Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Layer 2 and 3 Contention Resolution and Radio-Over-Fiber in OCDMA PON for Transparent Optical Access in Personal Networks

In this paper, we analyze, for the first time, the eminent role of optical transparent networking in personal networks. We show how an optical access network mitigates many issues with respect to connectivity and mobility management. A concrete personal network user-scenario deduces requirements for such an architecture. A combination of passive optical network, optical code-division multiple access (OCDMA), and radio-over-fiber exhibits minimal cost and complexity because of centralized network control and management, resource sharing, and simplified network nodes. We enable transparent peer-to-peer communication between optical networking units in the OCDMA passive optical network subnet of the central office. We use, for the first time, simultaneously optical code-sense medium access control and optical code packet switching for contention resolution.
Improvement in Left Ventricular Systolic and Diastolic Performance During Ranolazine Treatment in Patients With Stable Angina

Purpose: Ranolazine is a novel antianginal medication that acts by ameliorating disturbed sodium and calcium homeostasis. By preventing myocyte sodium and calcium overload, ranolazine also have potential beneficial effects on myocardial function. Experimental models support this concept, as do 2 small studies in human participants receiving ranolazine intravenously. We evaluated changes in parameters of left ventricular function in stable angina patients treated with oral ranolazine. Methods: Twenty-two participants were enrolled with Doppler echocardiography performed at baseline and a mean of 2 months after initiation of treatment. Results: Global left ventricular function, as assessed by the myocardial performance index, was significantly improved on drug therapy (P < .0001). This was due to improvement in both diastolic and systolic parameters. Of 21 patients, 17 reported less angina and 8 patients reported an increase in activity level. Conclusions: We report improved parameters of left ventricular function in response to ranolazine as used in the clinical setting.
Circadian System Functionality, Hippocampal Oxidative Stress, and Spatial Memory in the APPswe/PS1dE9 Transgenic Model of Alzheimer Disease: Effects of Melatonin or Ramelteon

Alzheimer disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that primarily causes β-amyloid accumulation in the brain, resulting in cognitive and behavioral deficits. AD patients, however, also suffer from severe circadian rhythm disruptions, and the underlying causes are still not fully known. Patients with AD show reduced systemic melatonin levels. This may contribute to their symptoms, since melatonin is an effective chronobiotic and antioxidant with neuroprotective properties. Here, the authors critically assessed the effects of long-term melatonin treatment on circadian system function, hippocampal oxidative stress, and spatial memory performance in the APPswe/PS1 double transgenic (Tg) mouse model of AD. To test if melatonin MT1/MT2 receptor activation, alone, was involved, the authors chronically treated some mice with the selective MT1/MT2 receptor agonist ramelteon. The results indicate that many of the circadian and behavioral parameters measured, including oxidative stress markers, were not significantly affected in these AD mice. During the day, though, Tg controls (Tg-CON) showed significantly higher mean activity and body temperature (BT) than wild-type (WT) mice. Overall, BT rhythm amplitude was significantly lower in Tg than in WT mice. Although melatonin treatment had no effect, ramelteon significantly reduced the amplitude of the BT rhythm in Tg mice. Towards the end of the experiment, Tg mice treated with ramelteon (Tg-RAM) showed significantly higher circadian rhythm fragmentation than Tg-CON and reduced circadian BT rhythm strength. The free-running period (τ) for the BT and locomotor activity (LA) rhythms of Tg-CON was <24 h. Whereas melatonin maintained τ at 24 h for BT and LA in both genotypes, ramelteon treatment had no effect. In the behavioral tests, the number of approaches and time spent exploring novel objects were significantly higher in Tg-CON than WT controls. Brain tissue analysis revealed significant reduction in hippocampal protein oxidation in Tg-MEL and Tg-RAM compared with Tg-CON animals. These results suggest that not all aspects of the circadian system are affected in the APPswe/PS1 mice. Therefore, care should be taken when extending the results obtained in Tg mice to develop new therapies in humans. This study also revealed the complexity in the therapeutic actions of melatonin and ramelteon in this mouse model of AD. (Author correspondence: jamadrid@um.es)
The Effect of Popularity Rule on Capacity and Delay in Multi-Sink WSNs

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have a wide spectrum of applications, such as disaster relief operations, intelligent building, medicine and health care, etc. WSNs are growing in size and sensory traffic and thus, it is necessary to use multiple sinks to gather such traffic with minimal loss. In a network, there are some locations that nodes visit more often (popular) during their movements. We place sinks' nodes (base stations) on the most popular locations. In this paper, we study the asymptotic throughput-delay performance of a WSN with multiple static sinks utilizing location based popularity rule. Our network is divided into C non-overlapping cells to manage the signal interference between network cells. Also, the partitioning was applied in a way that every cell in the network has an average probability of visit. Moreover, sinks were placed in the most popular cells. According to a modified version of the Grossglauser-Tse 2-hop relay algorithm [1] for information delivery, we derive analytical bounds on throughput capacity and average network delay. We show that by utilizing location popularity rule, network delay has improved significantly, and throughput capacity has increased by a factor of 1.3 compared to randomly distributed sinks over network cells.
Systematic structural studies of iron superoxide dismutases from human parasites and a statistical coupling analysis of metal binding specificity

Superoxide dismutases (SODs) are a crucial class of enzymes in the combat against intracellular free radical damage. They eliminate superoxide radicals by converting them into hydrogen peroxide and oxygen. In spite of their very different life cycles and infection strategies, the human parasites Plasmodium falciparum, Trypanosoma cruzi and Trypanosoma brucei are known to be sensitive to oxidative stress. Thus the parasite Fe‐SODs have become attractive targets for novel drug development. Here we report the crystal structures of FeSODs from the trypanosomes T. brucei at 2.0 Å and T. cruzi at 1.9 Å resolution, and that from P. falciparum at a higher resolution (2.0 Å) to that previously reported. The homodimeric enzymes are compared to the related human MnSOD with particular attention to structural aspects which are relevant for drug design. Although the structures possess a very similar overall fold, differences between the enzymes at the entrance to the channel which leads to the active site could be identified. These lead to a slightly broader and more positively charged cavity in the parasite enzymes. Furthermore, a statistical coupling analysis (SCA) for the whole Fe/MnSOD family reveals different patterns of residue coupling for Mn and Fe SODs, as well as for the dimeric and tetrameric states. In both cases, the statistically coupled residues lie adjacent to the conserved core surrounding the metal center and may be expected to be responsible for its fine tuning, leading to metal ion specificity. Proteins 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Counterimmunoelectrophoresis of pneumococcal antigens:improved sensitivity for the detection of types VII and XIV

Rapid identification of Streptococcus pneumoniae has been reported using counterimmunoelectrophoresis for the detection of specific capsular antigens in serum, cerebrospinal fluid, and urine. Previous clinical studies have failed to detect type VII or XIV pneumococcal antigen. These two types, however, account for a significant portion of pneumococcal disease. The incorporation of a sulfonated derivative of phenylboronic acid in the buffer system provides a method for the sensitive detection of these types in artificial mixtures without greatly reducing the sensitivity for the detection of other pneumococcal types. A problem with false positives encountered using human serum and barbitalbuffer was reduced by the use of buffer containing sulfonated phenylboronic acid.
Sources of bias in studies of optic disc and retinal nerve fibre layer morphology

Interest in the morphology of the optic disc and nerve fibre layer in glaucoma has increased with the advent of new instruments able to make quantitative measurements of the optic disc and nerve fibre layer structure. Particular attention is given to the potential that these instruments may have to diagnose the condition(s) that we call glaucoma—that is, to classify individuals as “normal” or “glaucomatous”. The usual way in which we evaluate a test is to apply it to a “normal”, reference, population and to a population believed to have the disease on the basis of other “gold standard” tests, …
Structure of limonene synthase, a simple model for terpenoid cyclase catalysis

The crystal structure of (4S)-limonene synthase from Mentha spic ata, a metal ion-dependent monoterpene cyclase that catalyzes the coupled isomerization and cyclization of geranyl diphosphate, is reported at 2.7-Å; resolution in two forms liganded to the substrate and intermediate analogs, 2-fluorogeranyl diphosphate and 2-fluorolinalyl diphosphate, respectively. The implications of these findings are described for domain interactions in the homodimer and for changes in diphosphate–metal ion coordination and substrate binding conformation in the course of the multistep reaction.
Estimation of Calories Consumption for Aerobics Using Kinect Based Skeleton Tracking

Aerobics is one of the best exercises for a full-body or functional workout. However, the flexibility of aerobics also makes it difficult to estimate calories consumption. The single accelerometer method developed in [20] failed to provide an accurate model due to the complicated movement of aerobics. This manuscript proposed a method to accurately estimate the calories consumption. The proposed method took advantage of Microsoft Kinect to track 10 body joints of exercisers. Since each node could be considered as a 3-axis accelerometer mounting the corresponding joint, so the multiple regression model was exploited to form an estimation model. The accuracy and robustness of the estimation model was evaluated in the experimental studies. The results indicated that the calories consumption of aerobics could be estimated accurately with 14 times of training.
User-Driven Access Control : A New Model for Granting Permissions in Modern Operating Systems

Modern client platforms, such as iOS, Android, and web browsers, run each application in an isolated environment with limited privileges. A pressing open problem in such systems is how to allow users to grant applications access to user-owned resources, e.g., to privacyand cost-sensitive devices like the camera or to the user’s data that resides with various applications. A key challenge is to enable such access in a way that is non-disruptive to users while still maintaining least-privilege restrictions on applications. In this paper, we propose user-driven access control, whereby permission-granting is built into existing user actions, rather than added as an afterthought via manifests or prompts. To this end, we introduce two OSlevel techniques, access control gadgets and kernel-recognized gestures, for controlling access to user-owned resources. Our prototyping and evaluation experience indicates that user-driven access control is a promising solution for the problem of granting permissions for user-owned resources on modern client platforms.
Enemies in low places – insects avoid winter mortality and egg parasitism by modulating oviposition height

Abstract Oviposition site selection in insects is essential in terms of low egg mortality, high offspring survival and therefore a high reproductive output. Although oviposition height could be a crucial factor for the fitness of overwintering eggs, it has rarely been investigated. In this study the oviposition height of a polyphagous leaf beetle, Galeruca tanaceti Linnaeus in different habitats and at different times of the season was examined and its effect on egg clutch mortality was recorded. The leaf beetle occurs as an occasional pest on several agricultural plants. It deposits its eggs within herbaceous vegetation in autumn. Eggs are exposed to numerous biotic and abiotic mortality factors summarized as egg parasitism and winter mortality. Oviposition height of the leaf beetle was not uniform, but changed significantly with the structure of the habitat and during the season. Mean oviposition height per site (70.2±4.9 cm) was significantly higher than mean vegetation height (28.4±2.4 cm). Height of plants with egg clutches attached and oviposition height were significantly positively correlated. The results suggest that females try to oviposit as high as possible in the vegetation and on the plants selected. In accordance with this, the probability of egg parasitism and of winter egg clutch mortality significantly declined with increasing oviposition height. A preference of G. tanaceti for oviposition sites high up in the vegetation might therefore have evolved due to selection pressures by parasitoids and winter mortality.
The platelet: life on the razor's edge between hemorrhage and thrombosis

I am truly honored and deeply humbled to receive the 2013 Karl Landsteiner Award. The past recipients of this award are not only stellar members of the transfusion medicine firmament, but also my heroes, and in some cases, my mentors, role models, and friends. I was most fortunate to have my introduction to transfusion medicine during my training in the Clinical Pathology Department at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Harvey Alter, Dr. Paul Schmidt, Dr. Paul Holland, Dr. Harvey Klein, and Mary McGinnis were wonderful teachers. Thereafter, I was also fortunate to have Dr. Dennis Galanakis as a colleague at Stony Brook and Dr. Richard Rosenfeld, Dr. Mort Spivack, and Dr. Carolyn Whitsett as colleagues at Mount Sinai. I feel a close bond to Karl Landsteiner since he joined the Rockefeller Institute in 1923 at the invitation of Dr. Simon Flexner, who knew of his landmark contribution to blood group immunohematology and his discovery of the polio virus, and who also knew that Landsteiner did not have suitable support for his research in Post-World War I Europe. Landsteiner went on to make many additional discoveries at Rockefeller including his work on the Rh antigen. He became an Emeritus Professor in 1929 but stayed active in his lab until 1943 when he suffered a heart attack while still at the bench, pipette in hand, and died 2 days later. The progress we have made since then in preventing and treating heart attacks will be one of the themes of this presentation.
Relationship between baseline cerebral blood flow and vascular responses to changes in PaCO2 measured by positron emission tomography in humans: implication of inter‐individual variations of cerebral vascular tone

Aim: Inter‐individual variations in normal human cerebral blood flow (CBF) at rest condition have been reported. Inter‐individual variation of cerebral vascular tone is considered to contribute to this, and several determinants of cerebral vascular tone have been proposed. In the present study, the relationship between CBF and cerebral vascular tone to inter‐individual variation at rest condition was investigated using positron emission tomography (PET).
Induction of immunoglobulin and antibody synthesis in vitro by lipopolysaccharides

Lipopolysaccharides (LPS) from E. coli bacteria were found to be mitogenic for bone marrowderived (B) lymphocytes, but had no effect on thymusderived (T) lymphocytes. When added to normal spleen cells in culture, LPS selectively stimulated the secretion of 19 S proteins, whereas there was no demonstrable increase of 7 S protein synthesis. Spleen cell cultures treated with various doses of LPS exhibited atypical dose response curve with regard to induction of DNA synthesis, 10 μg/ml being optimal, higher and lower concentrations giving lower responses. When direct antibody producing cells to horse and sheep red cells were studied in normal spleen cell cultures exposed to different concentrations of LPS in vitro, it was found that their number increased in parallel with stimulation of DNA synthesis. In contrast, the number of antibody producing cells to LPS itself did not parallel activation of DNA synthesis. Spleen cells from LPS tolerant animals responded with increased numbers of antibody producing cells to heterologous red cells after treatment with LPS in vitro to the same extent as normal spleen cells.
Carpal compression test and pressure provocative test in veterans with median‐distribution paresthesias

We investigated the value of the carpal compression test (CCT) and the pressure provocative test (PPT) in predicting carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) in a predominantly male population of veterans. We performed a prospective, blinded comparison of these clinical diagnostic tests with neurophysiological testing. One cohort of 135 consecutive patients was assessed with the CCT; a separate cohort of 134 consecutive patients was assessed with the PPT. Of these 269 patients, 58.4% had electrodiagnostically confirmed CTS. The sensitivity of the CCT was 52.5%, specificity was 61.8%, positive predictive value was 66.6%, and the negative predictive value was 47.2%. The sensitivity of the PPT was 54.5%, specificity was 68.4%, positive predictive value was 70%, and the negative predictive value was 52.7%. The CCT and PPT had minimal utility in predicting electrodiagnostically confirmed CTS. In a subset of the CCT cohort, 86 consecutive veterans were also evaluated in relation to a clinical gold standard. Of these patients, 60% had CTS based on this gold standard. CCT sensitivity was 53.8%, specificity was 61.8%, positive predictive value was 68.3%, and negative predictive value was 46.7%. The CCT thus had marginal utility in predicting CTS based on a clinical gold standard. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Muscle Nerve 24: 107–111, 2001
Understanding the Representativeness of Mobile Phone Location Data in Characterizing Human Mobility Indicators

The advent of big data has aided understanding of the driving forces of human mobility, which is beneficial for many fields, such as mobility prediction, urban planning, and traffic management. However, the data sources used in many studies, such as mobile phone location and geo-tagged social media data, are sparsely sampled in the temporal scale. An individual’s records can be distributed over a few hours a day, or a week, or over just a few hours a month. Thus, the representativeness of sparse mobile phone location data in characterizing human mobility requires analysis before using data to derive human mobility patterns. This paper investigates this important issue through an approach that uses subscriber mobile phone location data collected by a major carrier in Shenzhen, China. A dataset of over 5 million mobile phone subscribers that covers 24 h a day is used as a benchmark to test the representativeness of mobile phone location data on human mobility indicators, such as total travel distance, movement entropy, and radius of gyration. This study divides this dataset by hour, using 2- to 23-h segments to evaluate the representativeness due to the availability of mobile phone location data. The results show that different numbers of hourly segments affect estimations of human mobility indicators and can cause overestimations or underestimations from the individual perspective. On average, the total travel distance and movement entropy tend to be underestimated. The underestimation coefficient results for estimation of total travel distance are approximately linear, declining as the number of time segments increases, and the underestimation coefficient results for estimating movement entropy decline logarithmically as the time segments increase, whereas the radius of gyration tends to be more ambiguous due to the loss of isolated locations. This paper suggests that researchers should carefully interpret results derived from this type of sparse data in the era of big data.
A Simpler Proof of Rapid Convergence Rate in Adaptive Arrays

Reed, Mallett, and Brenann (RMB) derived the distribution of the normalized output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of an adaptive array, and obtained the RMB rule: the SNR loss is 3 dB when the amount of homogeneous training data used to estimate the noise covariance matrix is approximately twice the dimension of the received signal. Here, we give a new and simpler derivation for this result, based on Bartlett's decomposition of a complex Wishart distribution.
Estimation de la température de l'eau de rivière en utilisant les réseaux de neurones et la régression linéaire multiple

La temperature de l'eau en riviere est un parametre ayant une importance majeure pour la vie aquatique. Les series temporelles decrivant ce parametre thermique existent, mais elles sont moins nombreuses et souvent courtes, ou comptent parfois des valeurs manquantes. Cette etude presente la modelisation de la temperature de l'eau en utilisant des reseaux de neurones et la regression lineaire multiple pour relier la temperature de l'eau a celle de l'air et le debit du ruisseau Catamaran, situe au Nouveau-Brunswick, Canada. Une recherche multidisciplinaire a long terme se deroule presentement sur ce site. Les donnees utilisees sont de 1991 a 2000 et comprennent la temperature de l'air de la journee en cours, de la veille et de l'avant-veille, le debit ainsi que le temps transforme en serie trigonometrique. Les donnees de 1991 a 1995 ont ete utilisees pour l'entrainement ou la calibration du modele tandis que les donnees de 1996 a 2000 ont ete utilisees pour la validation du modele. Les coefficients de determination obtenus pour l'entrainement sont de 94,2 % pour les reseaux de neurones et de 92,6 % pour la regression lineaire multiple, ce qui donne un ecart-type des erreurs de 1,01 C pour les reseaux de neurones et de 1,05 C pour la regression lineaire multiple. Pour la validation, les coefficients de determination sont de 92,2 % pour les reseaux de neurones et de 91,6 % pour la regression lineaire multiple, ce qui se traduit en un ecart-type des erreurs de 1,10 C pour les reseaux de neurones et de 1,25 C pour la regression lineaire multiple. Durant la periode d'etude (1991-2000), le biais a ete calcule a +0,11 C pour le modele de reseaux de neurones et a -0,26 °C pour le modele de regression. Ces resultats permettent de conclure qu'il est possible de prevoir la temperature de l'eau de petits cours d'eau en utilisant la temperature de l'air et le debit, aussi bien avec les reseaux de neurones qu'avec la regression lineaire multiple. Les reseaux de neurones semblent donner un ajustement aux donnees legerement meilleur que celui offert par la regression lineaire multiple, toutefois ces deux approches de modelisation demontrent une bonne performance pour la prediction de la temperature de l'eau en riviere.
Cell-Free Solubilization of Coal by Polyporus versicolor

Solubilization of coal was demonstrated with filtrates (0.45-μm-pore-size filters) obtained from the broth in which Polyporus versicolor had grown. The rate and extent of solubilization were dependent on the age of the fungal cultures, the particle size of the coal, the pH of the filtrates, and the presence of proteins in the filtrates. The rate of solubilization of coal was significantly reduced after proteins in the filtrates were denatured by acid hydrolysis.