Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
PMEPR mitigation using adjacent bands of standards under spectrum mask constraint

This paper addresses a method to mitigate the peak to mean power ratio (PMEPR) of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signals. The idea is to use adjacent bands of the OFDM spectrum to allocate optimized subcarriers so as to decrease the signal PMEPR with the help of SOCP optimization process. This way of doing has only sense if additional subcarriers all fall under the standard spectrum mask. According to this, the proposed method does not degrade the bit error rate (BER), has no bandwidth loss, does not imply any modification of the receiver and is standard compliant.
Reconstructing undersampled MR Images by utilizing principal-component-analysis-based pattern recognition

Compressed sensing technique is a recent framework for signal sampling and recovery. It allows signal acquisition with less sampling than required by Nyquist-Shannon theorem and reduces data acquisition time in MRI. When the sampling rate is low, prior knowledge is essential to reconstruct the missing features. In this paper, a different reconstruction method is proposed by using the principal component analysis based on pattern recognition. The experiments demonstrate that this method can reduce aliasing artefacts and achieve a high peak signal-to-noise ratio compared to a compressed sensing reconstruction.
Restenosis after carotid endarterectomy: significance of newly acquired risk factors

Background: In patients who had carotid endarterectomy (CEA), the significance of newly acquired cerebrovascular risk factors (CRFs) is unknown. Newly acquired CRFs are defined as CRFs not present prior to CEA (baseline CRFs) but acquired during long‐term follow‐up.
A General Framework for Multichannel Speech Dereverberation Exploiting Sparsity

We consider the problem of blind multi-channel speech dereverberation without the knowledge of room acoustics. The dereverberated speech component is estimated by subtracting the undesired component, estimated using multi-channel linear prediction (MCLP), from the reference microphone signal. In this paper we present a framework for MCLP-based speech dereverberation by exploiting sparsity in the timefrequency domain. The presented framework uses a wideband or a narrowband signal model and a sparse analysis or synthesis model for the desired speech component. The proposed problems involving a reweighted `1-norm, are solved in a flexible optimization framework. The obtained results are comparable to the state of the art, motivating further extensions exploiting sparsity and speech structure.
The Positive End of the Polygenic Score Distribution for ADHD: A Low Risk or a Protective Factor?

Background Polygenic scores (PGS) are widely used to characterize genetic liability for heritable mental disorders, including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, little is known about the effects of a low burden of genetic liability for ADHD, including whether this functions as a low risk or protective factor for ADHD and related functional outcomes in later life. The current study examines the association of low ADHD PGS and functional outcomes in adulthood. Methods Participants were from Wave IV of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) (N=7,088; mean age=29, s.d.=1.74). ADHD PGS was computed from an existing genome-wide association study, and adult functional outcomes, including cognition, educational attainment, mental health and physical health were assessed during in-home interviews. Results Individuals at the lowest end of the ADHD PGS distribution (i.e., lowest 20th percentile) had the lowest probabilities of ADHD, exhibiting a 17-19% reduction in risk for ADHD relative to the observed 8.3% prevalence rate of ADHD in Add Health. Furthermore, individuals with low ADHD PGS had higher cognitive performance, greater levels of educational attainment, and lower BMI relative to individuals representing the rest of the ADHD PGS distribution, including those who were in the medium and high PGS groups. Conclusions Findings indicate that psychiatric PGS likely capture far more than just the risk and the absence of risk for a psychiatric outcome; where one lies along the PGS distribution may predict diverging functional consequences, for better and for worse.
ANALYSIS OF SURFACE TOPOGRAPHY AND SURFACE ROUGHNES OF CoCr ALLOY SAMPLES BY ATOMIC FORCE MICROSCOPY

Adresa za dopisivanje Boris Klaic, Stomatoloska poliklinika Perkovceva 3, HR-10 000 Zagreb bklaic@spz.hr Sažetak Svrha rada bila je dobiti trodimenzionalne kvalitativne i kvantitativne podatke o topografiji elektropoliranih uzoraka Co-Cr dentalne legure na nano-ljestvici, tocnije podatke o dvjema razlicitim cvrstim fazama opisanima u literaturi kao dendriti i interdendritski prostori. Materijal i metode: Napravljeno je, izliveno i elektropolirano deset uzoraka Co-Cr legure (Wironit® extra-hard, Bego, Njemacka). Njihova povrsina snimljena je i analizirana mikroskopijom atomskih sila (AFM-om) te optickim mikroskopom. AFM-snimke i analiza omogucili su trodimenzionalno promatranje povrsine Co-Cr legure. Vidljivo je da se njezina dendritska struktura sastoji od nakupina nanokristalita oblikovanih u otoke (odgovaraju tamnom interdendritskom podrucju na optickom mikroskopu), a izdižu se iz glatke undulirajuce povrsine koja odgovara svijetloj povrsini, odnosno dendritima na snimkama optickog mikroskopa. Rezultati: Devedeset i pet postotni interval pouzdanosti (p<0,05) za maksimalne z-vrijednosti krece se od 819,98 do 1020,99 nm, za vrijednosti RMS-a od 66,93 do 108,54 nm i za Ra (srednja hrapavost) od 51,53 do 82,48 nm. Zakljucak: Povrsina ima vrlo dobra svojstva sto se tice hrapavosti i može se smatrati doista glatkom, jer nema elemente koji bi mogli retinirati i zarobiti mikroorganizme. Kljucne rijeci Co-Cr legura; zubne legure; tehnologija, stomatoloska 1 Stomatoloska poliklinika Perkovceva 3, Zagreb Dental Polyclinic, Perkovceva 3, Zagreb 2 Institut „Rudjer Boskovic“, Bijenicka cesta 54, Zagreb Institut „Rudjer Boskovic“, Bijenicka cesta 54, Zagreb 3 Stomatoloski fakultet Sveucilista u Zagrebu Gunduliceva 5, Zagreb School of Dental Medicine University of Zagreb, Gunduliceva 5, Zagreb
Myeloperoxidase to Risk Stratify Emergency Department Patients with Chest Pain

Previous studies suggest that serum myeloperoxidase (MPO) is a potentially useful biomarker to risk stratify troponin-negative patients with suspected myocardial ischemia. We hypothesized that the relationship between initial serum MPO levels would correlate with 30-day adverse cardiac outcomes for low risk emergency department (ED) patients with suspected myocardial ischemia. This prospective cohort study enrolled ED patients with chest pain or suspected myocardial ischemia, non-diagnostic ECG, and initially negative cardiac troponin I. We defined 30-day adverse cardiac events as death, myocardial infarction, or coronary revascularization. We calculated summary statistics, standard deviation (SD), odds ratios (OR), 95% confidence intervals (CI), and receiver operating characteristics (ROC). We enrolled 159 patients who had a mean age of 55 ± 13, were 56% female, of whom 5.2% suffered at least one adverse cardiac event. MPO test characteristics were poor, with an ROC area of only 0.47 (CI 0.23-0.71). MPO levels were not associated with adverse events (OR 0.99, CI 0.98-1.01, p=0.62). The optimal ROC cutpoint to predict adverse cardiac events had poor sensitivity and specificity (57% and 52%, respectively). Mean MPO concentrations in the event group did not differ from the non-event group. In this limited cohort of low risk ED patients with chest pain, we were unable to demonstrate utility of MPO for risk stratification. If confirmed in larger studies, these findings may call into question the routine use of MPO for low-risk chest pain.
A Fast Evolutionary Algorithm for Real-Time Vehicle Detection

The evolutionary algorithm (EA) is an effective method for solving various problems because it can search through very large search spaces and can quickly come to nearly optimal solutions. However, existing EA-based methods for vehicle detection cannot achieve high performance because their fitness functions depend on sensitive information, such as edge or color information on the preceding vehicle. This paper focuses on improving the performance of existing evolutionary-based methods for vehicle detection by introducing an effective fitness function that can more accurately capture a vehicle's information by combining a disparity map, edge information, and the position and motion of the preceding vehicle. The proposed method can detect multiple vehicles by using a turn-back genetic algorithm (GA) and can prevent false detection by using motion detection. Our fitness function is designed in a typical manner along with the fitness parameters. These parameters are usually selected using heuristic methods, making the choice of optimal parameters difficult. Therefore, this paper proposes a new approach to estimating optimal fitness parameters using EA and the least squares method. Robustness testing showed that the proposed method provides detection rate (DR) results close to those obtained using a state-of-the-art system and outperforms other dominant vehicle-detection-based EAs.
High quality voltage regulation of a five-level current source inverter

This paper presents a high performance voltage regulation algorithm for a five-level current source inverter. The work combines linear voltage regulation concepts for a two level CSI, with an advanced modulation strategy that directly controls the intermediate link inductor currents of the 5-level converter. The voltage control loop is based around PI and PR stationary frame regulators, which achieve an excellent performance when their gains are maximized while still taking into account practical factors such as transport delay. The theoretical analysis is verified with simulated and matching experimental results.
Mobile Cloud Computing: Security Analysis

This paper provides a comprehensive security analysis of Mobile Cloud Computing (M2C). It first describes two Cloud Computing (CC) scenarios. The first scenario describes one Cloud service provider providing all necessary services. The second scenario describes the case of two Cloud service providers collaborating to provide necessary services for one Client. The two scenarios focus on Authentication. Based on the use-case scenarios, the paper presents a generic model for M2C with a description of entities and interactions among them. Based on this model, the paper analyzes potential security threats, in order to specify a set of general security requirements, with an emphasis on Authentication. These requirements could provide guidance to future security solutions or Authentication solutions for M2C communication and/or risk assessment.
Vibrissa Self-Motion and Touch Are Reliably Encoded along the Same Somatosensory Pathway from Brainstem through Thalamus

Active sensing involves the fusion of internally generated motor events with external sensation. For rodents, active somatosensation includes scanning the immediate environment with the mystacial vibrissae. In doing so, the vibrissae may touch an object at any angle in the whisk cycle. The representation of touch and vibrissa self-motion may in principle be encoded along separate pathways, or share a single pathway, from the periphery to cortex. Past studies established that the spike rates in neurons along the lemniscal pathway from receptors to cortex, which includes the principal trigeminal and ventral-posterior-medial thalamic nuclei, are substantially modulated by touch. In contrast, spike rates along the paralemniscal pathway, which includes the rostral spinal trigeminal interpolaris, posteromedial thalamic, and ventral zona incerta nuclei, are only weakly modulated by touch. Here we find that neurons along the lemniscal pathway robustly encode rhythmic whisking on a cycle-by-cycle basis, while encoding along the paralemniscal pathway is relatively poor. Thus, the representations of both touch and self-motion share one pathway. In fact, some individual neurons carry both signals, so that upstream neurons with a supralinear gain function could, in principle, demodulate these signals to recover the known decoding of touch as a function of vibrissa position in the whisk cycle.
Scale Up Pillaring: A Study of the Parameters That Influence the Process

Pillared clays (PILCs) are interesting materials mostly due to their high basal spacing and surface area, which make them suitable for adsorption and catalysis applications, for example. However, the production of these materials on industrial scale is dependent on research about what parameters influence the process. Thus, the objective of this work was to evaluate what parameters influence the pillaring procedure. For this, pillared clays were synthesized following three series of experiments. In the first series, the effect of the amount of water in a clay suspension was evaluated. The best results were obtained by using diluted suspensions (1 g of clay to 100 mL of water). In the second series, several pillaring methods were tested. In the third series, the amount of pillared clay was raised to 50 g. Fifty grams of pillared clay can be obtained using the pillaring agent synthesized at 60 °C with further aging for 24 h, and this material exhibited high basal spacing (17.6 Å) and surface area (233 m2/g). These values are comparable with the traditional pillaring method using only 3 g of clay.
Handedness and cerebral dominance: the right shift theory.

In a BBC radio program called “The Brain’s Trust,” the philosopher C.M. Joad typically began his answers with, “It all depends on what you mean by ‘x’. ” Neglect of this proviso for “handedness” has serious consequences. Here are two examples. The argument for earlier mortality in leftthan right-handers depends on the premise that relative frequencies have not changed over this century. An early study classified 15.7% of students as left-handed but did not explain the criterion. Lefthanded writing has certainly changed, such that leftwriters today are younger on average than right-writers. Left-handers were 9 years younger among the recently deceased in California, but they are also 9 years younger among the living in the United Kingdom. The second example concerns cerebral dominance for speech (CD). No right-handers were found among aphasics with right-sided lesions in two influential series, but in both series the proportion of left-handers among all aphasics was considerably higher than among all nonaphasics, suggesting that the absence of right-handers among right-lesioned aphasics was due to generous criteria of left-handedness in critical cases. The right shift (RS) theory was founded on empirical study of types of handedness. This review aims to describe my approach to classification, outline its theoretical implications, point up some contrasts with other theories, and persuade readers to examine their data as needed for critical tests.
Bacterial Colonization of Particles: Growth and Interactions

ABSTRACT Marine particles in the ocean are exposed to diverse bacterial communities, and colonization and growth of attached bacteria are important processes in the degradation and transformation of the particles. In an earlier study, we showed that the initial colonization of model particles by individual bacterial strains isolated from marine aggregates was a function of attachment and detachment. In the present study, we have investigated how this colonization process was further affected by growth and interspecific interactions among the bacteria. Long-term incubation experiments showed that growth dominated over attachment and detachment after a few hours in controlling the bacterial population density on agar particles. In the absence of grazing mortality, this growth led to an equilibrium population density consistent with the theoretical limit due to oxygen diffusion. Interspecific interaction experiments showed that the presence of some bacterial strains (“residents”) on the agar particles either increased or decreased the colonization rate of other strains (“newcomers”). Comparison between an antibiotic-producing strain and its antibiotic-free mutant showed no inhibitory effect on the newcomers due to antibiotic production. On the contrary, hydrolytic activity of the antibiotic-producing strain appeared to benefit the newcomers and enhance their colonization rate. These results show that growth- and species-specific interactions have to be taken into account to adequately describe bacterial colonization of marine particles. Changes in colonization pattern due to such small-scale processes may have profound effects on the transformation and fluxes of particulate matter in the ocean.
An investigation of the role of gene copy number variations in sorafenib sensitivity in metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma patients

Background: Metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a highly aggressive tumor with limited treatment options. While sorafenib has recently been shown to provide a survival advantage in patients with advanced HCC, the overall outcomes such as time to progression (TTP) and overall survival (OS) ought to be further improved. To that end, several targeted agents aimed at amplified oncogenes such as HER2 and FGFR2 have recently been developed. In this study, we aimed to identify genetic markers in the form of copy number variations (CNVs) that influence clinical outcomes post-sorafenib treatment in advanced HCC patients. Methods: We surveyed 38 metastatic HCC patients who were treated with sorafenib for the presence of CNVs using the NanoString nCounter assay. Results: The median TTP and OS for all patients were 2.7 months (95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.0-3.3 months) and 13.4 months (95% CI: 8.4-18.4 months), respectively. Several genes previously implicated in liver cancer were amplified, including CCND1 (n = 4), CDKN1A (n = 2), KRAS (n = 2), MDM2 (n = 1), and ERBB2 (n = 1). However, we found no correlations between CNVs and survival in our sorafenib-treated patients. Conclusions: The clinical features and biomarkers that account for sensitivity to sorafenib in HCC are complicated and remain unclear. Further investigation to identify predictive biomarkers and therapeutic strategies, including combining sorafenib with other target agents, are warranted.
Sost Deficiency does not Alter Bone’s Lacunar or Vascular Porosity in Mice

SCLEROSTIN (Sost) is expressed predominantly in osteocytes acting as a negative regulator of bone formation. In humans, mutations in the SOST gene lead to skeletal overgrowth and increased bone mineral density, suggesting that SCLEROSTIN is a key regulator of bone mass. The function of SCLEROSTIN as an inhibitor of bone formation is further supported by Sost knockout (KO) mice which display a high bone mass with elevated bone formation. Previous studies have indicated that Sost exerts its effect on bone formation through Wnt-mediated regulation of osteoblast differentiation, proliferation, and activity. Recent in vitro studies have also suggested that SCLEROSTIN regulates angiogenesis and osteoblast-to-osteocyte transition. Despite this wealth of knowledge of the mechanisms responsible for SCLEROSTIN action, no previous studies have examined whether SCLEROSTIN regulates osteocyte and vascular configuration in cortices of mouse tibia. Herein, we image tibiae from Sost KO mice and their wild-type (WT) counterparts with high-resolution CT to examine whether lack of SCLEROSTIN influences the morphometric properties of lacunae and vascular canal porosity relating to osteocytes and vessels within cortical bone. Male Sost KO and WT mice (n = 6/group) were sacrificed at 12 weeks of age. Fixed tibiae were analyzed using microCT to examine cortical bone mass and architecture. Then, samples were imaged by using benchtop and synchrotron nano-computed tomography at the tibiofibular junction. Our data, consistent with previous studies show that, Sost deficiency leads to significant enhancement of bone mass by cortical thickening and bigger cross-sectional area and we find that this occurs without modifications of tibial ellipticity, a measure of bone shape. In addition, our data show that there are no significant differences in any lacunar or vascular morphometric or geometric parameters between Sost KO mouse tibia and WT counterparts. We, therefore, conclude that the significant increases in bone mass induced by Sost deficiency are not accompanied by any significant modification in the density, organization, or shape of osteocyte lacunae or vascular content within the cortical bone. These data may imply that SCLEROSTIN does not modify the frequency of osteocytogenic recruitment of osteoblasts to initiate terminal osteocytic differentiation in mice.
Child-friendly divorcing: Incremental hierarchy learning in Bayesian networks

The autonomous learning of concept hierarchies is still a matter of research. Here we present a learning schema for Bayesian networks which results in a nested structure of sub- and superclass relationships. It is based on so-called parent divorcing but exploits the similarity of all nodes involved as expressed by their connectivity pattern. If the procedure is applied to simple object-property pairings a nested taxonomic hierarchy emerges. We further show how the learning procedure can be aligned with basic results from developmental psychology. For this we made a set of simulations which clearly indicate that a fixed developmental order of sensory maturation is crucial for the emerging conceptual system. The learning procedure itself is biologically plausible since it works incrementally, makes use of only local information and leads to a reduced computational effort by building a more efficient representation.
Predictors of Response to (Etanercept) in the Treatment of Iraqi Patients with Active Rheumatoid Arthritis

Background: Since the introduction of tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) inhibitors including etanercept, their efficacy and safety in treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have been studied in many randomized controlled clinical trials. However, data regarding predictors of clinical response to anti-TNF therapy are still sparse.Objective: To assess the predictors of response to etanercept in treatment of Iraqi patients with active RA.Methods: An open label single group prospective study was conducted over 15 months on 190 Iraqi patients with RA. All the included patients were given etanercept at a dose of 50 mg by subcutaneous injection ona weeklybases. Each patient was followed at regular intervals of baseline,1, 3 and 6 months for disease activity using Disease Activity Score 28 (DAS28). Also we assess six different patients characteristics (age, gender, disease duration, the presence of rheumatoid factor, smoking status and the concomitant use of methotrexate) as predictors to etanercept response.Results: Data analysis showed a significant improvement in DAS28 with etanercept use over a period of 6 months. Females were more respondent to treatment than males. The concomitant use of methotrexate showed highly significant correlation with the treatment response. The other variables had no significant effect on response to treatment.Conclusion: Female gender and concomitant use of methotrexate have a significant correlation with response to etanercept treatment.