Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Endocrine regulation of airway clearance in Drosophila

Significance The branched epithelial structure of the respiratory system, which is highly conserved in the animal kingdom, develops under liquid-filled conditions. In mammals at birth and insects at ecdysis, such respiratory networks undergo air-filling. We found that the neuropeptide Kinin promotes air-filling in the fruit fly respiratory system just prior to ecdysis by mobilizing calcium in tracheal epithelial pickpocket cells, which express homologs of mammalian epithelial Na+ channels. Fluid clearance from the respiratory system during developmental transitions is critically important for achieving optimal gas exchange in animals. During insect development from embryo to adult, airway clearance occurs episodically each time the molt is completed by performance of the ecdysis sequence, coordinated by a peptide-signaling cascade initiated by ecdysis-triggering hormone (ETH). We find that the neuropeptide Kinin (also known as Drosokinin or Leukokinin) is required for normal respiratory fluid clearance or “tracheal air-filling” in Drosophila larvae. Disruption of Kinin signaling leads to defective air-filling during all larval stages. Such defects are observed upon ablation or electrical silencing of Kinin neurons, as well as RNA silencing of the Kinin gene or the ETH receptor in Kinin neurons, indicating that ETH targets Kinin neurons to promote tracheal air-filling. A Kinin receptor mutant fly line (Lkrf02594) also exhibits tracheal air-filling defects in all larval stages. Targeted Kinin receptor silencing in tracheal epithelial cells using breathless or pickpocket (ppk) drivers compromises tracheal air-filling. On the other hand, promotion of Kinin signaling in vivo through peptide injection or Kinin neuron activation through Drosophila TrpA1 (dTrpA1) expression induces premature tracheal collapse and air-filling. Moreover, direct exposure of tracheal epithelial cells in vitro to Kinin leads to calcium mobilization in tracheal epithelial cells. Our findings strongly implicate the neuropeptide Kinin as an important regulator of airway clearance via intracellular calcium mobilization in tracheal epithelial cells of Drosophila.
A Transcriptional Regulator and ABC Transporters Link Stress Tolerance, (p)ppGpp, and Genetic Competence in Streptococcus mutans

ABSTRACT Streptococcus mutans, a primary agent of dental caries, has three (p)ppGpp synthases: RelA, which is required for a mupirocin-induced stringent response; RelP, which produces (p)ppGpp during exponential growth and is regulated by the RelRS two-component system; and RelQ. Transcription of relPRS and a gene cluster (SMu0835 to SMu0837) located immediately upstream was activated in cells grown with aeration and during a stringent response, respectively. Bioinformatic analysis predicted that SMu0836 and SMu0837 encode ABC exporters, which we designated rcrPQ (rel competence-related) genes, respectively. SMu0835 (rcrR) encodes a MarR family transcriptional regulator. Reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) and quantitative RT-PCR analysis showed that RcrR functions as an autogenous negative regulator of the expression of the rcrRPQ operon. A mutant in which a polar insertion replaced the SMu836 gene (Δ836polar) grew more slowly and had final yields that were lower than those of the wild-type strain. Likewise, the Δ836polar strain had an impaired capacity to form biofilms, grew poorly at pH 5.5, and was more sensitive to oxidative stressors. Optimal expression of rcrPQ required RelP and vice versa. Replacement of rcrR with a nonpolar antibiotic resistance marker (Δ835np), which leads to overexpression of rcrPQ, yielded a strain that was not transformable with exogenous DNA. Transcriptional analysis revealed that the expression of comYA and comX was dramatically altered in the Δ835np and Δ836polar mutants. Collectively, the data support the suggestion that the rcrRPQ gene products play a critical role in physiologic homeostasis and stress tolerance by linking (p)ppGpp metabolism, acid and oxidative stress tolerance, and genetic competence.
DNA Polymerase ɛ Deficiency Leading to an Ultramutator Phenotype: A Novel Clinically Relevant Entity

Two cases of metastatic colorectal cancer with a POLE mutation, both of which were ultramutated and microsatellite stable, are presented and discussed from the standpoint of the basic biochemical mechanisms leading to a unique phenotype in POLE deficiency, the challenges faced with interpreting the genomic profiling of tumors in this important subset of patients, and the potential clinical implications.
Parked Cars as Virtual Network Infrastructure: Enabling Stable V2I Access for Long-Lasting Data Flows

Vehicular networks are envisioned to cover various use cases from safety related applications to infotainment. While there exist standardized solutions for exchanging single messages in a geographical area, coping with longer lasting flows of messages is more difficult. Developed solutions may require high node densities for fast delivery or even require pre-installed infrastructure (e.g., road side units). In this paper, we present a concept where we exploit parked cars to form a virtual network infrastructure. In particular, we form clusters representing a virtual road side unit spanning a relatively large geographical area. To reduce the channel load, we select a subset of the parked cars as active gateways to the cluster. This is done in a way to ensure that the connectivity to the cluster is not impaired. We evaluate the proposed algorithm using the Car4ICT architecture, a concept that enables cars in smart cities to discover and use various kinds of services.
Sedative-Hypnotic Use Among Older Adults Participating in Anxiety Research

Older adults are prescribed sedative-hypnotic medications at higher rates than younger adults. These are not recommended for older adults due to risk of sedation, cognitive impairment, and falls. Severe generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a possibly appropriate use of these medications in older people, but little is available on use of sedative-hypnotic medications among older adults with GAD. This study examined the frequency and predictors of sedative-hypnotic medication use among older adults screening positive for anxiety. 25.88% (n = 125) of participants reported taking sedative-hypnotics over the past 3 months; 16.36% (n = 79) reported taking benzodiazepines, and 12.22% (n = 59) reported taking hypnotic sleep medications. Depressive symptoms were more strongly associated with sedative-hypnotic use than insomnia or worry. Major depressive disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder, but not GAD, predicted sedative-hypnotic use. Other medications and treatments are more appropriate and efficacious for depression, anxiety, and insomnia in this population.
A management method of IP multicast in overlay networks using openflow

Overlay networks stretch a Layer 2 network and increase mobility of virtual machines. VXLAN (Virtual eXtensible LAN) is one of Layer 2 overlay schemes over a Layer 3 net- work proposed in IETF and its definition covers 16M overlay networks or segments which solves 4K limitation of VLANs. However VXLAN uses IP multicast for the isolation of net- work traffic by tenant in the shared network infrastructure. IP multicast requires great amount of resources such as IP multicast table and CPU therefore the scalability is to be limited by handling of IP multicast. We propose to manage IP multicast in overlay networks using OpenFlow instead of using dynamic registration protocol such as IGMP. We describe our implementations of VXLAN controller, edge switch with VXLAN gateway and OpenFlow switch. Our method using OpenFlow eliminates periodical Join/Leave messages and achieves more than 4k tenants in our Layer 2 network at server edges, which was not possible before.
Corticosteroid in Combination with Leflunomide and Mesenchymal Stem Cells for Treatment of Pediatric Idiopathic Pulmonary Hemosiderosis

Background This study evaluated the efficiency of corticosteroid, leflunomide and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in the treatment of pediatric idiopathic pulmonary hemosiderosis (IPH). Methods Ten patients were included in the study. The diagnosis of IPH was based on clinical symptoms, laboratory examinations and pulmonary hemosiderosis. Induction therapy consisted of methylprednisolone pulse therapy, followed by prednisone plus leflunomide. Maintenance therapy consisted of low-dose prednisone, leflunomide and administration of MSCs. Results All the patients achieved complete response after treatment with corticosteroid, leflunomide and MSCs. The median follow-up was 23 months (range: 4-34 months). Moreover, administration of MSCs induced an increase in the percentage of CD4+ CD25+ regulatory T cells but a decrease in the percentage of Th17 cells. Conclusion Treatment with corticosteroid, leflunomide and MSCs for pediatric IPH was safe and effective.
Training Probabilistic Spiking Neural Networks with First- To-Spike Decoding

Third-generation neural networks, or Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs), aim at harnessing the energy efficiency of spike-domain processing by building on computing elements that operate on, and exchange, spikes. In this paper, the problem of training a two-layer SNN is studied for the purpose of classification, under a Generalized Linear Model (GLM) probabilistic neural model that was previously considered within the computational neuroscience literature. Conventional classification rules for SNNs operate offline based on the number of output spikes at each output neuron. In contrast, a novel training method is proposed here for a first-to-spike decoding rule, whereby the SNN can perform an early classification decision once spike firing is detected at an output neuron. Numerical results bring insights into the optimal parameter selection for the GLM neuron and on the accuracy-complexity trade-off performance of conventional and first-to-spike decoding.
tmPVM-task migratable PVM

In this paper we introduce an implementation of PVM that exploits the homogeneity of an MPP network with user-level task migration. The target machine is the Fujitsu AP3000. It is basically a network of Sun workstations connected by a high-speed network. Furthermore, we explore the possibility of allowing the PVM host configuration to expand dynamically so as to include idle nodes into the virtual machine. The result is tmPVM, which allows the virtual machine to re-distribute workload dynamically with low overhead.
Clustered embedding of massive social networks

The explosive growth of social networks has created numerous exciting research opportunities. A central concept in the analysis of social networks is a proximity measure, which captures the closeness or similarity between nodes in the network. Despite much research on proximity measures, there is a lack of techniques to efficiently and accurately compute proximity measures for large-scale social networks. In this paper, we embed the original massive social graph into a much smaller graph, using a novel dimensionality reduction technique termed Clustered Spectral Graph Embedding. We show that the embedded graph captures the essential clustering and spectral structure of the original graph and allow a wide range of analysis to be performed on massive social graphs. Applying the clustered embedding to proximity measurement of social networks, we develop accurate, scalable, and flexible solutions to three important social network analysis tasks: proximity estimation, missing link inference, and link prediction. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our solutions to the tasks in the context of large real-world social network datasets: Flickr, LiveJournal, and MySpace with up to 2 million nodes and 90 million links.
Different types of cooling systems used in photovoltaic module solar system: A review

Solar energy is an important part of the renewable energy. Photovoltaic (PV) cell converts a part of solar energy into electrical energy and remainder is converted into heat. This heat inversely affects the efficiency of the solar cell. The efficiency of solar panel depends upon three factors: the intensity of the solar radiation flux, the quality of the semiconductor used and the operating temperature of the semiconductor cell. It is known that efficiency of the photovoltaic cell decreases on increasing the temperature of PV cell. To maintain the temperature of the PV cell, incorporation of a cooling system is required. Proposed review gives a comparative account of different types of cooling systems incorporated like air based cooling system, liquid based cooling system, heat pipe based cooling system, PCM (Phase Changed Material) based cooling system etc. While reviewing the cooling techniques water based cooling system was found to be the most efficient system efficiency (up to 35%) presided by PCM based and the least efficient was found to be air based cooling. Present review also defines the utility and importance of optimization technique, which predicts the more optimum values of cooling systems. This is an innovative approach in the field of photovoltaics cooling system which gives optimum (maximum values and minimum values) values for prescribed parameter using optimization technique.
Unsupervised Texture Segmentation Using Multispectral Modelling Approach

A new unsupervised multispectral texture segmentation method with unknown number of classes is presented. Multispectral texture mosaics are locally represented by four causal multispectral random field models recursively evaluated for each pixel. The segmentation algorithm is based on the underlying Gaussian mixture model and starts with an over segmented initial estimation which is adaptively modified until the optimal number of homogeneous texture segments is reached. The performance of the presented method is extensively tested on the Prague segmentation benchmark using the commonest segmentation criteria and compares favourably with several alternative texture segmentation methods
Delivery during extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) support of pregnant woman with severe respiratory distress syndrome caused by influenza: a case report and review of the literature

Abstract Objective: To report a case of labour induction during extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) support in a patient with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) caused by influenza and review of the literature. Methods: Case report and the literature search of all English articles on delivery while on ECMO in patients with ARDS caused by influenza. Results: A 25-year-old pregnant woman was initiated with ECMO due to severe ARDS caused by influenza A (H1N1) virus. When the patient had symptoms of colporrhagia and uterine contractions, the medical team decided to start labour induction while on ECMO. There were in total five case reports identified. Maternal oxygenation was improved after delivery and ECMO was successfully discontinued. Conclusions: Maternal oxygenation was improved after delivery, which may be beneficial to reduce the duration of ECMO. Caesarean section (CS) may be the most used mode and labour induction could be another option. The procedure should be performed by an experienced ECMO team, cooperating with the obstetrician, anaesthesiologist, and ICU doctors.
Note on Upper Bounds for TSP Domination Number

The domination number, domn(A, n), of a heuristic A for the Asymmetric TSP is the maximum integer d = d(n) such that, for every instance I of the Asymmetric TSP on n cities, A produces a tour T which is not worse than at least d tours in I including T itself. Two upper bounds on the domination number are proved.
Targeted and reversible cancer cell-binding DNA nanoparticles

Abstract DNA nanoparticles (DeNAno) produced by rolling circle replication of circular oligonucleotide templates are a novel format for the selection of cell-binding reagents from randomized libraries. DeNAno particles consist of several hundred concatemers and can leverage that multivalency to bind to complex surfaces such as cells. In this study, an iterative bio-panning approach was used to recover particles that bound to the mouse pancreatic cancer line, Panc-02. These particles shared a primary sequence motif. Hybridization of a locked nucleic acid complimentary to this motif both inhibited cell binding and released pre-bound DeNAno particles from the cells. The monomeric form of one of the selected sequences was unable to compete with the cognate particle, consistent with a low-affinity, but high-avidity, type interaction. DeNAno library selection against cancer or other cell types can, thus, yield novel cell binding agents without a priori knowledge of particular cell surface molecules.
A high-throughput and energy-efficient RRAM-based convolutional neural network using data encoding and dynamic quantization

To solve the scaling, memory wall and high power density issues, recently RRAM-based accelerators, which show a better energy and area efficiency compared with the CMOS-based counterparts, have been proposed for convolutional neural networks. However, the RRAM-based architectures still face several design challenges, including the high energy and timing overhead at the analog/digital (A/D) conversion and interfacing circuits. To address these issues, we propose several novel optimization schemes in this work. First an encoding scheme for the synaptic weights and the input feature maps is proposed to reduce the energy of the in-situ computation and the bit-resolution of the A/D conversion. Then the resolution of the A/D conversion is further optimized for a lower energy consumption. Moreover, a dynamic quantization scheme for the multiply-accumulate operations (MACs) is proposed to improve the throughput and the energy efficiency by reducing the number of partial products. Experimental results show that the throughput, the energy efficiency and the area efficiency are improved by 2 to 4 times when compared with the state-of-the-art RRAM-based accelerators.
Power Distortion Optimization for Uncoded Linear Transformed Transmission of Images and Videos

Recently there is a resurgence of interest in uncoded transmission for wireless visual communication. While conventional coded systems suffer from cliff effect as the channel condition varies dynamically, uncoded linear-transformed transmission (ULT) provides elegant quality degradation for wide channel SNR range. ULT skips non-linear operations such as quantization and entropy coding. Instead, it utilizes linear decorrelation transform and linear scaling power allocation to achieve optimized transmission. This paper presents a theoretical analysis for power-distortion optimization of ULT. In addition to the observation in our previous work that a decorrelation transform can bring significant performance gain, this work reveals that exploiting the energy diversity in transformed signal is the key to achieve the full potential of decorrelation transform. In particular, we investigated the efficiency of ULT with exact or inexact signal statistics, highlighting the impact of signal energy modeling accuracy. Based on that, we further proposed two practical energy modeling schemes for ULT of visual signals. Experimental results show that the proposed schemes improve the quality of reconstructed images by 3 5dB, while reducing the signal modeling overhead from hundreds or thousands of meta data to only a few meta data. The perceptual quality of reconstruction is significantly improved.
Significance of Elastic Properties in Physics-Based Nonrigid Motion Modeling, A Numerical Sensitivity Analysis

Parameters used in the physical models for nonrigid motion simulation are often not known with high precision. It has been recognized that the commonly used assumptions about the parameters may have adverse effects on the modeling quality. We present an efficient sensitivity analysis method to assess the impact of those assumptions by examining the model’s response to the parameter perturbation. Numerical experiments with both synthetic and real models show that (1) the normalized sensitivity distribution can help determine the relative importance of different parameters; (2) the dimensional sensitivity is useful in the assessment of a particular parameter assumption; (3) the model is more sensitive at the property discontinuity (heterogeneity). The proposed sensitivity analysis method is general and can also be applied to the assessment of other types of assumptions such as nonlinearity and anisotropy.
Decoupling of Multiple Antennas in Terminals With Chassis Excitation Using Polarization Diversity, Angle Diversity and Current Control

Excitation of the chassis enables single-antenna terminals to achieve good bandwidth and radiation performance, due to the entire chassis being utilized as the main radiator. In contrast, the same chassis excitation phenomenon complicates the design of multiple antennas for MIMO applications, since the same characteristic mode of the chassis may be effectively excited by more than one antenna, leading to strong mutual coupling and severe MIMO performance degradation. In this paper, we introduce a design concept for MIMO antennas to mitigate the chassis-induced mutual coupling, which is especially relevant for frequency bands below 1 GHz. We illustrate the design concept on a dual-antenna terminal at 0.93 GHz, where a folded monopole at one chassis edge excites the chassis' fundamental electric dipole mode and a coupled loop at the other chassis edge excites its own fundamental magnetic dipole mode. Since the two radiation modes are nearly orthogonal to each other, an isolation of over 30 dB is achieved. Moreover, we show that the antenna system can be conveniently modified for multiband operation, such as in the 900/1800/2600 MHz bands. Furthermore, by controlling the phase of the feed current on the folded monopole, the two antennas can be co-located on the same chassis edge with an isolation of over 20 dB. The co-located dual-antenna prototype was fabricated and verified in the measurements.