Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Increased serum concentrations of tumor necrosis factor-alpha are associated with disease progression and malnutrition in hepatocellular carcinoma.

BACKGROUND Increased serum tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) concentrations are associated with disease progression in some cancers. Also, TNF-alpha is known as an important mediator of cancer cachexia. This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between serum TNF-alpha levels and disease and nutritional status in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. METHODS Thirty-one male cirrhotic patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (mean age: 65 +/- 2 years), 26 male cirrhotic patients without hepatocellular carcinoma (mean age: 59 +/- 3 years), and 25 male control subjects (mean age: 67 +/- 2 years) were included. Body fat mass was examined by bioelectrical impedance analysis. Serum TNF-alpha levels were measured by immunoassay. Hepatocellular carcinoma progression was staged by Okuda's classification. RESULTS Serum TNF-alpha values in 31 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma and 26 patients with cirrhosis were significantly above those of controls (12.3 +/- 0.7 pg/mL vs. 11.3 +/- 1.2 pg/mL vs. 5.8 +/- 0.7 pg/mL; p < 0.01), but showed no differences between hepatocellular carcinoma and cirrhotic patients. When hepatocellular carcinoma patients were grouped according to Okuda's classification, the serum TNF-alpha levels significantly increased with disease progression (p < 0.05). Only in patients at stage III (n = 5), but not at stages I (n = 13) and II (n = 13), was the serum TNF-alpha levels greater than those in cirrhotic patients (p < 0.05). The serum albumin values and body fat mass in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma were both lower than in controls [(34 +/- 1 g/L vs. 42 +/- 1 g/L; p < 0.01); (15.9 +/- 1.2 kg vs. 18.9 +/- 0.8 kg; p < 0.05), respectively]. Further, both decreased significantly with disease progression by Okuda staging [(37 +/- 1 g/L vs. 32 +/- 2 g/L vs. 30 +/- 1 g/L; p < 0.01); (19.4 +/- 1.6 kg vs. 13.9 +/- 1.8 kg vs. 11.7 +/- 2.0 kg; p < 0.05); respectively]. Finally, a negative correlation was found between serum TNF-alpha and both fat mass (p = -0.40; p < 0.05) and serum albumin (p = -0.45; p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS Our study demonstrated that serum TNF-alpha levels were increased in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, and associated with disease severity and nutrition status. However, serum TNF-alpha should not be used as a marker to early diagnose hepatocelluar carcinoma in cirrhotic patients.
Nonorthogonal pulseshapes for multicarrier communications in doubly dispersive channels

A new approach to multicarrier digital communication over time-varying, frequency selective fading channels is presented. We propose a transmission signal set whose basic structure is similar to standard orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDM)-setups, i.e., a system of functions generated by time and frequency-shifted versions of a pulse-like prototype function known as a Weyl-Heisenberg (WH) system. Unlike previous OFDM studies, however, which are restricted to the case of orthonormal pulses, we consider nonorthogonal pulses that are adapted to realistically available a priori knowledge of the channel. Perfect transmultiplexing in the case of an ideal channel is incorporated as a mathematical side-constraint. We derive the expected intersymbol/interchannel interference of such a nonorthogonal FDM (NOFDM) system under the assumption of a wide-sense stationary uncorrelated scattering (WSSUS) channel. Based on this result, we compare OFDM and NOFDM schemes with regard to robustness against delay/Doppler spread.
An �-Matrix-Based Integral-Equation Solver of Reduced Complexity and Controlled Accuracy for Solving Electrodynamic Problems

Using an matrix as the mathematical framework, we compactly represent a dense system matrix by a reduced set of parameters, thus enabling a significant reduction in computational complexity. The error bound of the -matrix-based representation of an electrodynamic problem was derived. We show that exponential convergence with respect to the number of interpolation points can be achieved irrespective of the electric size. In addition, we show that a direct application of -matrix-based techniques to electrodynamic problems would result in a complexity greater than , with being the matrix size, due to the need of increasing the rank when ascending an inverted tree in order to keep a constant order of accuracy. A rank function was hence developed to maintain the same order of accuracy in a wide range of electric sizes without compromising computational complexity. With this rank function, we demonstrate that given a range of electric sizes which lead to a range of , the dense system of parameters can be compactly stored in units, and the dense matrix-vector multiplication can be performed in operations. Moreover, the same order of accuracy can be kept across this range. The method is kernel independent, and hence is suitable for any integral-equation-based formulation. In addition, it is applicable to arbitrary structures. Numerical experiments from small electric sizes to 64 wavelengths have demonstrated the performance of the proposed method.
A robust spatio-temporal processing for multipath environments with an antenna array

In this paper, a novel algorithm of spatial and temporal equalization for multiuser detection with an antenna arrayis demonstrated. Our proposed approach enables us to reduce a high-level noise from noisy arraysignals with irrelevant signal measurements. Our robust approach includes three procedures. In the first procedure, a robust subspace technique is utilized to reduce a high-power of additive noise and a correlation among channels. In this procedure, we propose a scale-free method of cochannel interference reduction. Moreover, a cross-validation technique is applied to estimate the number of signals. In the second procedure, the independent component analysis (ICA) is applied to decompose independent components. In the third procedure, a self-adaptive multipath identification is presented. A self-adaptive algorithm is a practical technique for estimating the changing multipath in order to identify the dynamical channel. Applying our proposed approach to the experimental data, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our method.
A Systematic Literature Review on CMS-based Web Applications

CMS-based Web applications have increased their presence in the market because of the advantages they offer with regard to information management, thus offering a new landscape in Web application development. In this paper we analyze the current state-of-the-art on the existing approaches for the development of CMS-based Web applications. To do it, we have followed a Systematic Literature Review (SLR). As a result of this SLR we found four approaches in the literature focused on this issue. In this paper we focus our attention in studying the insights of each approach by following four criteria (Web Engineering views, MDA abstraction levels, modeling language and level of automation) and we discuss about the interest shown by the Web Engineering community about the CMS-based Web application development.
Gtdap-1 promotes autophagy and is required for planarian remodeling during regeneration and starvation

Remodeling is an integral component of tissue homeostasis and regeneration. In planarians, these processes occur constantly in a simple tractable model organism as part of the animal's normal life history. Here, we have studied the gene Gtdap-1, the planarian ortholog of human death-associated protein-1 or DAP-1. DAP-1, together with DAP-kinase, has been identified as a positive mediator of programmed cell death induced by γ-IFN in HeLa cells. Although the function of DAP-kinase is well characterized, the role of DAP-1 has not been studied in detail. Our findings suggest that Gtdap-1 is involved in autophagy in planarians, and that autophagy plays an essential role in the remodeling of the organism that occurs during regeneration and starvation, providing the necessary energy and building blocks to the neoblasts for cell proliferation and differentiation. The gene functions at the interface between survival and cell death during stress-inducing processes like regeneration and starvation in sexual and asexual races of planarians. Our findings provide insights into the complex interconnections among cell proliferation, homeostasis, and cell death in planarians and perspectives for the understanding of neoblast stem cell dynamics.
1 Megawatt, 20 kHz, isolated, bidirectional 12kV to 1.2kV DC-DC converter for renewable energy applications

The design of a 1 MW, 20 kHz, isolated, bidirectional 12kV to 1.2kV DC-DC converter for renewable energy applications is presented. The main topics addressed are: High-Voltage (HV) side switch, topology & modulation and Medium Frequency (MF) transformer. A study of the possible HV side switches, considering 4.5kV IGBTs is performed, fixing the requirements from the topology and modulation side in order to reach a highly efficient system. The studied topologies are the Dual Active Bridge (DAB) with triangular modulation and the Series Resonant Converter (SRC) with constant frequency operation. Both topologies are able to achieve Zero Current Switching (ZCS) in the HV side switches, reducing the switching losses in these devices, which contribute to a large share to the system losses. Efficiency curves are presented for different semiconductor technologies for the Low-Voltage (LV) side switch in order to study the trade-offs between the selected topologies. Three MF transformer concepts, namely core-type, shell-type and matrix transformer, are presented and compared in respect of winding arrangement, isolation mechanisms and thermal management. Power losses and volume are calculated in each case and used to compare the different transformer concepts.
A novel approach to estimate I/Q imbalance, CFO and channel response for MIMO OFDM systems

Systems using Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) suffer with carrier frequency offset (CFO), in phase and quadrature phase imbalance (I/Q) due to which there will be large performance degradation. The CFO, I/Q imbalance are caused due to mismatch of carrier frequency at the transmitter and local oscillator frequency at the receiver. This paper presents a novel approach for joint estimation of I/Q imbalance, CFO and Channel Estimation for Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) OFDM systems. A new energy parameter called φ is introduced, and from this parameter φ we can jointly estimate CFO, I/Q imbalance irrespective of channel estimation. The proposed method uses an optimal training block with one or two training sequences. For estimation of two repeated sequences, a two-step approach is proposed. From the simulation results we show that the Mean-Square Error (MSE) of this method is close to Cramer-Rao Bound (CRB).
A Secure Mobile Crowdsensing Game With Deep Reinforcement Learning

Mobile crowdsensing (MCS) is vulnerable to faked sensing attacks, as selfish smartphone users sometimes provide faked sensing results to the MCS server to save their sensing costs and avoid privacy leakage. In this paper, the interactions between an MCS server and a number of smartphone users are formulated as a Stackelberg game, in which the server as the leader first determines and broadcasts its payment policy for each sensing accuracy. Each user as a follower chooses the sensing effort and thus the sensing accuracy afterward to receive the payment based on the payment policy and the sensing accuracy estimated by the server. The Stackelberg equilibria of the secure MCS game are presented, disclosing conditions to motivate accurate sensing. Without knowing the smartphone sensing models in a dynamic version of the MCS game, an MCS system can apply deep Q-network (DQN), which is a deep reinforcement learning technique combining reinforcement learning and deep learning techniques, to derive the optimal MCS policy against faked sensing attacks. The DQN-based MCS system uses a deep convolutional neural network to accelerate the learning process with a high-dimensional state space and action set, and thus improve the MCS performance against selfish users. Simulation results show that the proposed MCS system stimulates high-quality sensing services and suppresses faked sensing attacks, compared with a Q-learning-based MCS system.
SDSoC: A Higher-level Programming Environment for Zynq SoC and Ultrascale+ MPSoC

Zynq-7000 All Programmable SoC and the new Zynq Ultrascale+ MPSoC provide proven alternatives to traditional domain-specific application SoCs and enable extensive system-level differentiation, integration and flexibility through hardware, software and I/O programmability. The SDSoC Development Environment is a heterogeneous design environment for implementing embedded systems using the Zynq SoC and MPSoC. It enables the broader community of embedded software developers to leverage the power of hardware and software programmable devices, entirely from a higher-level of abstraction. The SDSoC environment provides a greatly simplified embedded C/C++ application programming experience including an easy-to-use Eclipse IDE and a comprehensive development platform. SDSoC includes a full-system optimizing C/C++ compiler, system-level profiling and hardware/software event tracing, automated software acceleration in programming logic, automated generation of SW-HW connectivity, and integration with libraries to speed programing. The SDSoC compiler transforms programs into complete hardware/software systems based on user-specified target platform and functions within the program to compile into programmable hardware logic. Hardware accelerators communicate with the CPU and external memory through an automatically-generated, application-specific data motion network comprised of DMAs, interconnects and other standard IP blocks. The SDSoC Environment also provides flows for customer and 3rd party developers to enable their platforms and integrate RTL IPs as C-callable libraries. It builds upon customer-proven design tools from Xilinx including Vivado Design Suite, Vivado High-level Synthesis and SDK. In this presentation, we will introduce the motivation and basic concepts behind SDSoC, describe its capabilities and the user-flow, and provide a brief demonstration of the tool using an example.
Ras-GAP Controls Rho-Mediated Cytoskeletal Reorganization through Its SH3 Domain

ABSTRACT Proteins of the Ras superfamily, Ras, Rac, Rho, and Cdc42, control the remodelling of the cortical actin cytoskeleton following growth factor stimulation. A major regulator of Ras, Ras-GAP, contains several structural motifs, including an SH3 domain and two SH2 domains, and there is evidence that they harbor a signalling function. We have previously described a monoclonal antibody to the SH3 domain of Ras-GAP which blocks Ras signalling in Xenopus oocytes. We now show that microinjection of this antibody into Swiss 3T3 cells prevents the formation of actin stress fibers stimulated by growth factors or activated Ras, but not membrane ruffling. This inhibition is bypassed by coinjection of activated Rho, suggesting that the Ras-GAP SH3 domain is necessary for endogenous Rho activation. In agreement, the antibody blocks lysophosphatidic acid-induced neurite retraction in differentiated PC12 cells. Furthermore, we demonstrate that microinjection of full-length Ras-GAP triggers stress fiber polymerization in fibroblasts in an SH3-dependent manner, strongly suggesting an effector function besides its role as a Ras downregulator. These results support the idea that Ras-GAP connects the Ras and Rho pathways and, therefore, regulates the actin cytoskeleton through a mechanism which probably does not involve p190 Rho-GAP.
The Use of Pragmatics in E-mail Requests Made by Second Language Learners of English

— The current paper provides results of a study that investigated the usage of pragmatics by non-native speakers (NNSs) of English when making e-mail requests. Initial data from the study shows that NNSs differ from native speakers (NSs) in politeness and perlocution (i.e., the effect that an utterance has on its recipient) of their English e-mail requests. The data also show that NNSs and NSs differ in the specific pragmatic strategies related to structure and content used in their e-mail requests. Additional data from this study indicates that explicit instruction can positively affect the perlocution of NNS e-mail requests and the long-term usage of pragmatics features found in the e-mail messages of NNSs, although the greatest effect is observed in the appropriate usage of structural features. The results of this study support the need for instruction of e-mail pragmatics to second language learners and reveal the possible benefits of such instruction. This finding suggests the need for more instruction on pragmatic strategies to increase the perlocution of e-mail requests and maintain it over time. One suggestion for doing this is to include CMC pragmatics as competency in the academic writing curriculum and to provide a more comprehensive pragmatic analysis to include several different types of speech acts, such as apology and information exchange, in addition to requests. By doing so, instructional time for e-mail pragmatics would be extended throughout the semester, giving students many opportunities to practice writing strategies that are becoming more useful, and even necessary, in academic settings.
Joint resource allocation and coordinated computation offloading for fog radio access networks

Service modeling offers fundamental guidance to the construction and operation of mobile telecommunication networks. As the domestic LTE networks have been deployed massively, the refined LTE services model needs to be established urgently. In this paper, we firstly extract characteristic parameters of services from statistical data in 3G networks, especially in time, space and user dimension. Secondly, the development trends of LTE services are analyzed. And the refined LTE service model is established. Finally, prediction results of LTE service development in China is given, which could provide efficient support for networks' optimization and evolution.
Spiranthes himalayensis (Orchidaceae, Orchidoideae) a new species from Asia

Abstract Spiranthes himalayensis is described here as a new species based primarily on molecular phylogenetic evidence followed by morphological comparison with other Asian Spiranthes species. It is distributed widely from southern India to tropical China. Phylogenetic analysis shows its close affinity to S. nivea which is endemic to Taiwan. Morphologically, the new species looks close to S. sinensis and S. hongkongensis. S. himalayensis is an allogamous species which can be differentiated from its allies on the basis of pubescent plant body, floral bract longer or of the same length as that of ovary, petals with blunt apex, labellum width around hypochile same as the width of epichile, epichile widely flabellate or semi-tunicate, column length equal to or more than 1.5mm, clavate operculum attached to the column on the broader part by an arm-like extension emerging from the upper part of column and a well developed rostellum partitioning the stigma and pollinarium.
Female genital mutilation in children presenting to Australian paediatricians

Objective The WHO reports that female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) is an ancient cultural practice prevalent in many countries. FGM/C has been reported among women resident in Australia. Our paper provides the first description of FGM/C in Australian children. Design Cross-sectional survey conducted in April–June 2014. Setting Paediatricians and other child health specialists recruited through the Australian Paediatric Surveillance Unit were asked to report children aged <18 years with FGM/C seen in the last 5 years, and to provide data for demographics, FGM/C type, complications and referral for each case. Participants Of 1311 eligible paediatricians/child health specialists, 1003 (76.5%) responded. Results Twenty-three (2.3%) respondents had seen 59 children with FGM/C and provided detailed data for 31. Most (89.7%) were identified during refugee screening and were born in Africa. Three (10.3%) were born in Australia: two had FGM/C in Australia and one in Indonesia. All parents were born overseas, mainly Africa (98.1%). Ten children had WHO FGM/C type I, five type II, five type III and six type IV. Complications in eight children included recurrent genitourinary infections, menstrual, sexual, fertility and psychological problems. Nineteen children (82.6%) were referred to obstetrics/gynaecology: 16 (69.9%) to social work and 13 (56.5%) to child protection. Conclusions This study confirms that FGM/C is seen in paediatric clinical practice within Australia. Paediatricians need cultural awareness, education and resources to help them identify children with FGM/C and/or at risk of FGM/C, to enable appropriate referral and counselling of children, families and communities to assist in the prevention of this practice.
REPUTATION-BASED TRUST EVALUATION BY EXTRACTING USER’S ASSESSMENT

— Accurate trust evaluation is crucial for the success of Electronic-commerce systems. Position-based trust representations are mostly used and user’s assessment rankings are combined to find out vendor’s position. One major problem with this is that identifying whether everything is good with the vendor or not and it is tough for customers to find vendors who are believable, because rankings of vendors in present system is normally high for each vendor. In this paper, by observing the remarks of the customers, which were expressed freely in the form of text, Comment-based multi-dimensional trust model, is a fine-grained multi-dimensional trust evaluation model by extracting user’s reply statements in electronic-commerce, and a procedure to extract user’s remarks for dimension rankings is proposed. With this model comprehensive trust profiles are computed automatically for vendors, including dimension trust scores and weights, as well as overall trust ratings by combining dimension positional rankings. This model provides an approach that combines dependency relation analysis and lexicon-based opinion mining techniques and further proposes an algorithm based on dependency relation analysis and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling technique to cluster aspect expressions into dimensions and compute combined dimension rankings and weights. This algorithm is named as Lexical-LDA. This model can capably address the problem of identifying the good vendor and rank vendors efficiently.
An algorithm based on the harris corner detector to identify the palmprint extraction

This paper made an algorithm based on the Harris corner detector to identify the palmprint extraction. Firstly, Harris corner detector applied to the enhanced palmprint images, to detect the details of Palmprint variation point and the curvature of the points. Used SUSAN algorithm to extract more than three rough corners, and then carried out using the Harris corner points of the filter in order to more accurately determine the unique identifier of different palm prints. This algorithm is reliable, rapid, and suitable in practical applications.
New physical layer features of 3GPP LTE release-13 [Industry Perspectives]

The worldwide proliferation of versatile mobile devices (e.g., smartphones and tablet computers) over the last few years have clearly changed people's lifestyles. In parallel, the ever increasing demands of mobile broadband Internet have catalyzed a huge market growth of fourth-generation (4G) cellular services, which is mainly facilitated by radio access technologies including Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long-Term Evolution (LTE), as well as its enhanced version, LTE-Advanced (LTE-A). Generally speaking, LTE-A is referred to as Release-10 of 3GPP standards, and its achievable performance makes it a true 4G technology according to the definitions given by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).