Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimal Precoding in the Relay and the Optimality of Largest Eigenmode Relaying with Statistical Channel State Information

An optimal precoding method for a multiple antenna relay node is investigated in order to maximize the achievable rate of the cooperative communication system. It is assumed that only the channel covariance matrices of the relay's receive and transmit channels are available to the relay and that the antennas of the relay are correlated. It is shown that the optimal transmission from the relay should be conducted in the direction of the eigenvectors of the channel covariance matrix. Moreover, necessary and sufficient conditions are derived under which the relay transmission achieves capacity by transmitting from the strongest eigenvector only; this method is called Largest Eigenmode Relaying (LER). The exact result contains an expectation operation that needs to be solved numerically; to reduce the computational complexity, novel methods are proposed that lead to closed-form solutions. A lower bound for the optimal region of LER is derived. Moreover, the effect of the number of source antennas on the optimality of LER is investigated asymptotically. The simulation results show very little difference between the regions in which LER is optimal when the source is equipped with a finite or an infinite number of antennas.
New Bounds for the $(h, k)$-Server Problem

We study the $k$-server problem in the resource augmentation setting i.e., when the performance of the online algorithm with $k$ servers is compared to the offline optimal solution with $h \leq k$ servers. The problem is very poorly understood beyond uniform metrics. For this special case, the classic $k$-server algorithms are roughly $(1+1/\epsilon)$-competitive when $k=(1+\epsilon) h$, for any $\epsilon >0$. Surprisingly however, no $o(h)$-competitive algorithm is known even for HSTs of depth 2 and even when $k/h$ is arbitrarily large. We obtain several new results for the problem. First we show that the known $k$-server algorithms do not work even on very simple metrics. In particular, the Double Coverage algorithm has competitive ratio $\Omega(h)$ irrespective of the value of $k$, even for depth-2 HSTs. Similarly the Work Function Algorithm, that is believed to be optimal for all metric spaces when $k=h$, has competitive ratio $\Omega(h)$ on depth-3 HSTs even if $k=2h$. Our main result is a new algorithm that is $O(1)$-competitive for constant depth trees, whenever $k =(1+\epsilon )h$ for any $\epsilon > 0$. Finally, we give a general lower bound that any deterministic online algorithm has competitive ratio at least 2.4 even for depth-2 HSTs and when $k/h$ is arbitrarily large. This gives a surprising qualitative separation between uniform metrics and depth-2 HSTs for the $(h,k)$-server problem, and gives the strongest known lower bound for the problem on general metrics.
From Set Constraint Models to SAT Instances

On the one hand, Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSP) are a declarative and expressive approach for modeling problems. On the other hand, propositional satisfiability problem (SAT) solvers can handle huge SAT instances up to millions of variables and clauses. In this article, we present an approach for taking advantage of both CSP modeling and SAT solving. Our technique consists in expressively modeling set constraint problems as CSPs that are automatically treated by some reduction rules to remove values that do not participate in any solution. These reduced CSPs are then encoded into ”good” SAT instances that can be solved by standard SAT solvers. We illustrate our technique on the Sports Tournament Scheduling problem, and we show that we obtain competitive results compared to an adhoc solver. Our technique is simpler, more expressive, and less error-prone than direct SAT modeling. The SAT instances that we automatically generate are rather small and can efficiently be solved up to huge instances. Moreover, the reduction phase enables to push back the limits and treat even larger problems.
Non-commutative harmonic analysis in multi-object tracking

Simultaneously tracking n targets in space involves two closely coupled tasks: estimating the current positions x1, x2, . , xn of their tracks, and estimating the assignment σ: {1, 2, . , n} → {1, 2, . , n} of targets to tracks. While the former is often a relatively straightforward extension of the single target case, the latter, called identity management or data association, is a fundamentally combinatorial problem, which is harder to fit in a computationally efficient probabilistic framework. Identity management is difficult because the number of possible assignments grows with n! This means that for n greater than about 10 or 12, representing the distribution p(σ) explicitly as an array of n! numbers is generally not possible. In this chapter we discuss a solution to this problem based on the generalisation of harmonic analysis to non-commutative groups, specifically, in our case, the group of permutations. According to this theory, the Fourier transform of p takes the form ^p(λ)= Σ_(σ∈S_n)p(σ)pλ(σ) where S_n denotes the group of permutations of n objects, λ is a combinatorial object called an integer partition, and ρλ is a special matrix-valued function called a representation. These terms are defined in our short primer on representation theory in Section 13.2. What is important to note is that, since ρλ is matrix-valued, each Fourier component ^p(λ) is a matrix, not just a scalar. Apart from this surprising feature, non-commutative Fourier transforms are very similar to their familiar commutative counterparts. In particular, we argue that there is a well-defined sense in which some of the ^p(λ) matrices are the ‘low-frequency’ components of p, and approximating p with this subset of components is optimal. A large part of this chapter is focused on how to define such a notion of ‘frequency’, and how to find the corresponding Fourier components.We describe two seemingly very different approaches to answering this question, and find, reassuringly, that they give exactly the same answer. Of course, in addition to a compact way of representing p, efficient inference also demands fast algorithms for updating p with observations. Section 13.6 gives an overview of the fast Fourier methods that are employed for this purpose.
Liberal and Conservative Approaches to Justice: Conflicting Psychological Portraits

We propose a taxonomy that highlights the wide range of political psychological assumptions from which testable hypotheses can be derived about the origins of competing conceptions of justice. Productive researchers could devote their entire careers to testing hypotheses drawn from each of the eight "psychological portraits" in the taxonomy: flattering and unflattering cognitive and motivational characterizations of liberals and conservatives.
Inclusive early childhood education : merging positive behavioral supports, activity-based intervention, and developmentally appropriate practices

Contents. Contributors. Forward. Preface. SECTION 1 Principles: Overview. Introduction. Family/Professional Partnerships. Principles of PBS. Principles of ABI. Principles of DAP. Section 2: Procedures: Overview. Assessment. Effective Intervention. Section 3: Issues: Overview. Respecting Cultural Diversity. Future Directions in Inclusive Early Childhood Education. Section 4:Applications. Overview. Applying PBS, ABI, and DAP in Inclusive Infant/Toddler Settings. Applying PBS, ABI, and DAP in Inclusive Preschool and Kindergarten Settings. Applying PBS, ABI, and DAP in Inclusive Early Elementary Grades.
Type 2 Diabetes Induces Prolonged P-wave Duration without Left Atrial Enlargement

Prolonged P-wave duration has been observed in diabetes. However, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. The aim of this study was to elucidate the possible mechanisms. A rat model of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) was used. P-wave durations were obtained using surface electrocardiography and sizes of the left atrium were determined using echocardiography. Cardiac inward rectifier K+ currents (Ik1), Na+ currents (INa), and action potentials were recorded from isolated left atrial myocytes using patch clamp techniques. Left atrial tissue specimens were analyzed for total connexin-40 (Cx40) and connexin-43 (Cx43) expression levels on western-blots. Specimens were also analyzed for Cx40 and Cx43 distribution and interstitial fibrosis by immunofluorescent and Masson trichrome staining, respectively. The mean P-wave duration was longer in T2DM rats than in controls; however, the mean left atrial sizes of each group of rats were similar. The densities of Ik1 and INa were unchanged in T2DM rats compared to controls. The action potential duration was longer in T2DM rats, but there was no significant difference in resting membrane potential or action potential amplitude compared to controls. The expression level of Cx40 protein was significantly lower, but Cx43 was unaltered in T2DM rats. However, immunofluorescent labeling of Cx43 showed a significantly enhanced lateralization. Staining showed interstitial fibrosis was greater in T2DM atrial tissue. Prolonged P-wave duration is not dependent on the left atrial size in rats with T2DM. Dysregulation of Cx40 and Cx43 protein expression, as well as fibrosis, might partly account for the prolongation of P-wave duration in T2DM.
Comparative Efficacies of Three Commercially Available Vaccines against West Nile Virus (WNV) in a Short-Duration Challenge Trial Involving an Equine WNV Encephalitis Model

ABSTRACT We used a severe challenge model that produces clinical West Nile virus (WNV) disease to test the efficacy of three commercially available equine WNV vaccines in horses. Twenty-four healthy, WNV-seronegative horses of varying ages and genders were placed, in random and blind manner, into three trial groups consisting of eight horses each; two horses in each group received (i) an inactivated WNV vaccine (K-WN), (ii) a modified-live vaccine (CP-WN) containing the WNV prM and E proteins expressed by a canarypox vector, (iii) a live-chimera vaccine (WN-FV) containing WNV prM and E proteins expressed in a YF17D vector, or (iv) a diluent control. Challenge by this model caused grave neurological signs, viremia, moderate to severe histopathologic lesions in the brain and spinal cord, and an outcome of 0% survivorship in all six control horses. In contrast, challenge in horses at between 28 days postvaccination with the chimera vaccine and 56 days postvaccination with the commercial inactivated or modified-live vaccine resulted in 100% survivorship (protection from the onset of WNV encephalitis and viremia). Horses vaccinated with the live-chimera vaccine showed significantly fewer clinical signs than did the control horses (P ≤ 0.01) and the horses vaccinated with inactivated vaccine (P = 0.035). Mild residual inflammatory lesions were seen in a few of the vaccinated horses.
Non-linear Effects of Fiscal Deficits on Growth in Developing Countries

This paper examines the relation between fiscal deficits and growth for a panel of 45 developing countries. It finds evidence of a threshold effect at a level of the deficit around 1.5% of GDP. While there appears to be a growth payoff to reducing deficits to this level, this effect disappears or reverses itself for further fiscal contraction. There is also evidence of interaction effects between deficits and debt stocks, with high debt stocks exacerbating the adverse consequences of high deficits.
Class and the Service Encounter: New Approaches to Inequality in the Service Work‐place

In recent decades, scholars of service work have generated many new insights about the organization of work, but in the process one of the traditional concerns of industrial sociology – class – became relatively marginal. However, recent studies of interactive service work have begun to reconceptualize the service encounter as an important site where class-based entitlements and interactive expectations are created. These analyses attempt to make linkages between the “status” encounters in service interactions and the larger, socio-economic inequalities associated with class. The renewed interest in class in the (service) workplace may be attributable in part to the growing influence of Bourdieu in North American sociology as well as a burgeoning literature on consumers and consumption, allowing for new approaches that consider service worker-customer interactions as integral to the construction of classed cultures of consumption and entitlement.
Single parent households and increased child asthma morbidity

Abstract Objectives: To characterize whether single parent households are associated with pediatric asthma-related repeat healthcare utilization and to examine family-level psychosocial variables that may explain this relationship. Methods: We analyzed a prospective cohort of 526 children aged 1–16 years hospitalized for asthma or bronchodilator-responsive wheezing whose caregivers self-reported their marital status. Those reporting being “single” were considered the at-risk category. The outcome was repeat asthma-related utilization (emergency room (ER) revisit or hospital readmission) within 12 months. We assessed, a priori, four psychosocial variables (household income, caregiver risk of psychological distress, ratio of in-home children to adults, and regular attendance at childcare or a secondary home). Results: Among all children enrolled in the cohort, 40% returned to the ER or hospital for asthma within 12 months. Of all caregivers, 59% self-identified as single. Single status was significantly associated with each psychosocial variable. Children in households with lower incomes and higher ratios of children to adults were both more likely to return to the ER or hospital than children with higher incomes and lower ratios, respectively (each p < 0.05). Patients in single parent households were significantly more likely to reutilize than those in married parent households (OR 1.44, 95% CI 1.00–2.07, p < 0.05). When adjusted for income, the relationship between single parent households and reutilization became non-significant. Conclusions: Children admitted for asthma from single parent households were more likely to have asthma-related reutilization within 12 months than children from homes with married parents. This was driven, in large part, by underlying differences in household income.
Untargeted Plasma Metabolomics Identifies Endogenous Metabolite with Drug-like Properties in Chronic Animal Model of Multiple Sclerosis*

We performed untargeted metabolomics in plasma of B6 mice with experimental autoimmune encephalitis (EAE) at the chronic phase of the disease in search of an altered metabolic pathway(s). Of 324 metabolites measured, 100 metabolites that mapped to various pathways (mainly lipids) linked to mitochondrial function, inflammation, and membrane stability were observed to be significantly altered between EAE and control (p < 0.05, false discovery rate <0.10). Bioinformatics analysis revealed six metabolic pathways being impacted and altered in EAE, including α-linolenic acid and linoleic acid metabolism (PUFA). The metabolites of PUFAs, including ω-3 and ω-6 fatty acids, are commonly decreased in mouse models of multiple sclerosis (MS) and in patients with MS. Daily oral administration of resolvin D1, a downstream metabolite of ω-3, decreased disease progression by suppressing autoreactive T cells and inducing an M2 phenotype of monocytes/macrophages and resident brain microglial cells. This study provides a proof of principle for the application of metabolomics to identify an endogenous metabolite(s) possessing drug-like properties, which is assessed for therapy in preclinical mouse models of MS.
Caveolin-1 is essential in the differentiation of human adipose-derived stem cells into hepatocyte-like cells via an MAPK pathway-dependent mechanism

Human adipose-derived stem cells (hADSCs), widely present in the adult human body, are an emerging and attractive tool for the establishment of stem cell-based therapies for the treatment of liver disease. However, the mechanism underlying hADSCs hepatic differentiation remains to be elucidated. Caveolin-1 (Cav-1), a 21–24 kDa membrane structural protein, is important in liver regeneration and development. In the present study, fluorescence immuno-cytochemistry and western blotting were used to analyze the expression levels of Cav-1 and evaluate its effects on the hepatic differentiation of hADSCs. The results revealed that primary hADSCs preserved the ability to proliferate and differentiate into hepatocyte-like cells. As demonstrated by semiquantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction, hepatocyte-inducing factors significantly increased the expression of Cav-1 in a time-dependent manner, as indicated by increased expression levels of the albumin (ALB) and α-fetoprotein (AFP) markers. In addition the expression levels of ALB and HNF1A significantly decreased following small interfering RNA-mediated knockdown of Cav-1. The mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway was activated during hepatic differentiation and inhibited following Cav-1 knockdown. These results suggested that Cav-1 may regulate the hepatocyte-like differentiation of hADSCs by modulating mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase/MAPK signaling. The results of the present study will provide experimental and theoretical basis for further clinical studies on stem cell transplantation in the treatment of liver disease.
Mitochondrial Pseudogenes in the Nuclear Genomes of Drosophila

Mitochondrial pseudogenes in nuclear chromosomes (numts) have been detected in the genomes of a diverse range of eukaryotic species. However, the numt content of different genomes and their properties is not uniform, and study of these differences provides insight into the mechanisms and dynamics of genome evolution in different organisms. In the genus Drosophila, numts have previously only been identified on a genome-wide scale in the melanogaster subgroup. The present study extends the identification to 11 species of the Drosophila genus. We identify a total of 302 numts and show that the numt complement is highly variable in Drosophilids, ranging from just 4 in D. melanogaster to 67 in D. willistoni, broadly correlating with genome size. Many numts have undergone large-scale rearrangements in the nucleus, including interruptions, inversions, deletions and duplications of sequence of variable size. Estimating the age of the numts in the nucleus by phylogenetic tree reconstruction reveals the vast majority of numts to be recent gains, 90% having arisen on terminal branches of the species tree. By identifying paralogs and counting duplications among the extant numts we estimate that 23% of extant numts arose through post-insertion duplications. We estimate genus average rates of insertion of 0.75 per million years, and a duplication rate of 0.010 duplications per numt per million years.
MECHANISMS INVOLVED IN SPIKE FREQUENCY ADAPTATION OF A TYPE S MOTONEURON: A COMPUTATIONAL STUDY

A computational model was developed to evaluate the influence of the calcium-dependent potassium conductance (gKCa), the calcium concentration in soma (varying the velocity of calcium extrusion - velext - and the calcium conductances in soma - gCaN and gCaP), the inclusion of a slow inactivation state variable in soma's fast sodium conductance and the conductance of the persistent sodium current in the initial segment (gNapSI) in the spike-frequency adaptation of a type S motoneuron. Blocking gKCa in the model eliminated the initial phase of the spike frequency adaptation and so, this phase was associated with the AHP. Early adaptation was abolished when, in the reference model, the gNapSI was blocked. The inclusion of a slow inactivation variable in the fast sodium conductance enables a late adaptation phase and also affects the early phase so, these phases are related with currents of large time constants (about 20s).
Biostatistics primer for the radiologist.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this article is to review the most common data analysis methods encountered in radiology-based studies. Initially, description of variable types and their corresponding summary measures are provided; subsequent discussion focuses on comparison of these summary measures between groups, with a particular emphasis on regression analysis. CONCLUSION Knowledge of statistical applications is critical for radiologists to accurately evaluate the current literature and to conduct scientifically rigorous studies. Misapplication of statistical methods can lead to inappropriate conclusions and clinical recommendations.
The hypercomplex society

Should today's society be termed an « information or a « network society? This book provides an alternative choice--the hypercomplex society, which is a critical, complex-theoretical understanding of society whose growing level of social complexity represents the basic challenge of our current society. This original understanding of society is presented through a historical analysis of the emergence of the current state of hypercomplexity and polycentrism. The functioning of communication, mass media, and the public sphere in the hypercomplex society is also analyzed and the Internet is characterized as a communication infrastructure particularly shaped by the hypercomplex society. The book concludes with a cultural self-observation of the hypercomplex society.
Joint Kernel Support Estimation for Structured Prediction

We present a new technique for structured prediction that works in a hybrid generative/discriminative way, using a one-class support vector machine to model the joint probability of (input, output)-pairs in a joint reproducing kernel Hilbert space. Compared to discriminative techniques, like conditional random fields or structured output SVMs, the proposed method has the advantage that its training time depends only on the number of training examples, not on the size of the label space. Due to its generative aspect, it is also very tolerant against ambiguous, incomplete or incorrect labels. Experiments on realistic data show that our method works efficiently and robustly in situations for which discriminative techniques have computational or statistical problems.
Smoking, Cognitive Function and Mortality in a U.S. National Cohort Study

Previous studies report that low levels cognitive function and history of smoking are associated with increased mortality risk. Elderly smokers may have increased risk of dementia, but risk in former smokers is unclear. We tested the hypotheses that the harmful effect of impaired cognitive function as related to mortality is greater in persons smoking at baseline than in others. Further, we used serum cotinine levels to assess recall bias of smoking history by cognitive function level. Data were analyzed from a longitudinal mortality follow-up study of 4,916 American men and women aged 60 years and over, examined in 1988–1994 with complete data followed an average 8.5 years. Measurements at baseline included smoking history, a short index of cognitive function (SICF), serum cotinine and socio-demographics. Death during follow-up occurred in 1,919 persons. In proportional hazards regression analysis, a significant interaction of current smoking with cognitive function was not found; but there was a significant age-smoking interaction. After adjusting for confounding by age or multiple variables, current smoking associated with over 2-fold increased mortality (hazards ratio and 95% confidence limits current versus never smoking 2.13, 1.75–2.59) and SICF with 32% reduction in mortality; top versus bottom SICF stratum 0.68, 0.53–0.88). Serum cotinine data revealed substantial recall bias of smoking history in persons with cognitive impairment. However analyses correcting for this bias did not alter the main conclusions: In a nationwide cohort of older Americans, analyses demonstrated a lower risk of death independent of confounders among those with high SICF scores and never smokers, without a significant interaction of the two.