an improvement of 0.77 Bleu points absolute in JP–EN. Except for one case, our method gave better results than the method using only BMWEs grouping. Even though this paper does not directly address the issues in Cross-Lingual Information Retrieval (CLIR), it discusses an approach of direct relevance to the field. This approach could be viewed as the opposite of current trends in CLIR on semantic space that incorporate a notion of order in the bag-of-words model (e.g. co-occurences).
The Volumetric Contraction of Dental Gypsum Materials on Setting

O F ALL the materials associated with dental practice and technic, those containing gypsum products are probably used most extensively. In keeping with this fact, a great deal of research has been directed toward problems involving the physical behavior of these materials. It is felt, however, that knowledge is lacking on some of the more fundamental behavior characteristics. The manifestation of this deficiency is the presence of many phenomena which exist when dental gypsums are used. An illustrative example would be the hygroscopic expansion of dental casting investments containing gypsum as a binder. Since there is no established theory on the mechanism of this action, it is just as difficult for the dental manufacturer to compound an adequate material as it is for the dentist to use it properly. The purpose of -this paper is to resolve some of these difficulties by studying one very fundamental characteristic of these materials, namely, the volumetric behavior of dental gypsums during the process of setting. All dental gypsum products which include plaster, stone or hydrocal, the improved stones, and the binder of most gold casting investments are essentially composed of the hemihydrate form of calcium sulfate (CaSO41/1⁄2H2O). When mixed with water, the hemihydrate is converted to the dehydrate form of calcium sulfate (CaSO,-2H2O) and this process is synonymous with the observed setting action. Specifically associated with this reaction is the paradox which exists with respect to the volumetric behavior of the mixed mass. It is common knowledge that an expansion accompanies the setting process; yet, a contraction should occur based on theoretical considerations as is shown in Table I. Skinner' wrote of this anomaly and explained that the expansion is only apparent and is possibly caused by the thrusting of the gypsum crystals in the direction of their growth during setting. It is the specific purpose of this paper to determine whether a volumetric contraction does exist and, if so, how it can be explained in the presence of a measurable expansion. A thorough search of the dental and chemical literature was of no assistance except for one article by J. H. Van't Hoff2in which the author measured a contraction of plaster of Paris during setting. However, the method of measurement as well as the objectives of the experiment precluded any adaptation of the results to the problem at hand. Accordingly, an apparatus was designed and tests were run to measure the true volumetric behavior of dental gypsum materials on setting.
Efficacy of the novel antidepressant agomelatine on the circadian rest-activity cycle and depressive and anxiety symptoms in patients with major depressive disorder: a randomized, double-blind comparison with sertraline.

OBJECTIVE This study evaluates the efficacy of agomelatine, the first antidepressant to be an agonist at MT(1)/MT(2) receptors and an antagonist at 5-HT(2C) receptors, versus sertraline with regard to the amplitude of the circadian rest-activity cycle and depressive and anxiety symptoms in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). METHOD Outpatients with DSM-IV-TR-defined MDD received either agomelatine 25 to 50 mg (n = 154) or sertraline 50 to 100 mg (n = 159) during a 6-week, randomized, double-blind treatment period. The study was conducted from 2005 to 2006. The main outcome measure was the relative amplitude of the individual rest-activity cycles, expressed as change from baseline to week 6 and collected from continuous records using wrist actigraphy and sleep logs. Secondary outcome measures were sleep efficiency and sleep latency, both derived from actigraphy, and efficacy on depression symptoms (17-Item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale total score and Clinical Global Impressions scale scores) and anxiety symptoms (Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale total score and subscores). RESULTS A significant difference in favor of agomelatine compared to sertraline on the relative amplitude of the circadian rest-activity cycle was observed at the end of the first week (P = .01). In parallel, a significant improvement of sleep latency (P <.001) and sleep efficiency (P <.001) from week 1 to week 6 was observed with agomelatine as compared to sertraline. Over the 6-week treatment period, depressive symptoms improved significantly more with agomelatine than with sertraline (P <.05), as did anxiety symptoms (P <.05). CONCLUSIONS The favorable effect of agomelatine on the relative amplitude of the circadian rest-activity/sleep-wake cycle in depressed patients at week 1 reflects early improvement in sleep and daytime functioning. Higher efficacy results were observed with agomelatine as compared to sertraline on both depressive and anxiety symptoms over the 6-week treatment period, together with a good tolerability profile. These findings indicate that agomelatine offers promising benefits for MDD patients. TRIAL REGISTRATION www.isrctn. org: ISRCTN49376288.
Fabric Phase Sorptive Extraction in Pharmaceutical Analysis

Micro extraction techniques represent the current state of the art in analytical sample preparation characterized with solvent-free/solventminimized extraction, miniaturization and automation to treat samples with pharmaceutical, food, forensic, and environmental significance for instrumental analysis. To be consistent with today’s challenges of sustainability and environmental issues, Green Analytical Chemistry (GAC) demands are taken into consideration when developing a new analytical methodology in order to comply with the principles of green chemistry. To this direction, the analysis of raw and untreated samples as well as the miniaturization in sample volume requirement leading to the reduction of organic solvents used for sample pretreatment, thus complying with the priorities of GAC as defined by Anastas and Namiesnik [1,2]. Moreover, waste generated during sample preparation exercise is minimized while economy in consumables and energy demands is achieved.
Engulfment of Neisseria gonorrhoeae: Revealing Distinct Processes of Bacterial Entry by Individual Carcinoembryonic Antigen-Related Cellular Adhesion Molecule Family Receptors

ABSTRACT Individual Neisseria gonorrhoeae colony opacity-associated (Opa) protein variants can bind up to four different carcinoembryonic antigen-related cellular adhesion molecule (CEACAM) receptors. Most human cells encountered by gonococci express a combination of CEACAM receptors, thereby complicating the elucidation of intracellular signaling pathways triggered by individual receptors. Here, we compare the process of bacterial engulfment by a panel of stably transfected HeLa epithelial cell lines expressing each CEACAM receptor in isolation. CEACAM1 and CEACAM3 each contain proteinaceous transmembrane and cytoplasmic domains; however, the processes of neisserial uptake mediated by these receptors differ with respect to their susceptibilities to both tyrosine kinase inhibitors and the actin microfilament-disrupting agent cytochalasin D. Neisserial uptake mediated by glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored CEACAM5 and CEACAM6 was not significantly affected by any of a broad spectrum of inhibitors tested. However, cleavage of the GPI anchor by phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C reduced bacterial uptake by HeLa cells expressing CEACAM5, consistent with a single zipper-like mechanism of uptake mediated by this receptor. Regardless of the CEACAM receptor expressed, internalized gonococci were effectively killed by a microtubule-dependent process that required acidification of the bacterium-containing phagosome. Given the phase-variable nature of neisserial Opa proteins, these results indicate that the mechanism of bacterial engulfment and the cellular response to gonococcal infection depend on both the receptor specificities of the neisserial Opa protein variants expressed and the spectrum of CEACAM receptors present on target cells, each of which determines the combination of receptors ultimately engaged.