Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Variable-Rate Anytime Transmission with Feedback

A generalization of the ensemble of non-terminated systematic LDPC convolutional codes developed in our previous work is proposed that allows us to design codes with lower rates than the original structure. We show that over the BEC, the modified codes have improved asymptotic and finite-length behavior and we determine the operational anytime exponent. Having shown the advantages of lowering the rate of the code, we propose a feedback protocol that permits encoder and decoder to operate at a variable rate. The rate is set on-the-fly and depends on the decoding success of the decoder. We describe the construction of the variable rate code structure and demonstrate by simulations the superiority of the variable rate scheme as compared to a scheme using a fixed rate.
Research and implementation of auto parking system based on ultrasonic sensors

In this study, an ultrasound sensor that was put on a smart wheeled mobile robot (SWMR) was used to detect parking space environment, simulate drivers' parking strategy, and complete roadside parking and reverse parking. In order to achieve automatic parking, the functions of the system included searching for suitable parking space, detecting adjacent obstacles, planning the parking path, producing PWM signals to drive servo motors, and completing steering control to achieve roadside parking. Once the ultrasonic sensors detect enough parking space, the SWMR can automatically control the servomotors of two wheels to turn around, go straight, move backward and stop, until the car is placed well in the target parking space. According to the experimental results, this study indeed can effectively simulate the actual parking situations, shorten parking safety spacing, and complete automatic parking.
Systemic endothelial activation is greater in septic than in traumatic-hemorrhagic shock but does not correlate with endothelial activation in skin biopsies

Objective Sepsis and severe trauma result in endothelial activation and damage. The activated endothelium expresses adhesion receptors that control leukocyte trafficking. After activation, some adhesion molecules are also released into plasma as soluble forms. The present study was designed to compare the expression of soluble cell adhesion molecules (sCAMs) in three groups of patients: those with septic shock, severe sepsis, and traumatic-hemorrhagic shock. In addition, the endothelial expression of these adhesive molecules was examined in skin biopsies. Design Prospective observational study Setting Intensive care unit at a university hospital Patients The study included 15 patients with septic shock (by Bone’s definition), 11 patients with severe sepsis (by Bone’s definition), and 13 patients with traumatic-hemorrhagic shock. Fifteen healthy blood donors served as controls. Measurements and Main Results Measurements of sCAMs were performed on days 1, 2, and 3 of the disease. On day 1, when compared with controls, sE-selectin, sP-selectin, soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule (sVCAM)-1, and soluble intercellular adhesion molecule (sICAM)-1 were markedly elevated in septic shock patients, whereas these sCAMs, except for sP-selectin, were within normal ranges in traumatic-hemorrhagic shock patients. In patients with severe sepsis, an earlier stage than septic shock in the sepsis continuum, intermediate values of sCAMs were found. In skin biopsies of septic shock patients, the endothelial cells expressed a bright staining of constitutive endothelial molecules (CD146, CD144, CD131). Inducible molecules (ICAM-1, VCAM-1, and E-selectin) were positively expressed with bright staining. The biopsies from traumatic-hemorrhagic shock patients showed a similar positive expression of endothelial molecules. Conclusion The patterns of sCAMs indicate that the systemic activation of the endothelium is different in the three clinical entities, maximum in septic shock, intermediate in severe sepsis, and not different from controls in traumatic-hemorrhagic shock. Comparable endothelial activation as evidenced by skin biopsies suggests that caution is required in the interpretation of CAMs in plasma, which does not necessarily reflect the in situ activation state of endothelium.
Turn prediction in proteins using a pattern-matching approach.

We extend the use of amino acid sequence patterns [Cohen, F.E. , Abarbanel, R. M. , Kuntz, I. D. , & Fletterick, R. J. (1983) Biochemistry 22, 4894-4904] to the identification of turns in globular proteins. The approach uses a conservative strategy, combined with a hierarchical search (strongest patterns first) and length-dependent masking, to achieve high accuracy (95%) on a test set of proteins of known structure. Applying the same procedure to homologous families gives a 90% success rate. Straightforward changes are suggested to improve the predictive power. The computer program, written in Lisp, provides a general pattern-recognition language well suited for a number of investigations of protein and nucleic acid sequences.
Response validity in forensic neuropsychology: Exploratory factor analytic evidence of distinct cognitive and psychological constructs

Forensic neuropsychology studies usually address either cognitive effort or psychological response validity. Whether these are distinct constructs is unclear. In 122 participants evaluated in a compensation-seeking context, the present Exploratory Factor Analysis examined whether forced-choice cognitive effort measures (Victoria Symptom Validity Test, Test of Memory Malingering, Letter Memory Test) and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, Second Edition (MMPI-2) validity scales (L, F, K, FBS, Fp, RBS, Md, Dsr2, S) load on independent factors. Regardless of factor rotation strategy (orthogonal or oblique), four response validity factors emerged by means of both Principal Components Analysis (82.7% total variance) and Principal-Axis Factor Analysis (74.1% total variance). The four factors were designated as follows: Factor I, with large loadings from L, K, and S—underreporting of psychological symptoms; Factor II, with large loadings from FBS, RBS, and Md—overreporting of neurotic symptoms; Factor III, with large loadings from VSVT, TOMM, and LMT—insufficient cognitive effort; and Factor IV, with the largest loadings from F, Fp, and Dsr2—overreporting of psychotic/rarely endorsed symptoms. Results reflect the heterogeneity of response validity in forensic samples referred for neuropsychological evaluation. Administration of both cognitive effort measures and psychological validity scales is imperative to accurate forensic neuropsychological assessment. (JINS, 2007, 13, 440–449.)
Larry Clark's Legacy: Randomized Controlled, Selenium-Based Prostate Cancer Chemoprevention Trials

Several important clinical trials under way at the Arizona Cancer Center seek to build on the results of Clark's 1996 study of selenium and decreased risk of prostate cancer. Those results, an unanticipated end point of a clinical trial, suggest that selenium has significant preventive power. The studies under way involve continued follow-up of the study cohort that generated the 1996 results and trials of selenium among men with negative biopsies, men with high-grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia, men with prostate cancer treated with selenium before prostatectomy, and men with prostate cancer who have chosen watchful waiting rather than active intervention. These studies promise important opportunities to validate Clark's original results.
Small artery mechanics in hyperhomocysteinemic mice: effects of angiotensin II

Objective Elevated plasma homocysteine has been associated with cardiovascular disease, although a causal relationship is unclear. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether mild hyperhomocysteinemia (H-Hcy) may increase vascular stiffness of small arteries. Methods Wild-type (+/+) and heterozygous (+/−) methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (Mthfr) knockout mice, a new model of mild H-Hcy, were treated with vehicle or angiotensin (Ang) II infusion (400 ng/kg per min s.c.). Second-order mesenteric arteries were studied on pressurized myograph. They were exposed to intraluminal pressures ranging from 3 to 140 mmHg. Media thickness and lumen diameter were measured at each pressure level to determine wall mechanical properties. Collagen type I/III and elastin deposition in the vascular wall were evaluated by confocal immunofluorescence microscopy. Results Media-to-lumen ratio was similar in Mthfr+/+ and Mthfr+/− mice, and significantly increased by Ang II. The stress–strain relationship was shifted to the left in small mesenteric arteries from Mthfr+/− compared to Mthfr+/+ mice, indicating that mild H-Hcy is associated with stiffer vessels. Ang II treatment in Mthfr+/− mice enhanced the leftward shift in the stress–strain relationship and significantly increased the elastic modulus, suggesting the presence of stiffer wall components in small arteries in these animals. Increased collagen type I/III accumulation and decreased elastin content in the media of mesenteric arteries was noted in Mthfr+/− compared to Mthfr+/+ mice. Ang II infusion augmented vascular collagen deposition in both groups, more substantially in Mthfr+/− mice. Conclusions Mild hyperhomocysteinemia is associated with stiffer small arteries with increased collagen deposition in the media. These changes are accentuated by Ang II-induced blood pressure elevation.
The Development and Implementation of an Intelligent Hierarchy Leadership Process in an Elementary School

Leadership in modern-day schools is changing. School leaders are expected to oversee the physical plant and school finances, as well as to be the instructional leader, personnel officer, public relations specialist, and point person for the accountability efforts at all governmental levels. Principals cannot be experts in every area of school administration; thus, they are more dependent on other members of the educational team. The purpose of this study was to develop and implement a form of shared leadership in an elementary school known as an intelligent hierarchy, to test whether such a model affects the distribution of decision-making, climate, and morale within the school (Leithwood & Mascall, 2008). This was a mixed-methods, action-research project in which the principal of the school served as a participant observer. A leadership team was formed consisting of the principal, teachers, support staff, and parents to aid in the decision-making process. Qualitative data were collected in the form of minutes of leadership team meetings, journal entries by the principal, and minutes of meetings with individual teachers. A modified version of the constant comparative method (Maykut & Morehouse, 1994) was used to analyze the qualitative data. Quantitative data were collected with questionnaires administered three times each throughout the course of the study. Data were collected on shared leadership, the distribution of decisions, school climate, and teacher morale. The implementation of the hybrid model of shared leadership led to improvement in the areas of shared leadership, shared decision-making, and employee morale. Improvement was evident in some areas of school climate. The result is a model administrators could implement, either in whole or in part, to track the implementation of shared leadership in their
In Male Mouse Germ Cells, Copper-Zinc Superoxide Dismutase Utilizes Alternative Promoters That Produce Multiple Transcripts with Different Translation Potential (*)

Copper-zinc superoxide dismutase (SOD-1) is an enzyme that is widely expressed in eukaryotic cells and performs a vital role in protecting cells against free radical damage. In mouse testis, three different sizes of SOD-1 mRNAs of about 0.73, 0.80, and 0.93 kilobases (kb) are detected. The 0.73-kb mRNA is found in early stages of male germ cells and in all somatic tissues. The mRNAs of 0.80 and 0.93 kb are exclusively detected in post-meiotic germ cells. RNase H digestions and Northern blot analyses reveal that the three SOD-1 mRNAs are derived from two transcripts, a ubiquitously expressed transcript and a post-meiotic transcript, which differ by 114-120 nucleotides. RNase protection assays demonstrate that the additional nucleotides present in the post-meiotic mRNA are solely in the 5′-untranslated region. Using a probe derived from the 5′-untranslated region of the 0.93-kb SOD-1 mRNA, we have established that it originates from an alternative upstream promoter contiguous with the somatic SOD-1 promoter. Polysomal gradient analysis of the three mouse testis SOD-1 mRNAs reveals that the 0.93-kb SOD-1 mRNA is primarily non-polysomal, while the 0.80- and 0.73-kb SOD-1 mRNAs are mostly polysome associated. A faster migrating form of the 0.93-kb SOD-1 mRNA is present on polysomes as a result of partial deadenylation. In a cell-free translation system, the 0.73-kb SOD-1 mRNA translates about 2-fold more efficiently than the 0.93-kb SOD-1 mRNA. These data demonstrate that male germ cells transcribe two size classes of SOD-1 mRNAs with different translation potential by utilizing two different promoters, post-meiotic SOD-1 mRNAs undergo adenylation changes, and one of the post-meiotic SOD-1 mRNAs is transcribed during mid-spermiogenesis and translated days later in a partially deadenylated form.
Application-based NGN QoE controller

In this article, a specification and testbed implementation results of an application-based QoE controller are presented, proposing a solution for objective and context-aware end-to-end QoE control in the NGN networks. The proposed solution bases on standardized NGN service enabler operation principles that allows for efficient in-service QoE estimation and optimization. QoE control is accomplished through context-based QoE modeling, the principal role of which is to provide a detailed description of the circumstances, under which the communication is established and by which the end-user's QoE is affected. Implementation results and findings confirm feasibility and efficient design of the QoE controller proposal as well as full compliance with the requirements for its deployment into real-world NGN environments.
A case study: power and performance improvement of a chip multiprocessor for transaction processing

Current high-end microprocessor designs focus on increasing instruction parallelism and clock frequency at the expense of power dissipation. This paper presents a case study of a different direction, a chip multiprocessor (CMP) with a smaller processor core than a baseline high-end 130-nm 64-bit SPARC server uniprocessor. We demonstrate that the size of the baseline processor core can be reduced by 2/3 using a combination of logical resource reduction and dense custom macros while still delivering about 70% of the TPC-C performance. Circuit speed is traded for power reduction by reducing the power supply from 1.0 to 0.8 V and increasing transistor channel lengths by 12.5% above the minimum. The resulting CMP with six reduced size cores and 4-MB L2 cache is estimated to run at 1.8 GHz while consuming less than 30% of the power compared to the scaled baseline dual-core processor running at 2.4 GHz. The proposed CMP is more than four times higher in TPC/W than the dual-core processor, facilitating the design of high-density servers.
Reliability modeling and prediction of Wireless Multi-Hop Networks with correlated shadowing

Shadowing losses on proximate wireless links have been experimentally proven to be highly correlated in various scenarios. However, most of the existing works on the reliability modeling of Wireless Multi-Hop Networks (WMHNs) assume independent link shadowing. Neglecting shadowing correlations could lead to inaccurate network simulation results and unreliable wireless system design. In this paper, we present a more realistic reliability model of WMHN that incorporates correlated link shadowing. In particular, we use the correlated shadowing model that was developed in our previous work. This model enables the efficient generation of spatially correlated shadowing. It has been proved to agree well with the literature in terms of statistical properties. The proposed network model allows us to predict the reliability metrics of WMHNs and study network designs that can lessen the effect of correlated shadowing. Numerical results indicate that it is important to use the correlated shadowing model when evaluating the reliability of densely deployed large-scale multi-hop networks. We also present some numerical results to show the influence of shadowing correlation on redundant node deployment. This paper makes a small but fundamental step towards reliable wireless multi-hop network design in the context of correlated link shadowing.
Vehicle Extraction and Speed Detection from Digital Aerial Images

A new object-based method is developed to extract the moving vehicles and subsequently detect their speeds from two consecutive digital aerial images automatically. Several parameters of gray values and sizes are examined to classify the objects in the image. The vehicles and their associated shadows can be discriminated by removing big objects such as roads. To detect the speed, firstly the vehicles and shadows are extracted from the two images. The corresponding vehicles from these images are linked based on the order, size, and their distance within a threshold. Finally, using the distance between the corresponding vehicles and the time lag between the two images, the moving speed can be detected. Our test shows a promising result of detecting the moving vehicles' speeds. Further development will employ the proposed method for a pair of QuickBird panchromatic and multi-spectral images, which are at a coarser spatial resolution.
Effect of Energy Prices on Economic Growth in the ECOWAS Sub-Region: Investigating the Channels Using Panel Data

ABSTRACT The article empirically examines the effect of energy prices on economic growth within the Economic Community of West African States sub-region by acknowledging that the effect of energy prices on growth is quintessentially indirect and hence can be tracked through some channels. Exploiting the System Generalized Methods of Moments estimation technique for the period spanning 2002–2015, the results indicate that the overall effect of energy prices on economic growth is significantly negative. This effect propagates mainly through government consumption expenditure and investment, albeit its effect through real interest rate is positive. However, its negative effects on government consumption, investment, and exchange rate significantly overwhelm the positive effect from real interest rate.
Microcoil‐based MR phase imaging and manganese enhanced microscopy of glial tumor neurospheres with direct optical correlation

Susceptibility differences among tissues were recently used for highlighting complementary contrast in MRI different from the conventional T1, T2, or spin density contrasts. This method, based on the signal phase, previously showed improved image contrast of human or rodent neuroarchitecture in vivo, although direct MR phase imaging of cellular architecture was not available until recently. In this study, we present for the first time the ability of microcoil‐based phase MRI to resolve the structure of human glioma neurospheres at significantly improved resolutions (10 × 10 μm2) with direct optical image correlation. The manganese chloride property to function as a T1 contrast agent enabled a closer examination of cell physiology with MRI. Specifically the temporal changes of manganese chloride uptake, retention and release time within and from individual clusters were assessed. The optimal manganese chloride concentration for improved MR signal enhancement was determined while keeping the cellular viability unaffected. The presented results demonstrate the possibilities to reveal structural and functional observation of living glioblastoma human‐derived cells. This was achieved through the combination of highly sensitive microcoils, high magnetic field, and methods designed to maximize contrast to noise ratio. The presented approach may provide a powerful multimodal tool that merges structural and functional information of submilimeter biological samples. Magn Reson Med, 2012. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Quantified ADC histogram analysis: a new method for differentiating mass-forming focal pancreatitis from pancreatic cancer

Background As their prognosis and management are different, differentiation of mass-forming focal pancreatitis (FP) from pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PC) is important. However, the similar clinical presentations and imaging features of these conditions, along with inconclusive biopsy results can make such differentiation difficult. Purpose To determine whether apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) histogram analysis can discriminate between a normal pancreas, FP, and PC. Material and Methods In a retrospective study, 25 PC patients, 14 FP patients, and 25 subjects with a normal pancreas underwent breath-hold diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) on a 3.0 T magnetic resonance (MR) scanner. Regions of interest (ROIs) were drawn on the normal pancreases and on the entire focal lesions of both PC and FP. The ADC value was averaged from the lowest to 10th, 30th, 50th, and 100th percentile of the histogram (i.e. ADC10, ADC30, ADC50, and ADC100, respectively), and the results were analyzed statistically. Results There were no significant differences among the head, body, and tail of normal pancreases for any of the mean ADC values (P > 0.05). ADC10, ADC30, and ADC50 values demonstrated significant differences between lesion and non-lesion areas of both PC (P < 0.05) and FP (P < 0.05). Differences in lesion areas between PC and FP were found with ADC50 and ADC100 values (P < 0.05), and helped differentiate a normal pancreas from FP and PC, and FP from PC. Conclusion Quantified ADC histogram can specifically reflect tissue heterogeneity and help differentiate a normal pancreas from FP and PC.
Predictors of renal survival in ANCA-associated vasculitis. Validation of a histopatological classification schema and review of the literature.

OBJECTIVES In 2010 a histopathological classification of ANCA-associated glomerulonephritis was proposed to predict the outcomes at diagnosis. Our aim was to validate the proposed classification in our cohort of patients and to compare the studies already published. METHODS The data of 93 patients who underwent kidney biopsy in a single Italian centre within 15 years were retrospectively collected. RESULTS The 10-year renal and patients' survival were 60% and 81%, respectively. Biopsies were classified as 21% focal, 30% crescentic, 39% mixed and 10% sclerotic. Survival without ESRD at 5 years was 82% in focal, 37% in crescentic, 81% in mixed and 51% in sclerotic group. The Kaplan-Meier analysis highlights that renal survival was not different between sclerotic and crescentic groups (p=0.9) but both had a significantly worse prognosis than focal (p=0.04 and 0.015 respectively) and mixed groups (p=0.05 and 0.03 respectively). Focal and mixed groups had the same renal survival (p=0.7). At multivariate analysis the independent predictors of end-stage renal disease were less than 20% of normal glomeruli at kidney biopsy (p=0.022), high serum creatinine (p=0.009) and arterial hypertension at presentation (p= 0.006). CONCLUSIONS In our cohort, the proposed histological classification was not predictive of renal prognosis. The focal and the mixed classes had the same prognosis and a significantly better renal outcome than both the crescentic and the sclerotic classes. At multivariate analysis among the histological features only less than 20% of normal glomeruli defines the renal prognosis together with renal function and arterial hypertension at baseline.