Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Virtual Cell Beamforming in Cooperative Networks

We study the coordinated transmission problem in cooperative cellular networks where a cluster of base stations forms a virtual cell to serve a mobile station (MS). The performance of such an MS-centric virtual cell network is dictated by the beamformer that enables to suppress interference; however, designing a beamformer is highly challenging due to the coupled nature of interference and desired signals under arbitrarily formed virtual cells. We develop a new formulation of the beamforming problem for sum-rate maximization in virtual cell networks and analyze the structure of its optimal solutions. Based on this analysis, we develop a beamforming algorithm that can balance between desired signal maximization and interference minimization, so as to maximize the sum-rate. We show through extensive simulations that our balanced beamforming algorithm mitigates edge user effect and outperforms existing algorithms in various scenarios where virtual cells are allowed to overlap.
Optimal transmission frequency for ultralow-power short-range radio links

Analysis determining the optimal transmission frequency for maximum power transfer across a short-range wireless link is introduced, including a comparison of near-field transmission with far-field transmission. A new near-field power transfer formula has been derived, which allows direct comparison with the well-known far-field Friis transmission formula. Operating charts are presented, which provide the designer with the preferred transmission frequency as a function of distance and antenna dimensions, together with surface plots which show the power transfer for this frequency. The analysis, performed for loop antennas, has been used to evaluate the oscillator transmitter as a low-power topology. It is shown that the requirement of a high-Q factor to realize a low-power oscillator need not be contradictory to achieving optimal far-field radiation characteristics. Based on this fact an approach to sizing loop antennas for low-power oscillator transmitters is suggested.
Role of connexins in metastatic breast cancer and melanoma brain colonization

Summary Breast cancer and melanoma cells commonly metastasize to the brain using homing mechanisms that are poorly understood. Cancer patients with brain metastases display poor prognosis and survival due to the lack of effective therapeutics and treatment strategies. Recent work using intravital microscopy and preclinical animal models indicates that metastatic cells colonize the brain, specifically in close contact with the existing brain vasculature. However, it is not known how contact with the vascular niche promotes microtumor formation. Here, we investigate the role of connexins in mediating early events in brain colonization using transparent zebrafish and chicken embryo models of brain metastasis. We provide evidence that breast cancer and melanoma cells utilize connexin gap junction proteins (Cx43, Cx26) to initiate brain metastatic lesion formation in association with the vasculature. RNAi depletion of connexins or pharmacological blocking of connexin-mediated cell–cell communication with carbenoxolone inhibited brain colonization by blocking tumor cell extravasation and blood vessel co-option. Activation of the metastatic gene twist in breast cancer cells increased Cx43 protein expression and gap junction communication, leading to increased extravasation, blood vessel co-option and brain colonization. Conversely, inhibiting twist activity reduced Cx43-mediated gap junction coupling and brain colonization. Database analyses of patient histories revealed increased expression of Cx26 and Cx43 in primary melanoma and breast cancer tumors, respectively, which correlated with increased cancer recurrence and metastasis. Together, our data indicate that Cx43 and Cx26 mediate cancer cell metastasis to the brain and suggest that connexins might be exploited therapeutically to benefit cancer patients with metastatic disease.
Direct observation of twisting steps during Rad51 polymerization on DNA

The human recombinase hRad51 is a key protein for the maintenance of genome integrity and for cancer development. Polymerization and depolymerization of hRad51 on duplex DNA were studied here using a new generation of magnetic tweezers, measuring DNA twist in real time with a resolution of 5°. Our results combined with earlier structural information suggest that DNA is somewhat less extended by hRad51 than by RecA (4.5 vs. 5.1 Å per base pair) and untwisted by 18.2° per base pair. They also confirm a stoichiometry of 3–4 bp per protein in the hRad51-dsDNA nucleoprotein filament. At odds with earlier claims, we show that after initial deposition of a multimeric nucleus, nucleoprotein filament growth occurs by addition/release of single proteins, involving DNA twisting steps of 65° ± 5°. Simple numeric simulations show that this mechanism is an efficient way to minimize nucleoprotein filament defects. Nucleoprotein filament growth from a preformed nucleus was observed at hRad51 concentrations down to 10 nM, whereas nucleation was never observed below 100 nM in the same buffer. This behavior can be associated with the different stoichiometries of nucleation and growth. It may be instrumental in vivo to permit efficient continuation of strand exchange by hRad51 alone while requiring additional proteins such as Rad52 for its initiation, thus keeping the latter under the strict control of regulatory pathways.
Stage-Specific Inhibition of TrkB Activity Leads to Long-Lasting and Sexually Dimorphic Effects on Body Weight and Hypothalamic Gene Expression

During development, prenatal and postnatal factors program homeostatic set points to regulate food intake and body weight in the adult. Combinations of genetic and environmental factors contribute to the development of neural circuitry that regulates whole-body energy homeostasis. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (Bdnf) and its receptor, Tyrosine kinase receptor B (TrkB), are strong candidates for mediating the reshaping of hypothalamic neural circuitry, given their well-characterized role in the central regulation of feeding and body weight. Here, we employ a chemical-genetic approach using the TrkBF616A/F616A knock-in mouse model to define the critical developmental period in which TrkB inhibition contributes to increased adult fat mass. Surprisingly, transient TrkB inhibition in embryos, preweaning pups, and adults all resulted in long-lasting increases in body weight and fat content. Moreover, sex-specific differences in the effects of TrkB inhibition on both body weight and hypothalamic gene expression were observed at multiple developmental stages. Our results highlight both the importance of the Bdnf/TrkB pathway in maintaining normal body weight throughout life and the role of sex-specific differences in the organization of hypothalamic neural circuitry that regulates body weight.
The Forecast Interpretation Tool—a Monte Carlo technique for blending climatic distributions with probabilistic forecasts

Probabilistic forecasts are produced from a variety of outlets to help predict rainfall, and other meteorological events, for periods of 1 month or more. Such forecasts are expressed as probabilities of a rainfall event, e.g. being in the upper, middle, or lower third of the relevant distribution of rainfall in the region. The impact of these forecasts on the expectation for the event is not always clear or easily conveyed. This article proposes a technique based on Monte Carlo simulation for adjusting existing climatologic statistical parameters to match forecast information, resulting in new parameters defining the probability of events for the forecast interval. The resulting parameters are shown to approximate the forecasts with reasonable accuracy. To show the value of the technique as an application for seasonal rainfall, it is used with consensus forecast developed for the Greater Horn of Africa for the 2009 March‐April‐May season. An alternative, analytical approach is also proposed, and discussed in comparison to the first simulation‐based technique. Copyright © 2010 Royal Meteorological Society
Simple and Fast Method for Fabrication of Endoscopic Implantable Sensor Arrays

Here we have developed a simple method for the fabrication of disposable implantable all-solid-state ion-selective electrodes (ISE) in an array format without using complex fabrication equipment or clean room facilities. The electrodes were designed in a needle shape instead of planar electrodes for a full contact with the tissue. The needle-shape platform comprises 12 metallic pins which were functionalized with conductive inks and ISE membranes. The modified microelectrodes were characterized with cyclic voltammetry, scanning electron microscope (SEM), and optical interferometry. The surface area and roughness factor of each microelectrode were determined and reproducible values were obtained for all the microelectrodes on the array. In this work, the microelectrodes were modified with membranes for the detection of pH and nitrate ions to prove the reliability of the fabricated sensor array platform adapted to an endoscope.
A Simple Enhancement for Ad-hoc Information Retrieval via Topic Modelling

Traditional information retrieval (IR) models, in which a document is normally represented as a bag of words and their frequencies, capture the term-level and document-level information. Topic models, on the other hand, discover semantic topic-based information among words. In this paper, we consider term-based information and semantic information as two features of query terms and propose a simple enhancement for ad-hoc IR via topic modeling. In particular, three topic-based hybrid models, LDA-BM25, LDA-MATF and LDA-LM, are proposed. A series of experiments on eight standard datasets show that our proposed models can always outperform significantly the corresponding strong baselines over all datasets in terms of MAP and most of datasets in terms of P@5 and P@20. A direct comparison on eight standard datasets also indicates our proposed models are at least comparable to the state-of-the-art approaches.
The coated pit and macropinocytic pathways serve distinct endosome populations

Clathrin-coated vesicle endocytosis and macropinocytosis are distinct endocytic pathways demonstrable in several cell types including human epidermoid A431 cells (West, M.A., M.S. Bretscher, and C. Watts. 1989. J. Cell Biol. 109:2731-2739). Here we analyze the extent of mixing of macropinocytic endosome (macropinosome) content with that of conventional endosomes served by coated vesicle endocytosis. Using laser scanning confocal fluorescence microscopy we detected very little delivery of macropinosome content to either early or late endosomes- lysosomes as defined by labeling with transferrin or with LDL. Mixing of the contents of the macropinosomes and conventional endosomes was not induced by the addition of brefeldin A. Moreover, the morphology of macropinosomes was not grossly altered in the presence of brefeldin A, whilst in the same cells there were dramatic tubulation effects on conventional endosomes as reported by others. Although refractory to fusion with conventional endosomes, macropinosomes were nonetheless dynamic structures which sometimes exhibited vesiculo-tubular morphology in living cells and were capable of fusing with each other. We suggest that different endocytic mechanisms can give rise to distinct endosome populations.
Twin-HMM-based audio-visual speech enhancement

Most approaches for speech signal processing rely solely on acoustic input, which has the consequence that spectrum estimation becomes exceedingly difficult when the signal-to-noise ratio drops to values near 0 dB. However, alternative sources of information are becoming widely available with increasing use of multimedia data in everyday communication. In the following paper, we suggest to use video input as an auxiliary modality for speech processing by applying a new statistical model - the twin hidden Markov model. The resulting enhancement algorithm for audiovisual data greatly outperforms the standard audio-only log-MMSE estimator on all considered instrumental speech quality measures covering spectral and perceptual quality.
MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry: An emerging tool for unequivocal identification of non-fermenting Gram-negative bacilli

Background & objectives: Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) has been instrumental in revolutionizing microbiological identification, especially in high-throughput laboratories. It has enabled the identification of organisms like non-fermenting Gram-negative bacilli (NFGNB), which has been a challenging task using conventional methods alone. In this study an attempt was made to validate MALDI-TOF MS for the identification of clinical isolates of each of the three most common NFGNB, other than Pseudomonas spp. , taking molecular methods as the gold standard. Methods: One hundred and fifty clinical isolates of NFGNB, confirmed by molecular methods such as Acinetobacter baumannii[oxa-51 polymerase chain reaction (PCR)], Burkholderia cepacia complex (expanded multilocus sequence typing) and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia (species-specific PCR), were taken. Isolated colonies from fresh cultures of all 150 isolates were smeared onto ground steel plate, with and without formic acid extraction step. The identification was carried out using MALDI-TOF MS Biotyper database. Results: A concordance of 100 and 73.33 per cent was found between the molecular techniques and MALDI-TOF MS system in the identification of these isolates up to genus and species levels, respectively. Using a cut-off of 1.9 for reliable identification, rate of species identification rose to 82.66 per cent. Principal component analysis dendrogram and cluster analysis further increased discrimination of isolates. Interpretation & conclusions: Our findings showed MALDI-TOF MS-based identification of NFGNB as a good, robust method for high-throughput laboratories.
An architecture supporting knowledge flow in Social Internet of Things systems

Recently, the idea that the Internet of Things (IoT) systems can be advantaged in many ways by integrating social networking concepts is gaining momentum. In this paper we present the social approach that the COSMOS project introduces. COSMOS supports knowledge flow between Things in order to provide a system that learns, observes and evaluates the usage and communication patterns and generates new knowledge. It focuses on the value of experience and experience-sharing and investigates models and principles designed for the social networks, which would provide it with the potential to support novel applications in more effective and efficient ways.
Toward automated detection and segmentation of aortic calcifications from radiographs

This paper aims at automatically measuring the extent of calcified plaques in the lumbar aorta from standard radiographs. Calcifications in the abdominal aorta are an important predictor for future cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Accurate and reproducible measurement of the amount of calcified deposit in the aorta is therefore of great value in disease diagnosis and prognosis, treatment planning, and the study of drug effects. We propose a two-step approach in which first the calcifications are detected by an iterative statistical pixel classification scheme combined with aorta shape model optimization. Subsequently, the detected calcified pixels are used as the initialization for an inpainting based segmentation. We present results on synthetic images from the inpainting based segmentation as well as results on several X-ray images based on the two-steps approach.
Epstein-Barr Virus Down-Regulates Tumor Suppressor DOK1 Expression

The DOK1 tumor suppressor gene encodes an adapter protein that acts as a negative regulator of several signaling pathways. We have previously reported that DOK1 expression is up-regulated upon cellular stress, via the transcription factor E2F1, and down-regulated in a variety of human malignancies due to aberrant hypermethylation of its promoter. Here we show that Epstein Barr virus (EBV) infection of primary human B-cells leads to the down-regulation of DOK1 gene expression via the viral oncoprotein LMP1. LMP1 alone induces recruitment to the DOK1 promoter of at least two independent inhibitory complexes, one containing E2F1/pRB/DNMT1 and another containing at least EZH2. These events result in tri-methylation of histone H3 at lysine 27 (H3K27me3) of the DOK1 promoter and gene expression silencing. We also present evidence that the presence of additional EBV proteins leads to further repression of DOK1 expression with an additional mechanism. Indeed, EBV infection of B-cells induces DNA methylation at the DOK1 promoter region including the E2F1 responsive elements that, in turn, lose the ability to interact with E2F complexes. Treatment of EBV-infected B-cell-lines with the methyl-transferase inhibitor 5-aza-2′-deoxycytidine rescues DOK1 expression. In summary, our data show the deregulation of DOK1 gene expression by EBV and provide novel insights into the regulation of the DOK1 tumor suppressor in viral-related carcinogenesis.
Mining Social Network for Semantic Advertisement

Networked computers are expanding more and more around the world, and digital social networks becoming of great importance for many people's work and leisure. Emails, Weblogs and Instant Messengers are popular instances of social networks. In this paper, the main target is having an advertisement according to user favorites and interests by mining his/her interactions in digital social networks. Briefly, in our method social network users are categorized based on the topic exchanges by them in the network, these topics discovered by mining of flowing data in that environment, considering that these topics shows the user willing, finally relevant advertisements will be represented to them. In fact, by finding people that have more chance to accept the desired advertisement, system will have more success over traditional method at lowered cost.
Experimental evaluation of thermal recording of successive polarities during uplift of metasediments

SUMMARY The discovery of a post-tectonic natural remanent magnetization (NRM) carried by pyrrhotite in the Dauphinoise Zone of the Western Alps allows us to test the ability of these rocks to record a sequence of magnetic polarity versus temperature acquired during their slow cooling. Several laboratory experiments [composite partial thermal remanent magnetizations (pTRMs), Thellier‐Thellier experiments, TRM thermal demagnetization] as well as NRM demagnetization were performed. This shows that the pyrrhotite grains are single-domain-sized and that they are able to record successive independent pTRMs. The NRM thermal demagnetization analysis demonstrates the occurrence of several antiparallel components. A comparison between NRM and TRM thermal demagnetizations is attempted in order to highlight small pTRMs naturally recorded in a temperature interval of only a few degrees. We attempt to retrieve the temperature at which each reversal occurs during the post-metamorphic cooling. This method, called thermopalaeomagnetism, is discussed and developed in order to delineate the sequence of polarity chrons recorded versus temperature.
Antiproliferative and antioxidant activities of Juglans regia fruit extracts

Context: Cancer chemopreventive action of walnut [Juglans regia L. (Juglandaceae)] has been explored. Objective: This study evaluated antiproliferative and antioxidant activities of walnut. Materials and methods: Various fractions of walnut extract have been screened for antiproliferative activity against human cancer cell lines using the MTT assay. All these fractions have also been evaluated for total phenolic content, antioxidant activity, and reducing power capacity. Results and discussion: Chloroform and ethyl acetate fractions exhibited a high level of antiproliferation against HepG-2, liver cancer cell line (IC50 = 9 and 15 µg/mL, respectively). Conclusion: Exhibiting high phenolic content, antioxidant activity, and potent antiproliferative activity, walnut may act as a cancer chemopreventive agent.
A Managed Architecture for Mobile Distributed Applications

Internet-distributed systems are beginning to offer a serious platform for stable, long-lived, flexible applications development. Moreover, such Internet-scale applications are motivating new modes of work and company integration such as teleworking and virtual enterprises. There is an increasing realisation that within such flexible working structures that applications will have to support some form of mobility, both to handle explicitly mobile nodes (such as users with lap-tops) and to provide reconfiguration and redeployment of application components around the Internet. A major challenge for such mobile distributed applications is to provide stability in the face of constant change, providing application developers and users alike with a stable architecture whose elements and locations may change across time. This paper presents an architecture that separates location and mobility knowledge from algorithmic structure within an application, thus facilitating a managed solution to adaptability and mobility.
Improving mental health through parenting programmes: block randomised controlled trial

Aims: To assess the effectiveness of a parenting programme, delivered by health visitors in primary care, in improving the mental health of children and their parents among a representative general practice population. Methods: Parents of children aged 2–8 years who scored in the upper 50% on a behaviour inventory were randomised to the Webster-Stratton 10 week parenting programme delivered by trained health visitors, or no intervention. Main outcome measures were the Eyberg Child Behaviour Inventory and the Goodman Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire to measure child behaviour, and the General Health Questionnaire, Abidin’s Parenting Stress Index, and Rosenberg’s Self Esteem Scale to measure parents’ mental health. These outcomes were measured before and immediately after the intervention, and at six months follow up. Results: The intervention was more effective at improving some aspects of the children’s mental health, notably conduct problems, than the no intervention control condition. The Goodman conduct problem score was reduced at immediate and six month follow up, and the Eyberg Child Behaviour Inventory was reduced at six months. The intervention also had a short term impact on social dysfunction among parents. These benefits were seen among families with children scoring in the clinical range for behaviour problems and also among children scoring in the non-clinical (normal) range. Conclusion: This intervention could make a useful contribution to the prevention of child behaviour problems and to mental health promotion in primary care.
Testing Cross-Cultural Generalizability of the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire across American and Chinese Samples

This paper examines the factor structure and measurement invariance of the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire (TEOSQ) across American and Chinese samples. Results based on the mean and covariance structure analyses supported configural invariance, metric invariance and scalar invariance across groups. Latent means analyses revealed that American sample had significantly higher mean scores on task and ego orientations than the Chinese sample. The findings suggest that the TEOSQ is a valid and reliable instrument in assessing achievement motivation across these two diverse populations.