Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On the passivation of interface states in SONOS test structures: impact of device layout and annealing process

This paper reports the experimental evidence of anomalous electrical characteristics of large test structures for the characterization of SONOS gate stacks. The anomaly is studied on devices featuring different layout and it is attributed to the property of silicon nitride to block the hydrogen anneal and the passivation of the Si/SiO/sub 2/ interface dangling bonds. Since the hydrogen passivation can occur only from the lateral sides of the device, our findings imply restrictions on the dimensions and on the layout of the test structures used to study the electrical properties of SONOS devices.
Conjugated oral versus transdermal estrogen replacement in girls with Turner syndrome: a pilot comparative study.

BACKGROUND The optimal route of estrogen replacement in Turner syndrome (TS) is unknown. OBJECTIVE The objective of the study was to compare conjugated oral vs. transdermal estrogen (TD E2) on bone accrual, uterine growth, pubertal development, IGF-I, and lipids in girls with TS. METHODS Prepubertal GH-treated girls aged 10 yr or older with TS were eligible. Subjects were randomized to conjugated oral estrogen or TD E2 for 1 yr. Assessments included dual-emission x-ray absorptiometry, pelvic ultrasound, Tanner staging, growth velocity, IGF-I, and lipid profile. RESULTS Twelve girls (14.0 +/- 1.7 yr) were enrolled. TD E2 resulted in a significantly greater change in spine bone density at 12 months compared with conjugated oral estrogen (bone mineral content 9.0 +/- 0.9 vs. 5.8 +/- 0.9 g, P = 0.04; bone mineral density 0.12 +/- 0.01 vs. 0.06 +/- 0.01 g/cm2, P = 0.004; Z-score 0.7 +/- 0.1 vs. 0.3 +/- 0.1, P = 0.03). Greater increases in uterine length (4.13 +/- 0.39 vs. 1.98 +/- 0.39 cm, P = 0.003) and volume (22.2 +/- 4.4 vs. 4.0 +/- 4.4 ml, P = 0.02) were also found in the TD vs. the oral group at 1 yr. At study end, 66% of subjects in the TD group had a mature uterus vs. 0% in the oral group. No significant differences in other parameters examined were seen. CONCLUSION In girls with TS, TD E2 resulted in faster bone accrual at the spine and increased uterine growth compared with conjugated oral estrogen. This pilot study provides preliminary information for optimizing estrogen replacement in this population.
Adaptive processing applied to the design of highly digital analog interfaces

The paper proposes the use of complex adaptive processing as a means to reduce the analog to digital design gap on mixed-signal systems. Linear and non-linear adaptive filters are used to compensate for the non-idealities on the analog acquisition path allowing the use of low cost analog blocks. Several different digital architectures are investigated to increase resolution and reduce non-linearities for a target two-tone acquisition application. A prototype board is designed and the theoretical and measured results are analyzed.
Trading Wind Generation From Short-Term Probabilistic Forecasts of Wind Power

Due to the fluctuating nature of the wind resource, a wind power producer participating in a liberalized electricity market is subject to penalties related to regulation costs. Accurate forecasts of wind generation are therefore paramount for reducing such penalties and thus maximizing revenue. Despite the fact that increasing accuracy in spot forecasts may reduce penalties, this paper shows that, if such forecasts are accompanied with information on their uncertainty, i.e., in the form of predictive distributions, then this can be the basis for defining advanced strategies for market participation. Such strategies permit to further increase revenues and thus enhance competitiveness of wind generation compared to other forms of dispatchable generation. This paper formulates a general methodology for deriving optimal bidding strategies based on probabilistic forecasts of wind generation, as well as on modeling of the sensitivity a wind power producer may have to regulation costs. The benefits resulting from the application of these strategies are clearly demonstrated on the test case of the participation of a multi-MW wind farm in the Dutch electricity market over a year.
Isotonic characteristics of a pneumatic muscle actuator

The article presents the problems of determination of the static characteristics of the pneumatic muscle actuator for an artificial hand. The procedure of experimental investigation of the constant load characteristics (the so called isotonic characteristics) of the muscle is described. A new mathematical model for the isotonic characteristics is developed based on the geometry of the muscle. The new model provides a very good agreement between the calculation and experimental results. Graphical Abstract
Bis(4-carbamoylpiperidinium) biphenyl-4,4′-disulfonate

In the title isonipecotamide salt 2C6H13N2O+·C12H8O6S2 2−, the asymmetric unit comprises one biphenyl-4,4′-disulfonate dianion which lies across a crystallographic inversion centre and another in a general position [dihedral angle between the two phenyl rings is 37.1 (1)°], together with three isonipecotamide cations. Two of these cations give a cyclic homomeric amide–amide dimer interaction [graph set R 2 2(8)], the other giving a similar dimeric interaction but across an inversion centre, both dimers then forming lateral cyclic R 4 2(8) pyrimidinium–amide N—H⋯O interactions. These units are linked both laterally and longitudinally to the sulfonate groups of the dianions through piperidinium N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds, giving a three-dimensional framework structure.
Rescue of abnormal phenotypes in δ2 glutamate receptor‐deficient mice by the extracellular N‐terminal and intracellular C‐terminal domains of the δ2 glutamate receptor

The δ2 glutamate receptor (GluRδ2) is expressed predominantly in cerebellar Purkinje cells. GluRδ2 knock‐out mice show impaired synaptogenesis and loss of long‐term depression (LTD) at parallel fiber/Purkinje cell synapses, and persistent multiple climbing fiber (CF) innervation of Purkinje cells, resulting in severe ataxia. To identify domains critical for GluRδ2 function, we produced various GluRδ2 deletion constructs. Using lentiviral vectors, those constructs were expressed in Purkinje cells of GluRδ2‐deficient mice at postnatal day (P) 6 or 7, and rescue of abnormal phenotypes was examined beyond P30. Most constructs failed to rescue the defects of GluRδ2‐deficient mice, mainly because they were not efficiently transferred to the postsynaptic sites. However, a construct carrying only the extracellular N‐terminal domain (NTD) and the intracellular C‐terminal domain (CTD) linked with the fourth transmembrane domain of GluRδ2 (NTD‐TM4‐CTD) caused incomplete, but significant rescue of ataxia, consistent with relatively better transport of the construct to the synapses. Notably, the expression of NTD‐TM4‐CTD in GluRδ2‐deficient Purkinje cells restored abrogated LTD, and aberrant CF territory in the molecular layer. Although the expression of NTD‐TM4‐CTD failed to rescue persistent multiple CF innervation of GluRδ2‐deficient Purkinje cells, a similar construct in which only TM4 was replaced with a transmembrane domain of CD4 successfully rescued the multiple CF innervation, probably due to more efficient transport of the protein to postsynaptic sites. These results suggest that NTD and CTD are critical domains of GluRδ2, which functions substantially without conventional ligand binding and ion channel structures.
Low Overhead CS-Based Heterogeneous Framework for Big Data Acceleration

Big data processing on hardware gained immense interest among the hardware research community to take advantage of fast processing and reconfigurability. Though the computation latency can be reduced using hardware, big data processing cost is dominated by data transfers. In this article, we propose a low overhead framework based on compressive sensing (CS) to reduce data transfers up to 67% without affecting signal quality. CS has two important kernels: “sensing” and “reconstruction. ” In this article, we focus on CS reconstruction is using orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP) algorithm. We implement the OMP CS reconstruction algorithm on a domain-specific PENC many-core platform and a low-power Jetson TK1 platform consisting of an ARM CPU and a K1 GPU. Detailed performance analysis of OMP algorithm on each platform suggests that the PENC many-core platform has 15× and 18× less energy consumption and 16× and 8× faster reconstruction time as compared to the low-power ARM CPU and K1 GPU, respectively. Furthermore, we implement the proposed CS-based framework on heterogeneous architecture, in which the PENC many-core architecture is used as an “accelerator” and processing is performed on the ARM CPU platform. For demonstration, we integrate the proposed CS-based framework with a hadoop MapReduce platform for a face detection application. The results show that the proposed CS-based framework with the PENC many-core as an accelerator achieves a 26.15% data storage/transfer reduction, with an execution time and energy consumption overhead of 3.7% and 0.002%, respectively, for 5,000 image transfers. Compared to the CS-based framework implementation on the low-power Jetson TK1 ARM CPU+GPU platform, the PENC many-core implementation is 2.3× faster for the image reconstruction part, while achieving 29% higher performance and 34% better energy efficiency for the complete face detection application on the Hadoop MapReduce platform.
Estimating Willingness to Pay for E85 in the United States Using an Intercept Survey of Flex Motorists

&NA; Compliance with the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) in the United States will require price incentives for a substantial number of motorists with flex‐fuel vehicles to switch to high ethanol‐gasoline blends. Existing estimates of motorists' willingness to pay for high‐ethanol blends use data from Brazil, data generated when prices greatly favored low‐ethanol blends, or stated preference data collected from mail and online surveys. We conducted an intercept survey of flex motorists as they refueled in five U.S. states. We overcome the problem caused by sample prices favoring low‐ethanol blends by augmenting revealed preference data with stated preference data. A sample‐selection problem arises because motorists with high willingness to pay seek out the relatively few stations that sell high‐ethanol blends. We use responses from two questions to inform sample selection. We find the average U.S. motorist requires a substantial discount to switch to high ethanol blends beyond the price that equates the cost per mile of driving.
Suppression of early T-cell–receptor-triggered cellular activation by the Janus kinase 3 inhibitor WHI-P-154

Background. Therapeutic targeting of Janus kinase 3 (JAK3) has received particular attention, because it is associated with the common &ggr; signaling of cytokine receptors and thus vitally influences T-cell growth and survival. Recent evidence, however, indicates a critical role for JAK3 in signaling linked to the T-cell antigen receptor. Methods. In this study we investigated whether targeting JAK3 with a rationally designed inhibitor affects early T-cell activation events. T cells were stimulated by CD3 and CD28 cross-linking, and interleukin (IL)-2 production, activation marker expression, increase of free intracellular Ca2+ concentration, activation of the extracellular-related kinase, and nuclear translocation of transcription factors were evaluated. Results. We found that JAK3 inhibitor treatment dramatically impaired T-cell–receptor (TCR)-induced IL-2 production, surface activation marker expression (CD69, CD154), and homotypic T-cell aggregation. Accordingly, mRNA production of IL-2, interferon-&ggr;, and IL-10 was profoundly inhibited. Molecular analysis revealed that TCR-triggered phosphorylation of phospholipase C-&ggr;1, increase in cytoplasmic Ca2+ concentration, and activation of extracellular-related kinase were markedly reduced by the JAK3 inhibitor, resulting in substantially decreased DNA binding of nuclear factor of activated T cells and alkaline phosphatase-1 and subsequent IL-2 promoter activation. Remarkably, on TCR-independent stimulation, IL-2 production, CD69 expression, and blast formation were completely insensitive to JAK3 inhibitor treatment. Conclusion. These data indicate that pharmacologic targeting of JAK3 uncouples early TCR-triggered signaling from essential downstream events, which may have important implications for the use of such compounds in T-cell–mediated disorders such as allograft rejection or graft-versus-host disease.
Irreducible Plane Curves

Progress in the classi cation of plane curves in the last ve years has centered largely around the work of Arnold, Vassiliev, and Aicardi. The classical index theorem of H. Whitney (1937) classi es curves by index, up to isotopy. Arnold has recently proposed new curve invariants (J, J , and St) with the aim of nding classi cations of curves with the same index, up to ambient di eomorphisms of the plane and reparametrizations of the curve. Since these new invariants still do not uniquely determine curves, new ways of classifying curves up to di eomorphisms have been sought. A certain class of curves (so called \reducible" curves) appears to be classiable by direct consideration via relatively simple combinatorial methods involving combinations of irreducible curves. This shifts the focus to the classi cation of the irreducible curves, whose characterization appears to be simpli ed by association with certain types of planar graphs. 1 Reducibility of Curves Throughout this article, \ambient di eomorphisms of the plane and reparametrizations of the curve" may be shortened to \di eomorphisms. " \Distinct" is short for \distinct up to di eomorphisms. " De nition 1.1. An immersion of a circle into the plane is a smooth mapping of a circle into the plane : S ! R whose derivative never vanishes. De nition 1.2. A double point (respectively, n-point) on an immersion of a circle into the plane is a point that is the image of exactly two (respectively, n) points on S under . The term crossing will be used interchangeably with double point. Under the guidance of Professor Juha Pohjanpelto of Oregon State University
Auxiliary Beam Pair Enabled AoD and AoA Estimation in Closed-Loop Large-Scale Millimeter-Wave MIMO Systems

Channel estimation is of critical importance in millimeter-wave (mmWave) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. Due to the use of large antenna arrays, low-complexity mmWave specific channel estimation algorithms are required. In this paper, an auxiliary beam pair design is proposed to provide high-resolution estimates of the channel’s angle-of-departure (AoD) and angle-of-arrival (AoA) for mmWave MIMO systems. By performing an amplitude comparison with respect to each auxiliary beam pair, a set of ratio measures that characterize the channel’s AoD and AoA are obtained by the receiver. Either the best ratio measure or the estimated AoD is quantized and fed back to the transmitter via a feedback channel. The proposed technique can be incorporated into control channel design to minimize initial access delay. Though the design principles are derived assuming a high-power regime, evaluation under more realistic assumption shows that by employing the proposed method, good angle estimation performance is achieved under various signal-to-noise ratio levels and channel conditions.
Diffusion Tensor Imaging in Cerebral Tumor Diagnosis and Therapy

Diffusion-weighted MR images and their analysis using the tensor model open up many new possibilities for tissue characterization, surgical planning, and treatment follow-up in patients with cerebral neoplasms. These possibilities are only just beginning to be fully explored. This article reviews the physical principles underlying diffusion tensor imaging (DTI); the various postprocessing methods available for DTI data in the context of tumor imaging; the commonly encountered patterns of tumor-related alteration to cerebral white matter, as depicted by directionally encoded color maps; and the current state of the art in DTI-based tumor diagnosis and treatment planning.
Transgender and transsexual people’s sexuality in the media

For decades, as a means to protect themselves from being incorporated into cabaret, prostitution or pornography by the media, people self-identifying as transsexual have forbidden themselves any form of sexuality. As for people who recognize themselves as transgender, they only experienced media coverage, confessional [confidentielle] and contentious, later. If transsexuals seem to have succeeded in shedding their sexuality, transgender people saw themselves dispossessed of their gender and loaded with sexuality; something which seems to have partially rendered invisible their critiques of the gender order, of binaries and of sexism. Media paradigms have had an impact in the field, creating confusion, division and competition.
Monitoring Agonist-induced Phospholipase C Activation in Live Cells by Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer*

Agonist-induced intracellular Ca2+ signals following phospholipase C (PLC) activation display a variety of patterns, including transient, sustained, and oscillatory behavior. These Ca2+ changes have been well characterized, but detailed kinetic analyses of PLC activation in single living cells is lacking, due to the absence of suitable indicators for use in vivo. Recently, green fluorescent protein-tagged pleckstrin homology domains have been employed to monitor PLC activation in single cells, based on (confocal) imaging of their fluorescence translocation from the membrane to the cytosol that occurs upon hydrolysis of phosphatidylinositol bisphosphate. Here we describe fluorescence resonance energy transfer between pleckstrin homology domains of PLCδ1 tagged with cyan and yellow fluorescent proteins as a sensitive readout of phosphatidylinositol bisphosphate metabolism for use both in cell populations and in single cells. Fluorescence resonance energy transfer requires significantly less excitation intensity, enabling prolonged and fast data acquisition without the cell damage that limits confocal experiments. It also allows experiments on motile or extremely flat cells, and can be scaled to record from cell populations as well as single neurites. Characterization of responses to various agonists by this method reveals that stimuli that elicit very similar Ca2+ mobilization responses can exhibit widely different kinetics of PLC activation, and that the latter appears to follow receptor activation more faithfully than the cytosolic Ca2+transient.
De l'appariement a l'indexation des images. (From image matching to image indexing)

Nous presentons dans ce document l'ensemble de nos travaux concernant l'appariement, la modelisation et l'indexation des images. Cet ensemble de techniques concourt au developpement d'un systeme de reconnaissance automatique d'images. Dans un premier temps, nous presentons diverses methodes d'appariement d'images adaptees specifiquement aux images structurees, texturees en niveaux de gris ou en couleur. Nous montrons comment faire cooperer ces methodes dans le cas d'images difficiles. La deuxieme partie est consacree a la modelisation d'images et de concepts visuels, modelisation qui repose sur une technique de regroupement hierarchique. La taille des groupes formes est calculee par une methode basee sur l'entropie. L'indexation des images occupe la fin du memoire. Deux cas sont etudies : celui du stockage des donnees en memoire vive, cas pour lequel nous fournissons des resultats de complexite, et celui du stockage en memoire auxiliaire, qui reste encore largement a explorer. Le tout est largement illustre de cas concrets et ouvre de nombreuses pistes de travail.
TiO2 nanoparticle‐induced neurotoxicity may be involved in dysfunction of glutamate metabolism and its receptor expression in mice

Titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2 NPs) have been used in environmental management, food, medicine, and industry. But TiO2 NPs have been demonstrated to cross the blood–brain barrier and store up in the brain organization, leading to glutamate‐mediated neurotoxicity. However, the neurotoxicity in the brain is not well understood. In this study, mice were exposed to 1.25, 2.5, or 5 mg/kg body weight TiO2 NPs for 9 months, and the glutamate–glutamine cyclic pathway and expressions of glutamate receptors associated with the hippocampal neurotoxicity were investigated. Our findings showed elevations of glutamate release and phosphate‐activated glutaminase activity, and reductions in glutamine and glutamine synthetase in the hippocampus following exposure to TiO2 NPs. Furthermore, TiO2 NPs significantly inhibited the expression of N‐methyl‐d‐aspartate receptor subunits (including NR1, NR2A, and NR2B) and metabotropic glutamate receptor 2 in mouse hippocampus. These findings suggest that the imbalance of glutamate metabolism triggered inhibitions of glutamate receptor expression in the TiO2 NP‐exposed hippocampus. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Environ Toxicol 31: 655–662, 2016.
Optimization of Gaussian Random Fields

Many engineering systems are subject to spatially distributed uncertainty, i.e., uncertainty that can be modeled as a random field. Altering the mean or covariance of this uncertainty will, in general, change the statistical distribution of the system outputs. We present an approach for computing the sensitivity of the statistics of system outputs with respect to the parameters describing the mean and covariance of the distributed uncertainty. This sensitivity information is then incorporated into a gradient-based optimizer to optimize the structure of the distributed uncertainty to achieve desired output statistics. This framework is applied to perform variance optimization for a model problem and to optimize the manufacturing tolerances of a gas turbine compressor blade.
Elevation of circulating endothelial microparticles in patients with chronic renal failure

Summary. Background: Chronic renal failure patients are at high risk of cardiovascular events and display endothelial dysfunction, a critical element in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. Upon activation, the endothelium sheds microparticles, considered as markers of endothelial dysfunction that also behave as vectors of bioactive molecules. Aim: To measure plasma levels of endothelial microparticles (EMPs) in chronic renal failure patients (CRF), either undialyzed or hemodialyzed (HD), and to investigate the ability of uremic toxins to induce EMP release in vitro. Methods: Circulating EMPs were numerated by flow cytometry, after staining of platelet‐free plasma with phycoerythrin (PE)‐conjugated anti‐CD144 (CD144+ EMP) or anti‐CD146 (CD146+ EMP) monoclonal antibodies. Platelet MP (CD41+ PMP), leukocyte MP (CD45+ leukocyte microparticles (LMP)), and annexin‐V+ MPs were also counted. In parallel, MPs were counted in supernatant of human umbilical vein endothelial cells incubated with uremic toxins [oxalate, indoxyl sulfate, p‐cresol, and homocysteine (Hcy)], at concentrations found in patients. Results and conclusions: CD144+ EMP and CD146+ EMP levels were significantly higher in CRF and HD patients than in healthy subjects. Furthermore, annexin‐V+ MPs were elevated in both groups of uremic patients, and CD41+ PMP and CD45+ LMP were increased in CRF and HD patients, respectively. In vitro, p‐cresol and indoxyl sulfate significantly increased both CD146+ and annexin‐V+ EMP release. Increased levels of circulating EMP in CRF and HD patients represent a new marker of endothelial dysfunction in uremia. The ability of p‐cresol and indoxyl sulfate to increase EMP release in vitro suggests that specific uremic factors may be involved in EMP elevation in patients.
High incidence of activating STAT5B mutations in CD4-positive T-cell large granular lymphocyte leukemia.

To the editor: Large granular lymphocyte (LGL) leukemia is a group of chronic lymphoproliferative disorders of cytotoxic T or natural killer (NK) cells frequently complicated with cytopenia and autoimmune phenomena. [1][1],[2][2] In the current World Health Organization (WHO) classification, T-LGL