Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multicast Collision Free (MCF) mechanism over IEEE 802.11 WLANs

Multicast is an efficient paradigm for transmitting data from a sender to a group of receivers. In IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs, multicast is specified as a simple mechanism that does not make use of ACK frames. The absence of a feedback mechanism has a strong impact on the reliability of the service provided to the user. This is particular true in a network composed of a large number of active stations due to the increasing number of collisions. This situation has led many researchers to design techniques aimed at improving the reliability of the multicasting mechanism. However, the IEEE has created a Working Group to define the IEEE 802.11aa amendment. The first IEEE 802.11aa draft defines the mechanisms for wireless LANs which aim to provide a reliable multicasting. In this paper, we introduce a novel mechanism, capable of sending multicast data packets without collisions. Our scheme has been designed to maintain compatibility with the IEEE 802.11 standard. Our simulation results show that our new scheme outperforms the IEEE 802.11, and the most relevant ones reported in the literature.
Can Dispersion Forces Govern Aromatic Stacking in an Organic Solvent?

Experimental support for the dominance of van der Waals dispersion forces in aromatic stacking interactions occurring in organic solution is surprisingly limited. The size-dependence of aromatic stacking in an organic solvent was examined. The interaction energy was found to vary by about 7.5 kJ mol(-1) on going from a phenyl-phenyl to an anthracene-pyrene stack. Strikingly, the experimental data were highly correlated with dispersion energies determined using symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (SAPT), while the induction, exchange, electrostatic, and solvation energy components correlated poorly. Both the experimental data and the SAPT-dispersion energies gave high-quality correlations with the change in solvent accessible area upon complexation. Thus, the size-dependence of aromatic stacking interactions is consistent with the dominance of van der Waals dispersion forces even in the presence of a competing polarizable solvent.
Should we refrain from antibiotic use in hospice patients?

In the United States (US), hospice patients must have a physician-certified terminal diagnosis and life expectancy of 6 months or less. In 2014, approximately 41% of hospice patients were aged 85 years or older and the most prevalent terminal diagnoses were cancer (36.6%), dementia (14.8%), heart disease (14.7%), and lung disease (9.3%). [1] Most US insurance payers, including Medicare, require patients to forgo further curative therapy in exchange for the additional home-based palliative support that hospice provides. [2] Thus, rather than curing patients’ disease, hospice goals of care are to minimize suffering, maximize quality of life, preserve patient dignity, and to neither prolong nor hasten the dying process. [3] However, what this means regarding continuation or discontinuation of many medications remains unclear. There is increasing interest in reducing polypharmacy and unnecessary medication use among older adults and patients at end-of-life. [4,5] Most interest has been directed toward chronic medications (e.g. statin medications for hyperlipidemia) with the primary rationale being that there are either minimal benefits of these medications at end-of-life; or that the potential risks (e.g. side effects, drug interactions, and other adverse events) supersede the potential benefits. [6] In contrast, and not limited to hospice patients, the primary rationale to decrease antibiotic use has been to decrease antibiotic selective pressure and emergence of antibiotic resistance. [7] Additional rationales more specific to hospice patients include concerns regarding potential adverse events and drug interactions, as well as increased medication costs and necessitating invasive devices (e.g. central line catheters) which could complicate transition to hospice. [8] In this review, we will address the appropriateness of antibiotics when considering hospice goals of care and the safety and effectiveness of antibiotics in this setting. We then specifically address the question of whether we should refrain from antibiotic use in hospice patients. Furthermore, although we describe the US hospice system above, the issues discussed in this review are relevant to all hospice patients, caregivers, and hospice providers in the US and internationally. Infection and antibiotic use in hospice care
Structure-Function Studies of Ser-289 in the Class C β-Lactamase from Enterobacter cloacae P99

ABSTRACT Site-directed mutagenesis of Ser-289 of the class C β-lactamase from Enterobacter cloacae P99 was performed to investigate the role of this residue in β-lactam hydrolysis. This amino acid lies near the active site of the enzyme, where it can interact with the C-3 substituent of cephalosporins. Kinetic analysis of six mutant β-lactamases with five cephalosporins showed that Ser-289 can be substituted by amino acids with nonpolar or polar uncharged side chains without altering the catalytic efficiency of the enzyme. These data suggest that Ser-289 is not essential in the binding or hydrolytic mechanism of AmpC β-lactamase. However, replacement by Lys or Arg decreased by two- to threefold the kcat of four of the five β-lactams tested, particularly cefoperazone, cephaloridine, and cephalothin. Three-dimensional models of the mutant β-lactamases revealed that the length and positive charge of the side chain of Lys and Arg could create an electrostatic linkage to the C-4 carboxylic acid group of the dihydrothiazine ring of the acyl intermediate which could slow the deacylation step or hinder release of the product.
Operational characteristics of a step-down converter applied proposed switching transient waveform modification

Recently, high performance power switching device realize high performance power converter. However, high speed turn-on and turn-off cause electromagnetic interference (EMI). EMI filters or wire shields decrease EMI. However, they take over space of automotive, and cost is expense. Authors have proposed a new method to decrease high-frequency noise at specific frequency band with modification of switching transient slope. In order to realize a step-down converter with modified switching slope, there are several problems such as generating PWM signal with modified slope, feasibility in a real chopper circuit, switching loss and so on. In this paper, a step-down converter applied proposed modified switching slope was successfully realized using MT (Modified Transient)-PWM generator. The operational characteristics were analyzed for resistive load.
Growth hormone promotes glomerular lipid accumulation in bGH mice.

BACKGROUND Bovine growth hormone (bGH) transgenic mice develop progressive glomerulosclerosis and exhibit abnormalities in hepatic lipid metabolism. We have previously shown that growth hormone up-regulates the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor and 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase (HMGR) in mouse mesangial cells. However, a role of lipid abnormalities in bGH kidney disease has not yet been demonstrated. METHODS Groups of bGH mice (5 and 11 months old) presenting with, respectively, moderate and severe degrees of glomerulosclerosis were compared to age-matched controls. Neutral lipid content in kidney cortex was determined by oil red-O staining, serum cholesterol, and triglycerides by enzymatic assays, relative mRNA expression of LDL receptors, HMGR, and scavenger receptor by real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), and HMGR protein expression by immunoblotting. Two younger (5 and 12 weeks old) groups of mice were used to study scavenger receptor expression at earlier time points. RESULTS Serum cholesterol was significantly increased in bGH mice at 5 months, but triglycerides were lower than control levels at both 5 and 11 months. Renal cortex HMGR expression was elevated at the mRNA but not at the protein level in the 11-month-old bGH group compared to controls. However, glomerular neutral lipid staining and scavenger receptor mRNA expression were markedly increased in all bGH mice, including those at 5 weeks of age compared to respective controls. CONCLUSION The bGH mouse exhibits an increased mesangial lipid content and elevated scavenger receptor mRNA expression as early as at 5 weeks of age, suggesting that an increased kidney uptake of oxidized LDL could play a role in the development of glomerulosclerosis in this mouse model.
Measurements of Raindrop Size Distributions over the Pacific Warm Pool and Implications for Z-R Relations

Raindrop images obtained on research flights of the NCAR Electra aircraft in the Tropical Oceans Global Atmosphere Coupled Ocean‐Atmosphere Response Experiment (TOGA COARE) are analyzed. The drop size distributions, based on the images obtained in 6-s samples (about 750 m of flight track), are used to calculate both radar reflectivity Z and rain rate R. Airborne radar data from the NOAA P-3 aircraft flying in coordination with the Electra are used to categorize the particle-image data according to whether the drop images were obtained in regions of convective or stratiform precipitation. Within stratiform precipitation, the same rain rate could be produced by a drop spectrum dominated by numerous small drops (lower reflectivity) or by a few large drops (higher reflectivity). The reflectivity values varied by as much as 9 dB for a given rain rate. Reflectivity data from the airborne radar and flight-level data reveal that the stratiform regions often contain fallstreaks of about 0.1‐2 km in horizontal dimension. The fallstreaks are associated with large-drop spectra and local maxima in reflectivity up to approximately 40 dB Z and in rain rates up to 25 mm h21. The fallstreaks extend downward from the melting band and bend with the low-level wind shear, but do not usually reach the surface. Thus, although relatively more uniform than convective regions, stratiform regions can be variable in reflectivity and rain rate at fine spatial scales in both the horizontal and vertical directions. Stratiform regions are therefore best characterized by their ensemble properties rather than the values of individual high-resolution measurements. The variability of stratiform drop size spectra arises primarily from the occurrence of fallstreaks and the discontinuous nature of regions favoring aggregation of snow crystals, and it implies that Z‐R distributions associated with convective and stratiform precipitation are not statistically distinct. Thus, separate Z‐R relations for convective and stratiform precipitation are not justified, and techniques to distinguish between convective and stratiform precipitation based solely on the characteristics of drop size distributions are not likely to be accurate. The variability of the drop size spectra in tropical precipitation makes an exponential fit to the Z‐R relation sensitive to the spatial scale over which Z and R are determined. This sensitivity can be avoided by using a probability-matched Z‐R relation. The probability-matched Z‐R relation for all the raindrop image data from the Electra collected between altitudes of 2.7 and 3.3 km in TOGA COARE is similar to the Z‐R relation obtained at the sea surface in the Global Atmospheric Research Program Atlantic Tropical Experiment.
catena-Poly[[(1,10-phenanthroline-κ2 N,N′)copper(I)]-μ-thiocyanato-κ2 N:S-[(1,10-phenanthroline-κ2 N,N′)copper(I)]-μ-cyanido-κ2 N:C]

In the title complex, [Cu2(CN)(NCS)(C12H8N2)2], which was synthesized under hydrothermal conditions, both CuI atoms have a slightly distorted tetrahedral geometry. They are coordinated by two N atoms of one 1,10-phenanthroline ligand, one bridging thiocyanate anion and one bridging cyanide anion. In the crystal structure, infinite helical {Cu–CN–Cu–SCN}n chains are formed along [01].
Speech Detection and Enhancement Using Single Microphone for Distant Speech Applications in Reverberant Environments

It is well known that in reverberant environments, the human auditory system has the ability to pre-process reverberant signals to compensate for reflections and obtain effective cues for improved recognition. In this study, we propose such a preprocessing technique for combined detection and enhancement of speech using a single microphone in reverberant environments for distant speech applications. The proposed system employs a framework where the target speech is synthesized using continuous auditory masks estimated from sub-band signals. Linear gammatone analysis/synthesis filter banks are used as an auditory model for sub-band processing. The performance of the proposed system is evaluated on the UT-DistantReverb corpus which consists of speech recorded in a reverberant racquetball court (T60 ∼ 9000msec). The current system shows an average improvement of 15% STNR over an existing single-channel dereverberation algorithm and 17% improvement in detecting speech frames over G729B, SOHN & Combo-SAD unsupervised speech activity detectors on actual reverberant and noisy environments.
Random telegraph noise of deep-submicrometer MOSFETs

The random telegraph noise exhibited by deep-submicrometer MOSFETs with very small channel area (<or=1 mu m/sup 2/) at room temperature is studied. Analysis of the amplitude of the current fluctuations reveals that the trapped charges generate noise through modulation of the carrier mobility in addition to the carrier number. Parameters needed for modeling the carrier mobility fluctuation effect on the flicker noise in conventional MOSFETs are extracted directly from the random telegraph noise data. <<ETX>>
Detecting hardware trojans: a tale of two techniques

Summary form only given. Integrated Circuits (ICs) are designed and fabricated in a globalized multi-vendor environment making them vulnerable to malicious design changes and the insertion of hardware Trojans/malware. In this talk I will cover two distinct techniques to address the problem of detecting hardware Trojans. The first uses SAT and BDD-based functional analysis to reverse engineer ICs. The goal here is to derive the higher-level function of IC through algorithmic analysis of its netlist to help expose the Trojan logic. The second uses statistical analysis of chip simulation data in a clustering algorithm to isolate the Trojan logic. I will discuss these techniques, their practical application on benchmark circuits and their complementary strengths. This is joint work with Burcin Cakir and Pramod Subramanyan.
Impacts of rotor current control targets on DC-link capacitor lifetime in DFIG-based wind turbine during grid voltage unbalance

In doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG)-based wind turbines, the DC-link capacitor of the back-to-back (B2B) converters is one of the components that tend to fail most often. The equivalent resistance of electrolytic capacitors is frequency dependent and presents higher values in the low-frequency range. Therefore, additional low-frequency ripple current components will stress the DC-link capacitor and reduce its lifetime. Under unbalanced grid voltage conditions, the conventional vector control strategy of the rotor side converter may be replaced by flexible multi-objective control strategies, leading to different low-frequency harmonics in DC-link capacitor current. Therefore, in this paper the differences between the different control targets with respect to overall RMS current, additional low-frequency ripple current and temperature are analyzed by means of simulations for a 2 MW DFIG wind turbine.
Improved Language in a Chronic Nonfluent Aphasia Patient After Treatment With CPAP and TMS

ObjectiveTo present pretreatment and post-treatment language data for a nonfluent aphasia patient who received 2 treatment modalities: (1) continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) for his sleep apnea, starting 1-year poststroke; and (2) repetitive transcranial magnetic brain stimulation (TMS), starting 2 years poststroke. BackgroundLanguage data were acquired beyond the spontaneous recovery period of 3 to 6 months poststroke onset. CPAP restores adequate oxygen flow throughout all stages of sleep, and may improve cognition. A series of slow, 1 Hz repetitive TMS treatments to suppress a posterior portion of right pars triangularis has been shown to improve phrase length and naming in chronic nonfluent aphasia. MethodThe Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination and Boston Naming Test were administered pre-CPAP, and after 2 to 5 months of CPAP. These same tests were administered pre-TMS, and at 3 and 6 months post-TMS, and again 2.4 years later. ResultsPost-CPAP testing showed increased Phrase Length, Auditory Comprehension, and naming Animals and Tools/Implements (Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination). Testing at 3 and 6 months post-TMS showed significant increase in Phrase Length, Auditory Comprehension, and Boston Naming Test compared with pre-TMS. These gains were retained at 2.4 years post-TMS. CPAP use continued throughout. ConclusionsPhysiologic treatment interventions may promote language recovery in chronic aphasia.
Usefulness of a Perceived Exertion Scale for Monitoring Exercise Intensity in Adults with Intellectual Disabilities

In order to gain physical fitness and health, exercise must be performed at a sufficient level of intensity. Exercise intensity can be monitored with rated perceived exertion (RPE) scales to promote safe and effective programming. The usefulness of the Children's OMNI Scale as a subjective measure of intensity for adults with intellectual disabilities (ID) was examined. Heart rate, workload, and RPE were monitored during a progressive walking protocol on a motorized treadmill in 18 adults with ID. Statistical analyses on individual data revealed that significant positive relationships among RPE, heart rate, and workload existed in most participants. However, results were highly variable. Results imply that some individuals with ID are able to provide a subjective estimate of exercise intensity while others may not be able to report accurately. The findings have significant practical implications for exercise programming in this population. Considerable research has indicated that peo- ple with intellectual disabilities (ID) have low
The Event and Implied Situation Ontology (ESO): Application and Evaluation

This paper presents the Event and Implied Situation Ontology (ESO), a manually constructed resource which formalizes the pre and post situations of events and the roles of the entities affected by an event. The ontology is built on top of existing resources such as WordNet, SUMO and FrameNet. The ontology is injected to the Predicate Matrix, a resource that integrates predicate and role information from amongst others FrameNet, VerbNet, PropBank, NomBank and WordNet. We illustrate how these resources are used on large document collections to detect information that otherwise would have remained implicit. The ontology is evaluated on two aspects: recall and precision based on a manually annotated corpus and secondly, on the quality of the knowledge inferred by the situation assertions in the ontology. Evaluation results on the quality of the system show that 50% of the events typed and enriched with ESO assertions are correct.
Dietary chitosan affects metabolism of arachidonic acid in weaned piglets

Li J.-L. , Xu Y. -Q. , Shi B. -L. , Sun D. -S. , Yan S. -M. , Guo X. -Y. (2017): Dietary chitosan affects metabolism of arachidonic acid in weaned piglets. Czech J. Anim. Sci., 62, 58–66. The effects of chitosan on immune function via arachidonic acid (AA) pathway in weaned piglets were investigated. A total of 180 piglets (Duroc × Yorkshire × Landrace) were randomly assigned to 5 dietary treatments and fed a basal diet supplemented with 0 (control), 100, 500, 1000, and 2000 mg chitosan/kg feed, respectively. Results showed that serum AA, prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), and leukotriene B4 (LTB4) contents in piglets were increased in a linear or quadratic dose-dependent manner with increasing chitosan on day 28 (P < 0.05). Chitosan increased serum cytosolic-phospholipase A2 (cPLA2) activity in a linear or quadratic dose-dependent manner on day 14 or 28, and improved 5-lipoxygenase (5-LOX) activity in a linear manner and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) activity quadratically on day 28 (P < 0.05). Moreover, chitosan elevated gene expression of cPLA2 mRNA quadratically in the small intestine on days 14 and 28, increased the COX-2 mRNA expression in the duodenum or jejunum in a linear or quadratic manner on day 28, and improved the 5-LOX mRNA expression quadratically in the small intestine (P < 0.05). These results implied that the metabolism of AA was regulated by chitosan in a dose-dependent relationship, which may be one reason why chitosan affected immune function via AA pathway in weaned piglets.
Leaning to the Left Makes the Eiffel Tower Seem Smaller

In two experiments, we investigated whether body posture influences people’s estimation of quantities. According to the mental-number-line theory, people mentally represent numbers along a line with smaller numbers on the left and larger numbers on the right. We hypothesized that surreptitiously making people lean to the right or to the left would affect their quantitative estimates. Participants answered estimation questions while standing on a Wii Balance Board. Posture was manipulated within subjects so that participants answered some questions while they leaned slightly to the left, some questions while they leaned slightly to the right, and some questions while they stood upright. Crucially, participants were not aware of this manipulation. Estimates were significantly smaller when participants leaned to the left than when they leaned to the right.
The Effelsberg-Bonn HI Survey: Enabling great new science

We report on the current status of the Effelsberg-Bonn HI Survey, a new large-scale single-dish observing campaign to map the 21-cm line emission across the full northern hemisphere. Using state-of-the-art spectrometers it is feasible to survey the Milky Way Galaxy as well as the local universe within a single run. The improvement in terms of sensitivity, angular resolution, and data quality is demonstrated in comparison to present day datasets.
SAMPLE-EFFICIENT DEEP REINFORCEMENT LEARN-

We propose Episodic Backward Update a new algorithm to boost the performance of a deep reinforcement learning agent by fast reward propagation. In contrast to the conventional use of replay memory with uniform random sampling, our agent samples a whole episode and successively propagates the value of a state into its previous states. Our computationally efficient recursive algorithm allows sparse and delayed rewards to propagate effectively throughout the sampled episode. We evaluate our algorithm on 2D MNIST Maze Environment and 49 games of the Atari 2600 Environment and show that our agent improves sample efficiency with a competitive computational cost.