Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ion-induced charge-collection transients in p-channel AlGaSb/InGaSb field-effect transistors

The first ion-induced, time-resolved charge-collection measurements for p-channel AlGaSb/InGaSb field-effect transistors are reported. The transient response reveals two distinct decay regions; a fast initial decay (<; 1 ns) followed by a slower decay (> 10 ns). The slow decay is associated with charge enhancement processes, which are explained by electron trapping and de-trapping via deep-level traps located in the AlGaSb barrier material. Charge enhancement effects are reported for different drain and gate bias conditions, and it is found that charge-enhancement effects are suppressed when the gate bias is increased toward depletion. The effects of the bias on the transient response are presented and discussed.
A 300 GHz mHEMT amplifier module

In this paper, we present the development of an H-band (220 – 325 GHz) submillimeter-wave monolithic integrated circuit (S-MMIC) amplifier module for use in next generation active and passive high-resolution imaging systems operating around 300 GHz. Therefore, a variety of compact amplifier circuits has been realized by using an advanced 35 nm InAlAs/InGaAs based depletion-type metamorphic high electron mobility transistor (mHEMT) technology in combination with grounded coplanar waveguide (GCPW) circuit topology. A single-stage cascode design achieved a small-signal gain of 5.6 dB at 300 GHz and a linear gain of more than 5 dB between 258 and 308 GHz. Additionally, a four-stage amplifier S-MMIC based on conventional devices in common-source configuration was realized, demonstrating a maximum gain of 15.6 dB at 276 GHz and a linear gain of more than 12 dB over the frequency range from 264 to 300 GHz. Finally, mounting and packaging of the monolithic amplifier chips into H-band waveguide modules was accomplished with only minor reduction in circuit performance.
Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks based on Generalized Data Stack Programming Model

Generalized Data Stack Programming (GDSP) model describes that any affected activity or varying environment is intelligently self-recorded inside the system in form of stack-based layering types where stack is re-defined to be one of six classes. The multi-stacking network is presented thinking of that any system connects to other system to work properly. This addresses a novel way to investigate and analyze any system. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) monitor the environment and take action accordingly. However, WSN suffers from some weakness due to nodes failure or interference which affects the network topology and the routing table at each node. In this paper, the GDSP model is applied on the routing problems in WSNs. A history matrix at the user side is proposed to retrieve and backward the events affected the network.
Hidden android permissions: Remote code execution and shell access using a live wallpaper

Given Android's popularity, it is likely that Android devices will be targeted with increasing frequency by malware designers, in particular by programs which are designed to steal some of the sensitive personal or financial information. This threat puts an obligation on security professionals and software developers to work to ensure that the Android platform is as secure as possible. Users of mobile devices should also be aware that the trust they grant to mobile applications they download from app stores can be exploited. In this demo paper, we present a live wallpaper app to demonstrate how trust can be exploited to gain shell access even on unrooted Android devices.
Role of Staphylococcus aureus Global Regulators sae and σB in Virulence Gene Expression during Device-Related Infection

ABSTRACT The ability of Staphylococcus aureus to adapt to different environments is due to a regulatory network comprising several loci. Here we present a detailed study of the interaction between the two global regulators sae and σB of S. aureus and their influence on virulence gene expression in vitro, as well as during device-related infection. The expression of sae, asp23, hla, clfA, coa, and fnbA was determined in strain Newman and its isogenic saeS/R and sigB mutants by Northern analysis and LightCycler reverse transcription-PCR. There was no indication of direct cross talk between the two regulators. sae had a dominant effect on target gene expression during device-related infection. σB seemed to be less active throughout the infection than under induced conditions in vitro.
Sequential Compressive Target Detection in Wireless Sensor Networks

Compressed sensing is an emerging theory which provides a new framework for sampling and compressing a sparse signal simultaneously at a reduced sampling rate. Besides this, compressed sensing also provides a new approach for the task of detection. Detection from compressive measurements without reconstructing the signals remains as a challenging problem. In this paper, we investigate the performance of compressive detection and propose a sequential compressive detection scheme to reduce the number of measurements for target detection in wireless sensor networks. We derive the sequential compressive decision rules and analyze its detection performance in terms of the number of measurements. Simulations show that sequential compressive detection can save about 50 percents of the average number of measurements under a given detection performance requirement compared with that of compressive detection.
A Hippocampal Signature of Perceptual Learning in Object Recognition

Perceptual learning is the improvement in perceptual performance through training or exposure. Here, we used fMRI before and after extensive behavioral training to investigate the effects of perceptual learning on the recognition of objects under challenging viewing conditions. Objects belonged either to trained or untrained categories. Trained categories were further subdivided into trained and untrained exemplars and were coupled with high or low monetary rewards during training. After a 3-day training, object recognition was markedly improved. Although there was a considerable transfer of learning to untrained exemplars within categories, an enhancing effect of reward reinforcement was specific to trained exemplars. fMRI showed that hippocampus responses to both trained and untrained exemplars of trained categories were enhanced by perceptual learning and correlated with the effect of reward reinforcement. Our results suggest a key role of hippocampus in object recognition after perceptual learning.
Synthesis, Modeling, and Experimental Characterization of Graphite Nanoplatelet-Based Composites for EMC Applications

Graphite nanoplatelets (GNPs) are bidimensional carbon nanostructures consisting of stacks of graphene sheets, having thickness in the range from one up to a few tens of nanometers, and lateral linear dimension in the micrometer range. These nanostructures represent a good candidate to replace carbon nanotubes in composites for electromagnetic applications. This paper proposes a new model based on the Maxwell-Garnett approach to compute the effective complex permittivity of GNP-filled nanocomposites. The effect of the dimensional probabilistic distribution of the nanofiller is investigated. To this purpose, an extensive experimental characterization of the morphological and physical properties of the GNPs after synthesis is performed. The proposed model is validated by comparison with the measured effective permittivity of GNP-composites with different concentrations, and it is used for the design of radar-absorbing materials in the frequency range 1-18 GHz.
Older Age Does Not Affect Healing Time and Functional Outcomes After Fracture Nonunion Surgery

Introduction: Elderly patients are at risk of fracture nonunion, given the potential setting of osteopenia, poorer fracture biology, and comorbid medical conditions. Risk factors predicting fracture nonunion may compromise the success of fracture nonunion surgery. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of patient age on clinical and functional outcome following long bone fracture nonunion surgery. Materials and Methods: A retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data identified 288 patients (aged 18-91) who were indicated for long bone nonunion surgery. Two-hundred and seventy-two patients satisfied study inclusion criteria and analyses were performed comparing elderly patients aged ≥65 years (n = 48) with patients <65 years (n = 224) for postoperative wound complications, Short Musculoskeletal Functional Assessment (SMFA) functional status, healing, and surgical revision. Regression analyses were performed to look for associations between age, smoking status, and history of previous nonunion surgery with healing and functional outcome. Twelve-month follow-up was obtained on 91.5% (249 of 272) of patients. Results: Despite demographic differences in the aged population, including a predominance of medical comorbidities (P < .01) and osteopenia (P = .02), there was no statistical differences in the healing rate of elderly patients (95.8% vs 95.1%, P = .6) or time to union (6.2 ± 4.1 months vs. 7.2 ± 6.6, P = .3). Rates of postoperative wound complications and surgical revision did not statistically differ. Elderly patients reported similar levels of function up to 12 months after surgery. Regression analyses failed to show any significant association between age and final union or time to union. There was a strong positive association between smoking and history of previous nonunion surgery with time to union. Age was associated (positively) with 12-month SMFA activity score. Conclusions: Smoking and failure of previous surgical intervention were associated with nonunion surgery outcomes. Patient’s age at the time of surgery was not associated with achieving union. Advanced age was generally not associated with poorer nonunion surgery outcomes.
Association between sex steroids, ovarian reserve, and vitamin D levels in healthy nonobese women.

CONTEXT Vitamin D maintains calcium and phosphorous homeostasis and promotes bone mineralization; however, its nonskeletal functions are increasingly being recognized. Recent evidence supports a role for vitamin D in reproductive potential, but few studies have investigated the potential effects of vitamin D on reproductive hormone biosynthesis and ovarian reserve. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to determine the relationships between the serum level of vitamin D, reproductive hormone levels, and ovarian reserve in healthy nonobese women. DESIGN This was a cross-sectional study. SETTING The study was performed at the Fertility Center at CHA Medical Center. PARTICIPANTS Seventy-three healthy women volunteers participated in this study. The participants were nonobese parous women with regular menstrual cycles and no history of infertility. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES We determined serum levels of vitamin D, steroid hormones, SHBG, ovarian reserve markers, homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance index, and lipid profiles. RESULTS In linear regression analysis adjusting for age, body mass index, homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance, and lipid profile, serum vitamin D level positively correlated with total T (P < .001) and free androgen index (P < .001) but did not correlate with dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate or other steroid hormones. The spline regression-suggested relationship between 25-hydroxyvitamin D and total T was most pronounced at a 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration greater than 13 ng/mL (β-coefficient 2.374, 95% confidence interval 1.435-3.313). The serum vitamin D level was not associated with the levels of ovarian reserve markers. CONCLUSION Our study revealed a positive correlation between serum vitamin D level and T level in healthy nonobese women, suggesting that vitamin D may increase fertility through the modulation of androgen activity. The possible causality of the relationship between vitamin D and T deserves further investigation.
Implementation of Bipolar Adjective Pairs in Analysis of Urban Acoustic Environments

Four different acoustic environments with different loudness levels and spectral distributions were recorded and reproduced to two groups of listeners - control group and experimental group. The questionnaire used in this research relies on the semantic differential method implemented by defining adjective pairs of opposite meaning where each pair describes a sound characteristic for a particular acoustic environment. In analyzing the results, psychological research methodology was used in order to determine statistically significant bipolar adjectives that can appropriately evaluate some given acoustic environment and thus serve as a starting point for a questionnaire and methodology standardization in soundscape research.
Malignant ascites fluid (MAF), including ovarian-cancer-associated MAF, contains angiostatin and other factor(s) which inhibit angiogenesis.

OBJECTIVE The aim was to determine whether human malignant ascites fluid (MAF) associated with abdominal cancer, including ovarian cancer, contained factors which inhibit angiogenesis as well as others which stimulate this process. METHODS MAF was collected from six patients, four with ovarian cancer, one with gastric cancer, and one with liver metastases. Using the chick chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) the effect of MAF on 7-day-old CAM capillaries was examined for 48 h. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) was evaluated by ELISA. Five samples of MAF were fractionated by lysine-Sepharose chromatography and the lysine-bound and -unbound fractions were eluted by epsilon-amino-n-hexanoic acid. Whole MAF, the lysine-bound and -unbound fractions, and human angiostatin were subjected to SDS-PAGE/Western blot analysis and immunostained after exposure to anti-human plasminogen. Human plasminogen was exposed to conditioned medium from ovarian epithelial cancer (HEY) cells and subjected to similar Western blot analysis. RESULTS Despite containing VEGF, each MAF sample examined caused a loss of capillaries from the CAM; a similar response was seen using purified human angiostatin. Whole MAF and the lysine-bound fraction contained plasminogen (90 kDa) and a 55-kDa protein which migrated in a similar manner to human angiostatin on Western blot. Both the lysine-bound and -unbound fractions caused a loss of capillaries in the CAM. Human plasminogen exposed to conditioned medium from HEY cells yielded a fragment which was similar in size to angiostatin. CONCLUSIONS MAF from patients with various clinical presentations contains angiostatin and VEGF as well as other factors which are capable of inhibiting angiogenesis.
DOG4DAG: semi-automated ontology generation in OBO-Edit and Protégé

In the biomedical domain, Protégé and OBO-Edit are the main ontology editors supporting the manual construction of ontologies. Since manual creation is a laborious and hence costly process, there have been efforts to automate parts of this process. Here, we give a demo of the capabilities of DOG4DAG, the Dresden Ontology Generator for Directed Acyclic Graphs, which is available as plugin to both OBO-Edit and Protégé. In the demo, we describe how to generate terms and in particular siblings, definitions, and is-a relationships using an example in the domain of nervous system diseases. We summarise the strengths and limits of the different the steps of the generation process.
Control of Apolipoprotein AI Gene Expression through Synergistic Interactions between Hepatocyte Nuclear Factors 3 and 4*

Apolipoprotein AI (apoAI) gene expression in liver depends on synergistic interactions between transcription factors bound to three distinct sites (A, B, and C) within a hepatocyte-specific enhancer in the 5′-flanking region of the gene. In this study, we showed that a segment spanning sites A and B retains substantial levels of enhancer activity in hepatoblastoma HepG2 cells and that sites A and B are occupied by the liver-enriched hepatocyte nuclear factors (HNFs) 4 and 3, respectively, in these cells. In non-hepatic CV-1 cells, HNF-4 and HNF-3β activated this minimal enhancer synergistically. This synergy was dependent upon simultaneous binding of these factors to their cognate sites, but it was not due to cooperativity in DNA binding. Separation of these sites by varying helical turns of DNA did not affect simultaneous binding of HNF-3β and HNF-4 nor did it influence their functional synergy. The synergy was, however, dependent upon the cell type used for functional analysis. In addition, this synergy was further potentiated by estrogen treatment of cells cotransfected with the estrogen receptor. These data indicate that a cell type-restricted intermediary factor jointly recruited by HNF-4 and HNF-3 participates in activation of the apoAI enhancer in liver cells and suggest that the activity of this factor is regulated by estrogen.
The relationship between obstetrical outcomes and alcohol use in the year prior to pregnancy

Objectives. The purpose of this study was to examine problems related to alcohol use as reported covering the year prior to pregnancy in a general prenatal care seeking sample. The relationship of alcohol use to a number of pregnancy and birth complications (premature rupture of membrane, birthweight, weeks gestation and APGAR) was examined. Methods. A total of 940 prenatal care-seeking women completed the TWEAK, a brief measure of alcohol use problems during the previous year. Measures were completed by women at an average of 25 weeks gestation (SD = 9.7) in the waiting areas of university-affiliated obstetrics clinics in the US. Pregnancy and birth complications were gathered via medical record search and completed on all cases. Results. Controlling for cigarette use and key demographic variables, only pre-pregnancy elevated TWEAK (≥2) was significantly and consistently related to each obstetrical outcome in multivariate analyses in the total sample. Analyses showed that pre-pregnancy TWEAK was related to PROM and lower birthweight among the sample of women (n = 800) who reported no actual alcohol use during pregnancy. Conclusions. Results suggest that a brief screening for alcohol use problems may detect women either in early pregnancy or pre-conceptually, that may be at risk for potentially harmful pregnancy and birth outcomes, including women who deny prenatal alcohol use.
Excimer laser fabrication of polymer microfluidic devices

Silicon has been a primary material for fabrication of microelectromechanical systems (microfluidic devices in MEMS) for several decades. This is due to the fact that the MEMS techniques were derived from those used for microfabrication in the semiconductor industry. These techniques are well developed, and can be readily applied for silicon based MEMS fabrication. Nowadays, alternative manufacturing materials and techniques are needed for reducing costs and meeting new requirements. Polymers have many advantages because of their low costs and applications in microfluidics. This article describes processes for fabricating polymer-based MEMS, including machining and bonding techniques. Microfluidic parts are machined on polymers with a KrF excimer laser (λ=248 nm). Mask patterning and direct laser writing techniques are used. A silicon-on-glass process and an infrared laser bonding process are applied to assemble the machined parts with transparent cover glasses or plastics. As an example, a polymer microp.
Hybrid AES-DES Block Cipher: Implementation using Xilinx ISE 9.1i

- In this era of information, need for protection of data is more pronounced than ever. Secure communication is necessary to protect sensitive information in military and government institutions as well as private individuals. Current encryption standards are used to encrypt and protect data not only during transmission but storage as well. Data Encryption Standard was introduced in early 1970s as a standard cryptographic algorithm to protect data. However, due to its short 56-bit key length, simple brute force attacks cracked it in less than 10 hrs. Another disadvantage was also the possibility of weak and semi weak keys. In the year 2000, Rijndael Encryption algorithm or AES was chosen by National Institite of Standards and Technology(NIST) to be adopted by the U.S. Government as the new Encryption standard to replace the outdated and easily crackable DES. The major advantage lay in the non-linearity of the key-schedule which eliminated the possibility of weak and semi weak keys. This encryption algorithm is virtually crack-proof till date but research has concluded that side channel attacks can be a concern if the encryption and crack are running on the same server. In this paper we introduce the concept of hybridizing the AES and DES standards. The name “Hybrid” implies that this encryption algorithm has built in features which have been inherited from either of the constituent standards. The AES standard has been incorporated into each fiestal round of DES thereby reinforcing the DES architecture as well as giving rise to much more secure encryption algorithm. The 256-bit block cipher uses 128-bit cipher key adopted from the AES key schedule and incorporates 10 rounds. This design has been implemented in VHDL using Xilinx ISE 9.1i platform and targeted on a XILINX XC3S400 based FPGA technology.
Análise citológica do líquido cefalorraquidiano

O liquido cefalorraquidiano e um humor com composicao semelhante a um ultrafiltrado de plasma,encontrado nos plexos ventriculares, no canal central da medula e no espaco subaracnoide. Sua homeostasia pode ser danificada na presenca de tumores, isquemias, hidrocefalias e infeccoes, o que pode provocar mudancas na producao e/ou na composicao desse fluido. A analise laboratorial do liquor permite aobtencao de informacoes importantes, para definicao de diagnostico e de conduta terapeutica, e consiste em uma avaliacao microbiologica, bioquimica e citologica, a qual engloba desde aspectos fisicos da amostra ate contagens globais e diferenciais das celulas presentes. E necessario que todos os profissionais envolvidos tenham conhecimento das tecnicas e as executem de forma correta, tanto na coleta como no transporte, no armazenamento e no preparo da amostra e nas analises propriamente ditas, para que possam ser obtidos resultados corretos e confiaveis.
El Niño's impact on California precipitation: seasonality, regionality, and El Niño intensity

California has experienced severe drought in recent years posing great challenges to agricultural production, water resources, and land management. El Niño, as the prime source of seasonal to interannual climate predictability, offers the potential of amelioration of drought in California. Here El Niño’s impacts on California winter precipitation are examined, focusing on variations by season, region, and the strength of El Niño using observational data for the period 1901–2010. The El Niño influence on California precipitation strengthens from early to late winter and is stronger in the south than the north. Eight of ten moderate-to-strong El Niños in the late winter put southern California in the wettest tercile and none of these ten events put northern California in the driest tercile. The early to late winter strengthening of the El Niño impact on precipitation occurs even as El Niño weakens and is associated with a strengthening and eastward extending tropical deep convection anomaly allowed by the late winter warming of the climatological mean sea surface temperature over the tropical eastern Pacific.