Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimizing Video Transmission over Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks

This paper proposes an efficient packet scheduling scheme for minimizing perceived video distortion and power consumption over multipath wireless multimedia sensor networks. The proposed scheduling algorithm is responsible for transmitting the video packets over selected multipaths according to their importance (high priority packets over high bandwidth paths). Moreover, whenever the aggregate transmission rate available at the network cannot support the required transmission rate due to high packet loss probability, the scheduling algorithm can selectively drop combinations of video packets prior to transmission to adapt the rate of the sender to the limitations of the wireless channel capacity. The video packets that will be dropped prior to transmission are selected based on a recursive distortion prediction model that has been customized for H.264/AVC coding scheme and counts for isolated losses, burst of losses and losses separated with small lag. Two scheduling algorithms are proposed. The baseline scheme utilizes a novel distortion prediction model and decides upon which packet can be dropped prior to transmission based on the packets impact on the video distortion. Moreover, the power aware packet scheduling is an extension of the baseline capable of estimating the power that will be consumed by each node during the transmission; hence it can control the power consumption by selectively drop the least significant video packets prior to transmission. Simulation results indicate the efficiency of the proposed scheduling scheme in terms of received video distortion (PSNR) and power consumption.
Sensors, Medical Images and Signal Processing: Ubiquitous Personalized Health Monitoring

Summary Objectives To summarize excellent research in the field of medical sensor, signal and imaging informatics published in the year 2011. Methods Synopsis of the articles selected for the IMIA (International Medical Informatics Association) Yearbook 2012 through a manual initial selection and a peer review process to find the best paper in this domain published in 2011. Results Current research in the field of sensors, signal, and imaging informatics is characterized by theoretically sound techniques and evaluations with focus in imaging informatics. An increased number of systems with embedded signal processing where sensors include signal processing were observed in 2011. In all domains, pragmatic solutions with the goal of clinical impact have grown, including in developing countries where simple, robust techniques are combined to address primary and simple medical problems with potentially high impact. Finally, recent advances in image and signal processing are moving towards patient-based modeling. Conclusions The best paper selection of articles on sensors, signal, and imaging informatics shows examples of excellent research on methods concerning theoretically sound original development in this field in the year 2012.
Linear evolution of sandwave packets

We investigate how a local topographic disturbance of a flat seabed may become morphodynamically active, according to the linear instability mechanism which gives rise to sandwave formation. The seabed evolution follows from a Fourier integral, which can generally not be evaluated in closed form. As numerical integration is rather cumbersome and not transparent, we propose an analytical way to approximate the solution. This method, using properties of the fastest growing mode only, turns out to be quick, insightful, and to perform well. It shows how a local disturbance develops gradually into a sandwave packet, the area of which increases roughly linearly with time. The elevation at the packet? s center ultimately tends to increase, but this may be preceded by an initial stage of decrease, depending on the spatial extent of the initial disturbance. In the case of tidal asymmetry, the individual sandwaves in the packet migrate at the migration speed of the fastest growing mode, whereas the envelope moves at the group speed. Finally, we apply the theory to trenches and pits and show where results differ from an earlier study in which sandwave dynamics have been ignored.
Arginine-Dependent Acid Resistance in Salmonella enterica Serovar Typhimurium

ABSTRACT Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium does not survive a pH 2.5 acid challenge under conditions similar to those used for Escherichia coli (J. W. Foster, Nat. Rev. Microbiol. 2:898-907, 2004). Here, we provide evidence that S. enterica serovar Typhimurium can display arginine-dependent acid resistance (AR) provided the cells are grown under anoxic conditions and not under the microaerobic conditions used for assessment of AR in E. coli. The role of the arginine decarboxylase pathway in Salmonella AR was shown by the loss of AR in mutants lacking adiA, which encodes arginine decarboxylase; adiC, which encodes the arginine-agmatine antiporter; or adiY, which encodes an AraC-like regulator. Transcription of adiA and adiC was found to be dependent on AdiY, anaerobiosis, and acidic pH.
Numerical Simulation and Optimization Design on Acoustic Absorbent Lining

The performance of an acoustic absorbent lining can be significantly related to the shape of the introduced holes inside the lining, the general shape of holes can be designed by the topology optimization. In this paper, the finite element model of an acoustic absorbent lining is built, the acoustic and structure response characteristics are performed by used of the direct finite element method(FEM) when the plane acoustic wave is incident on the lining surfaces. The reflect coefficients are formulated and computed according to both the response results and the impedance translation theory. Then, the weight sum of reflect coefficients in a frequency range is chosen as the objective function, the densities of every elements are chosen as the design variables, a topology optimization design is performed for designing the general shape of holes inside the lining. The example results are presented for validating the effectiveness of the topology optimization.
CCN economics: Can ISPs profit by introducing CCN?

Content centric networking (CCN) has attracted a great deal of attention as a network that can efficiently deliver content. In CCN, content is delivered using the content name, instead of the host IP address, from cache memory implemented at routers. The nodes sending content are not explicitly indicated, and content is delivered from routers that have copies of content on the routes where the Interest packets are transmitted. Therefore, as a result of introducing CCN in ISP networks, the pattern of traffic exchanges among ISPs will change considerably. Customer ISPs normally pay a transit fee to transit ISPs based on the traffic volume transmitted on the transit links. Therefore, the introduction of CCN by ISPs will affect the profit of ISPs. CCN is introduced and operated by ISPs based on their business judgment, so it is important to estimate how CCN affects ISP profit in order to investigate the likelihood of CCN spreading among many ISPs. In this paper, we formalize the profit of ISPs when implementing CCN, assuming a hierarchical topology of ISPs in three levels and investigate the likelihood of CCN spreading through numerical evaluation.
Immunologic phenotype of cultured endothelial cells: quantitative analysis of cell surface molecules.

Endothelial cells express a wide spectrum of surface molecules involved in multiple vascular functions. We quantitatively determined an extensive immunologic phenotype of endothelial cells through a large panel of antibodies directed against i) well-known endothelial molecules CD31, CD34, CD49b, e, f, CD51, CD54, CD55, CD62E and P, CD105, CD106, HLA class I and HLA class II; ii) molecules defined by monoclonal antibodies newly clustered during the 6th workshop of Human Leukocyte Differentiation Antigen (HLDA) CD109, CD140b, CD141, CD142, CD143, CD144, CDw145, CD146 and CD147; iii) molecules defined by unclustered monoclonal antibodies. The expression of these molecules was quantified on human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) cultured in resting conditions and after stimulation with IL-1beta (10 U/ml), TNF-alpha (10 ng/ml) and phorbol myristate acetate (60 ng/ml). Some molecules were constitutively expressed, and others were negative, which served to determine the basal phenotype. After cell stimulation, the molecules showed weak or strong expression modulation, leading to the definition of an activated phenotype. Changes in the kinetics and the amplitude of expression served to characterize poorly defined molecules and may be useful to determine their physiologic role. Also, we compared the phenotypes of endothelial cell lines EA.hy 926 and ECV 304 to that of HUVEC to assess their reliability as an endothelial cell model. Each cell line displayed a specific repertoire of molecules expressed at different levels, which could have significant implications for cell line behavior as endothelial cells.
Nordic PISA 2000 in a sociocultural perspective

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an international study coordinated by governments of participating countries, through the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In 2000, a total of 265,000 students from 32 countries took part in PISA. The main aim of PISA is to assess how well 15-year-old students are prepared to meet the challenges of today’s and tomorrow’s knowledge societies. The assessment is forward looking, focusing on young people’s ability to use their knowledge and skills to meet real-life challenges, rather than mastering a specific school curriculum. Assessing young people at the end of their compulsory education is regarded as providing valuable insights into the performance of basic education systems (OECD, 1999, 2001). PISA 2000 covered three domains: reading literacy, mathematical literacy and scientific literacy. In 2000 priority was given to reading literacy, with mathematical and scientific literacy assessed in lesser depth. PISA will continue in three-year cycles, the focus shifting between the three domains. In 2003 the focus was on mathematical literacy, and in 2006 it will be on scientific literacy. In the future, with the collection of data in the same domain every three years, it will be possible to examine trends in student performance over time. In addition to assessing students’ performance in the three core domains, PISA examines competencies across disciplinary boundaries such as students’ motivation, attitudes and learning strategies, as well as comfort with and perceived ability to use computers. Furthermore, various background factors such as students’ socio-economic and cultural home background, family structure and immigration status, educational resources and cultural activities outside school are surveyed (OECD, 2001).
Barotrauma and Decompression Illness of the Inner Ear: 46 Cases During Treatment and Follow-Up

Introduction: Diving accidents affecting the inner ear are much more common than was once thought. Among the 319 patients treated in our clinic between January 2002 and November 2005, 46 cases involved 44 divers with symptoms of acute inner ear disorders. The objective of the present article is to investigate the symptoms of the acute disorders and assess any residual damage. Study Design: Retrospective case analysis. Materials and Methods: The medical records were used to study the cases of 18 divers treated for inner ear decompression illness on 20 occasions and 26 divers who had inner ear barotrauma. The symptoms of the disorder at the beginning of treatment, latency period before the first therapeutic measures, kind of initial therapy, symptoms after the accident, and hearing and balance functions at the last examination in our clinic were assessed. Divers with inner ear decompression illness were examined via means of transcranial or carotid Doppler ultrasonography for the presence of a vascular right-to-left (R/L) shunt. Results: Of 18 divers with inner ear decompression illness, 17 reported vertigo as the main symptom. In one diver, the inner ear decompression illness was manifested bilaterally. The divers with inner ear decompression illness had been treated with hyperbaric oxygen therapy in 14 of 20 cases; the average latency period before the start of therapy was 40 hours (median, 10 h). In 15 (83%) of 18 patients, a large R/L shunt was detected, and in 14 (78%) of 18 patients, residual cochleovestibular damage was detected. Only 9 of 26 patients with inner ear barotrauma mentioned feeling dizzy, and in no patient was vertigo the main symptom. Twenty-one patients complained of tinnitus, whereas 20 complained of hearing loss. The hearing loss ranged from an unobtrusive difference of 10 dB between the ears up to complete deafness. Three patients were subjected to tympanoscopy because of suspected rupture of the round window membrane. Of patients with inner ear barotrauma, 78% had residual cochleovestibular damage. Conclusion: We describe for the first time a patient with bilateral manifestation of inner ear decompression illness. Inner ear decompression illness is frequently associated with a R/L shunt; therefore, after a diving accident, the patient's fitness to dive should be assessed via a specialist in diving medicine. Both decompression illness and barotrauma of the inner ear result in residual cochleovestibular damage in more than three of four patients.
An Achievable Rate Region for Relay Multiple Access Channel Based on Decode-and-Forward

In this paper, we model a specific relay channel named relay multiple access channel (RMAC) aiming at providing a clue to select the relay node in multiple access channels such as the uplink of cellular communication system. In this channel, the relay node not only aids to send the information of the source but also sends its private message to the destination. We derive the achievable rate regions based on decode-and- forward strategy for the discrete memoryless RMAC (DM-RMAC) and the additive white Gaussian noise RMAC (AWGN-RMAC), respectively. Numerical results of the achievable rate region for the AWGN-RMAC show that the proposed scheme can improve the rate of user far from the base station with the help of a relay node near to the base station. Copyright © 2013 IFSA.
Performance Evaluation of Search Engines Using Enhanced Vector Space Model

Vector space model allows computing a continuous degree of similarity between queries and retrieved documents and then ranks the documents in increasing order of cosine (similarity) value. It computes cosine or similarity value using their cosine function. The cosine function computes the similarity value by computing the weight of each term in the documents using a weighting scheme but it is a complex process to compute the weight of each term in the documents. It is also found that sometimes it fails to compute a similarity score, Firstly if there is only one document in the corpus and query terms match with the document and secondly, if the number of documents containing query terms and total number of documents retrieved are equal. To address this problem in order to improve the performance, we proposed an enhanced approach for computation of cosine or similarity value by enhancing the vector space model. Our work intends to analyze and implement our proposed method in performance evaluation of three search engines Google, Yahoo and MSN. To verify our method, we compared our proposed method with a manually computed relevance score and found that our evaluations match with manual method.
A qualitative investigation into the patient-centered goal-setting practices of allied health clinicians working in rehabilitation

Objective: To explore the ways clinicians engage rehabilitation patients in patient-centered goal setting and identify factors influencing the goal-setting process. Design: Ethnographic study utilizing observed practice—thematic analysis. Setting: Four rehabilitation wards of a large metropolitan hospital in Melbourne, Australia. Subjects: Participants included 17 rehabilitation patients, 18 allied health clinicians and one family member. Disciplines represented were speech pathology, occupational therapy, social work and physiotherapy. Method: Multiple qualitative methods were used. A total of 18 routine goal-setting interviews between clinicians and patients were audio recorded and transcribed. Together with associated entries in the patient medical record, transcripts were coded and developed into themes using thematic analysis. Finally, focus groups with clinicians were conducted to validate themes identified. Results: Three themes were identified describing factors which influence patient centeredness: “a goal-setting collaboration”—the interpersonal exchange between client and clinician; “the environment”—physical, temporal and structural; and “clinician self-awareness”—clinicians’ insight into the ways they influence goal setting. The practice of patient-centered goal setting varied considerably between clinicians. Goals developed were strongly influenced by the clinician’s views, although strategies of respect for the patient and reflective listening skills increased patient participation and the patient centeredness of goals developed. Conclusion: Goals developed with rehabilitation patients are more likely to be patient-centered when the interaction encourages the patient to express their needs and preferences, and these are heard by the clinician. For this to influence treatment, it must occur in an environment structured to support and value patient-centered goals.
Topological Similarity of Random Cell Complexes and Applications to Dislocation Configurations

Although random cell complexes occur throughout the physical sciences, there does not appear to be a standard way to quantify their statistical similarities and differences. The various proposals in the literature are usually motivated by the analysis of particular physical systems and do not necessarily apply to general situations. The central concepts in this paper-the swatch and the cloth-provide a description of the local topology of a cell complex that is general (any physical system that can be represented as a cell complex is admissible) and complete (any statistical question about the local topology can be answered from the cloth). Furthermore, this approach allows a distance to be defined that measures the similarity of the local topology of two cell complexes. The distance is used to identify a steady state of a model grain boundary network, quantify the approach to this steady state, and show that the steady state is independent of the initial conditions. The same distance is then employed to show that the long-term properties in simulations of a specific model of a dislocation network do not depend on the implementation of dislocation intersections.
The Meningococcal Vaccine Candidate Neisserial Surface Protein A (NspA) Binds to Factor H and Enhances Meningococcal Resistance to Complement

Complement forms an important arm of innate immunity against invasive meningococcal infections. Binding of the alternative complement pathway inhibitor factor H (fH) to fH-binding protein (fHbp) is one mechanism meningococci employ to limit complement activation on the bacterial surface. fHbp is a leading vaccine candidate against group B Neisseria meningitidis. Novel mechanisms that meningococci employ to bind fH could undermine the efficacy of fHbp-based vaccines. We observed that fHbp deletion mutants of some meningococcal strains showed residual fH binding suggesting the presence of a second receptor for fH. Ligand overlay immunoblotting using membrane fractions from one such strain showed that fH bound to a ∼17 kD protein, identified by MALDI-TOF analysis as Neisserial surface protein A (NspA), a meningococcal vaccine candidate whose function has not been defined. Deleting nspA, in the background of fHbp deletion mutants, abrogated fH binding and mAbs against NspA blocked fH binding, confirming NspA as a fH binding molecule on intact bacteria. NspA expression levels vary among strains and expression correlated with the level of fH binding; over-expressing NspA enhanced fH binding to bacteria. Progressive truncation of the heptose (Hep) I chain of lipooligosaccharide (LOS), or sialylation of lacto-N-neotetraose LOS both increased fH binding to NspA-expressing meningococci, while expression of capsule reduced fH binding to the strains tested. Similar to fHbp, binding of NspA to fH was human-specific and occurred through fH domains 6–7. Consistent with its ability to bind fH, deleting NspA increased C3 deposition and resulted in increased complement-dependent killing. Collectively, these data identify a key complement evasion mechanism with important implications for ongoing efforts to develop meningococcal vaccines that employ fHbp as one of its components.
Sum-rates of radio-over-fiber small cell networks and massive MIMO for indoor communications

Small cell networks (SCN) and massive MIMO are both promising techniques for improving the network capacity. In this paper, we consider applying both concepts for indoor communications based on a radio-over-fiber (RoF) infrastructure. We give a comparison of the achievable sum-rates using the same system configurations which include the same set of active antennas and the same power constraints. The sum-rates are further optimized based on Geometric Programming, under both sum power constraint (SPC) and per antenna power constraint (PAPC). The numerical results indicates that both SCN and Massive MIMO offers a high network capacity. The capacity can be significantly increased when the number of antennas is a few times larger than the simultaneously served mobile stations (STAs). Massive MIMO performs much better provided that the inter-stream interference (ISI) can be canceled by the precoding techniques such as zero-forcing (ZF). However, with maximum ratio transmission (MRT), the performance of massive MIMO is poorer than SCN.
General Approach for Tetramer-Based Identification of Autoantigen-Reactive B Cells: Characterization of La- and snRNP-Reactive B Cells in Autoimmune BXD2 Mice

Autoreactive B cells are associated with the development of several autoimmune diseases, including systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis. The low frequency of these cells represents a major barrier to their analysis. Ag tetramers prepared from linear epitopes represent a promising strategy for the identification of small subsets of Ag-reactive immune cells. This is challenging given the requirement for identification and validation of linear epitopes and the complexity of autoantibody responses, including the broad spectrum of autoantibody specificities and the contribution of isotype to pathogenicity. Therefore, we tested a two-tiered peptide microarray approach, coupled with epitope mapping of known autoantigens, to identify and characterize autoepitopes using the BXD2 autoimmune mouse model. Microarray results were verified through comparison with established age-associated profiles of autoantigen specificities and autoantibody class switching in BXD2 and control (C57BL/6) mice and high-throughput ELISA and ELISPOT analyses of synthetic peptides. Tetramers were prepared from two linear peptides derived from two RNA-binding proteins (RBPs): lupus La and 70-kDa U1 small nuclear ribonucleoprotein. Flow cytometric analysis of tetramer-reactive B cell subsets revealed a significantly higher frequency and greater numbers of RBP-reactive marginal zone precursor, transitional T3, and PDL-2+CD80+ memory B cells, with significantly elevated CD69 and CD86 observed in RBP+ marginal zone precursor B cells in the spleens of BXD2 mice compared with C57BL/6 mice, suggesting a regulatory defect. This study establishes a feasible strategy for the characterization of autoantigen-specific B cell subsets in different models of autoimmunity and, potentially, in humans.