Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Incubation effect in burst mode fs-laser ablation of stainless steel samples

We report on an experimental study of the incubation effect during irradiation of stainless steel targets with bursts of femtosecond laser pulses at 1030 nm wavelength and 100 kHz repetition rate. The bursts were generated by splitting the pristine 650-fs laser pulses using an array of birefringent crystals which provided time separations between sub-pulses in the range from 1.5 ps to 24 ps. We measured the threshold fluence in Burst Mode, finding that it strongly depends on the bursts features. The comparison with Normal Pulse Mode revealed that the existing models introduced to explain the incubation effect during irradiation with trains of undivided pulses has to be adapted to describe incubation during Burst Mode processing. In fact, those models assume that the threshold fluence has a unique value for each number of impinging pulses in NPM, while in case of BM we observed different values of threshold fluence for fixed amount of sub-pulses but different pulse splitting. Therefore, the incubation factor coefficient depends on the burst features. It was found that incubation effect is higher in BM than NPM and that it increases with the number of sub-pulses and for shorter time delays within the burst. Two-Temperature-Model simulations in case of single pulses and bursts of up to 4 sub-pulses were performed to understand the experimental results.
Five Freely Circulating miRNAs and Bone Tissue miRNAs Are Associated With Osteoporotic Fractures

Osteoporosis as a systemic skeletal disorder is characterized by increased bone fragility and the risk of fractures. According to the World Health Organization, osteoporosis is one of the 10 most common diseases and affects approximately 75 million people in Europe, the United States, and Japan. In this context, the identification of specific microRNA (miRNA) signatures is an important step for new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. The focus of interest on miRNAs as biomarkers came with new publications identifying free circulating extracellular miRNAs associated with various types of cancer. This study aimed to identify specific miRNAs in patients with osteoporotic fractures compared with nonosteoporotic fractures. For the array analysis, miRNAs were isolated from the serum of 20 patients with hip fractures, transcribed, and the samples were pooled into 10 osteoporotic and 10 nonosteoporotic specimens. With each pool of samples, human serum and plasma miRNA PCR arrays were performed, which are able to identify 83 different miRNAs. Subsequently, a separate validation analysis of each miRNA found to be regulated in the array followed with miRNA samples isolated from the serum of 30 osteoporotic and 30 nonosteoporotic patients and miRNA samples isolated from the bone tissue of 20 osteoporotic and 20 nonosteoporotic patients. With the validation analysis of the regulated miRNAs, we identified 9 miRNAs, namely miR‐21, miR‐23a, miR‐24, miR‐93, miR‐100, miR‐122a, miR‐124a, miR‐125b, and miR‐148a, that were significantly upregulated in the serum of patients with osteoporosis. In the bone tissue of osteoporotic patients, we identified that miR‐21, miR‐23a, miR‐24, miR‐25, miR‐100, and miR‐125b displayed a significantly higher expression. A total of 5 miRNAs display an upregulation both in serum and bone tissue. This study reveals an important role for several miRNAs in osteoporotic patients and suggested that they may be used as biomarkers for diagnostic purposes and may be a target for treating bone loss and optimizing fracture healing in osteoporotic patients. © 2014 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.
Estimating parameters from audio for an EG+LFO model of pitch envelopes

Envelope generator (EG) and Low Frequency Oscillator (LFO)parameters give a compact representation of audio pitch envelopes. By estimating these parameters from audio per-note, they could be used as part of an audio coding scheme. Recordings of various instruments and articulations were examined, and pitch envelopes found. Using an evolutionary algorithm, EG and LFO parameters for the envelopes were estimated. The resulting estimated envelopes are compared to both the original envelope, and to a fixedpitch estimate. Envelopes estimated using EG+LFO can closely represent the envelope from the original audio and provide a more accurate estimate than the mean pitch.
Efficient implementation of sharpened CIC decimation filters for software radio receivers

We propose an efficient structure for sharpened, cascaded integrator comb (CIC) based, decimation filter. Novelty of proposed structure is that it can be achieved for any decimation factor and its efficient finite impulse response (FIR) implementation form. It consists of multirate cascade of sharpened CIC filters with lower (prime) decimation factors. Every cascade stage can be implemented in nonrecursive FIR form with sharpened higher order Comb filters as building blocks. Applying polyphase decomposition, every stage can work on lower decimation rate depending of decimation factor of that stage. Additionally, due to special pole structure of filter stages in cascade, first few stages can be implemented with reduction in system order, depending of stage position and decimation ratio.
Microcontact printing in bioanalysis: where are we and where shall we be?

Since the inception of microcontact printing (μCP) in early 1990s by Whitesides and coworkers [1,2] to control protein adsorption on cell culture surfaces, it has nowadays covered the widest picture and area of protein analysis research field. Basically, μCP is the transferring of the ‘ink’ pattern from the surface of a relief elastomeric stamp to a substrate through contact. The stamp is usually made of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) or its structured forms due to its low Young’s modulus and high hydrophobicity (a contact angle of ∼110° with water), while the ‘ink’ is usually made of molecules, such as alkanethiols or proteins/enzymes type biomolecules. Complete transfer of these biomolecules from the stamp to a substrate has been observed (almost 100% efficiency) just after a few seconds of contact, without any loss of biological activity. In this way, μCP has simply fabricated functional patterns of proteins up to a scale where less than 0.1k molecules were placed in the sharp spots of the surface. Additionally, it has been suitable for fabrication of various biomolecules onto both the hydrophobic and hydrophilic substrates, such as various monolayers on gold, glass, poly(methylmethacrylate), silicon, silicon oxide or polystyrene. The reason behind the high resolution and contrast of the patterns fabricated by μCP of biomolecules, documented by atomic force microscopy, is the nondiffused behavior of adsorbed biomolecules’ surfaces and the mechanical stability of the patterns of the stamp [3]. The success of μCP of biomolecules in bioanalysis lies in how much we can reduce the time between drying of ‘inked’ stamp and printing of the biomolecules because even 1 min delay may decrease the success of transfer substantially.
A Freely Available Wide Coverage Morphological Analyzer for English

This paper presents a morphological lexicon for English that handle more than 317000 inflected forms derived from over 90000 stems. The lexicon is available in two formats. The first can be used by an implementation of a two-level processor for morphological analysis (Karttunen and Wittenburg, 1983; Antworth, 1990). The second, derived from the first one for efficiency reasons, consists of a disk-based database using a UNIX hash table facility (Seltzer and Yigit, 1991). We also built an X Window tool to facilitate the maintenance and browsing of the lexicon. The package is ready to be integrated into an natural language application such as a parser through hooks written in Lisp and C.To our knowledge, this package is the only available free English morphological analyzer with very wide coverage.
Impact of MDM2 polymorphism: increased risk of developing colorectal cancer and a poor prognosis in the Tunisian population

Introduction MDM2 was originally identified as an oncoprotein that binds to p53 and inhibits p53-mediated transactivation. Scientists have described functional single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in the MDM2 gene. They showed that the genotype of SNP 309 induces an increase in the level of MDM2 protein, which causes attenuation of the p53 pathway. In this study, we sought to investigate whether this polymorphism was related to risk of colorectal cancer and whether there were relationships between SNP 309 and protein expression or clinicopathological variables in Tunisian patients. Materials and methods To investigate the effect of this polymorphism in colorectal cancer pathogenesis, we genotyped 167 patients and 167 blood donors. Immunohistochemistry was performed on normal mucosa and tumor. Results The rates of MDM2 genotypes were 6.6% for wild-type (T/T) and 93.4% for the SNP 309 polymorphic genotype (T/G and G/G) in patients and 38.3 and 61.7% in controls, respectively. There were significant differences in the frequencies of genotypes between patients and controls (P<0.01). We did not find any relationship between genotypes and clinicopathological features of patients, except in the case of the nonmucinous histological subtype (P=0.001). Moreover, we found that patients with the wild-type genotype (T/T) had significantly more favorable clinical outcome than did patients with the SNP 309 genotype (T/G, G/G) (P=0.005). In addition, we found an association between positive expression of p53 and polymorphic genotypes of MDM2 (T/G, G/G) (P=0.037). There was a significant association between tumoral immunostaning and MDM2 polymorphism (P=0.01). Conclusion Our results suggest that the MDM2 polymorphism is significantly associated with colorectal cancer risk and may provide useful prognostic information for Tunisian patients with colorectal cancer.
A Fine Line.

Find the secret to improve the quality of life by reading this a fine line. This is a kind of book that you need now. Besides, it can be your favorite book to read after having this book. Do you ask why? Well, this is a book that has different characteristic with others. You may not need to know who the author is, how well-known the work is. As wise word, never judge the words from who speaks, but make the words as your good value to your life.
Revenue optimization in AdExchange against strategic advertisers

In recent years, AdExchanges have become a popular tool for selling online advertisement space. This platform, has been beneficial not only to publishers, who have drastically increased their revenue by adopting it, but also to advertisers, who can design better marketing campaigns; and, ultimately to the user, who obtains a broader selection of ads relevant to his interests. Recently, some revenue optimization algorithms for AdExchanges have been proposed. However, none of these algorithms considers the possibility of facing a strategic advertiser. In this paper, the complications arising from these interactions are studied and a new revenue optimization algorithm is proposed and analyzed. In particular, we present tight bounds on the regret of an online learner attempting to optimize his revenue.
Mass production of functional human pancreatic β‐cells: why and how?

Diabetes (either type 1 or type 2) is due to insufficient functional β‐cell mass. Research has, therefore, aimed to discover new ways to maintain or increase either β‐cell mass or function. For this purpose, rodents have mainly been used as model systems and a large number of discoveries have been made. Meanwhile, although we have learned that rodent models represent powerful systems to model β‐cell development, function and destruction, we realize that there are limitations when attempting to transfer the data to what is occurring in humans. Indeed, while human β‐cells share many similarities with rodent β‐cells, they also differ on a number of important parameters. In this context, developing ways to study human β‐cell development, function and death represents an important challenge. This review will describe recent data on the development and use of convenient sources of human β‐cells that should be useful tools to discover new ways to modulate functional β‐cell mass in humans.
Security and Privacy in Cloud Computing: A Survey

Cloud computing is envisioned as the next-generation technology. It is an Internet based technology where quality services are provided to u sers including data and software, on remote servers . The phrase cloud computing originated from the diagrams used to symbolize the Internet. Cloud computing is not a completely fully new concept; it has intricate co nnection to the grid computing paradigm, and other relevant technologies such as utility, cluster and distributed systems. Here we present an analysis of security issues in a cloud environment. This paper introduce s the background and service model of cloud computing. Along with this, few of security issues and challen ges are also highlighted.
A New Approach to Interactive On-Line Mapping

On-line geographical mapping and the widespread availability of mapping software are revolutionizing the world of cartography: anyone can create maps of anywhere in the world. Typically, however, these tools only allow one to produce, with limited choice, static pictures in which the process undertaken is discarded. I present a new approach to cartography in which maps are defined as the visual representation of a multiparametric (or multidimensional) context. Such a context can be understood to be the environment in which the map is built; it is defined by the values of the parameters used in the process. This approach to mapping — called intensional— allows map developers to keep track of all the choices that are being made, whether visual, structural or socio-historical, and to share these choices with others, in real-time. As a result, electronic maps become much more flexible and versatile, and much more supportive of speculative research. The specific purpose of this thesis is to develop the formal theory for the manipulation of multiple parameters and, from there, to implement an intensional mapping tool with interactive and multilingual capabilities.
Column Heterogeneity as a Measure of Data Quality

Data quality is a serious concern in every data management application, and a variety of quality measures have been proposed, including accuracy, freshness and completeness, to capture the common sources of data quality degradation. We identify and focus attention on a novel measure, column heterogeneity, that seeks to quantify the data quality problems that can arise when merging data from different sources. We identify desiderata that a column heterogeneity measure should intuitively satisfy, and discuss a promising direction of research to quantify database column heterogeneity based on using a novel combination of cluster entropy and soft clustering. Finally, we present a few preliminary experimental results, using diverse data sets of semantically different types, to demonstrate that this approach appears to provide a robust mechanism for identifying and quantifying database column heterogeneity.
Summation by Asian Elephants (Elephas maximus)

Recent empirical evidence for complex cognition in elephants suggests that greater attention to comparative studies between non-human primates and other animals is warranted. We have previously shown that elephants possess the ability to judge the difference between two discrete quantities, and unlike other animals, their choice does not appear to be affected by distance or overall quantity. In this study, we investigated Asian elephants’ ability to perform summation, as exemplified by the ability to combine four quantities into two sums and subsequently compare them. We presented two discrete sums (3–7) to the elephants by baiting two buckets; they were loaded sequentially with two discrete quantities (1–5 pieces) of food per bucket. All three elephants selected the larger grand sum significantly more often than the smaller grand sum. Moreover, their performance was not affected by either distance to the bait or the overall quantity evaluated. Studies report that the performance of other animal species on similar tasks declines as distance to the bait decreases and as the overall quantities evaluated increase. These results suggest that the numerical cognition of Asian elephants may be different from that of other animals, but further study is required to elucidate the differences precisely.
Simultaneous Imaging and Precision Alignment of Two mm Wave Antennas Based on Polarization-Selective Machine-Vision

In this paper, we present an optical imaging tool, the Overlay Imaging Aligner (OIA), developed to aid in the mechanical alignment of antenna components in the mm-wave and low-THz frequency regimes (50-500 GHz) where the millimeter and sub millimeter wavelengths pose significant alignment challenges. The OIA uses a polarization-selective machine-vision approach to generate two simultaneous and overlaid real-time digital images along a common axis; this allows for aligning two antenna components to within fractions of a wavelength in the mm-wave and THz frequency regimes. The overall concept, optical design, function, performance characteristics and application examples are presented. A quantitative assessment of the alignment accuracy achievable with the OIA at specific frequencies in the WR-2.2 band is made where the alignment achieved with the OIA is compared to an electrical alignment.
Screened thermonuclear reactions and predictive stellar evolution of detached double-lined eclipsing binaries

The low-energy fusion cross sections of charged-particle nuclear reactions (and the respective reaction rates) in stellar plasmas are enhanced because of plasma screening effects. We study the impact of those effects on predictive stellar evolution simulations for detached double-lined eclipsing binaries. We follow the evolution of binary systems (pre-main-sequence or main-sequence stars) with precisely determined radii and masses from 1.1 to 23 ${M}_{\ensuremath{\bigodot}}$ (from their birth until their present state). The results indicate that all the discrepancies between the screened and unscreened models (in terms of luminosity, stellar radius, and effective temperature) are within the observational uncertainties. Moreover, no nucleosynthetic or compositional variation was found to be due to screening corrections. Therefore all thermonuclear screening effects on the charged-particle nuclear reactions that occur in the binary stars considered in this work (from their birth until their present state) can be totally disregarded. In other words, all relevant charged-particle nuclear reactions can be safely assumed to take place in a vacuum, thus simplifying and accelerating the simulation processes.
Chlamydia pneumoniae

Jedná se o respirační patogen, který vyvolává především chronické bronchitidy, „atypické" pneumonie a sinusitidy (zá ět vedlejších nosních dutin). Přenáší se kapénkovou infekcí. Infekce bývají v až 70% případů asymptomatické a v průběhu života se mohou opakovat. Akutní i chronické infekce respiračního traktu mají vztah k aktivaci bronchiálního astmatu. Infekce respiračního traktu bývají po akutní fázi často chronické s perzistujícími symptomy špatně reagujícími na ATB terapii. Pokud váš lékař shledal, že váš zdravotní stav je v pořádku a nezajistil testy na chlamydie, rozhodně je na místě jej o tento test požádat.
Metal and Microelement Biomarkers of Neurodegeneration in Early Life Permethrin-Treated Rats

Hair is a non-invasive biological material useful in the biomonitoring of trace elements because it is a vehicle for substance excretion from the body, and it permits evaluating long-term metal exposure. Here, hair from an animal model of neurodegeneration, induced by early life permethrin treatment from the sixth to 21th day of life, has been analyzed with the aim to assess if metal and microelement content could be used as biomarkers. A hair trace element assay was performed by the ICP-MS technique in six- and 12-month-old rats. A significant increase of As, Mg, S and Zn was measured in the permethrin-treated group at 12 months compared to six months, while Si and Cu/Zn were decreased. K, Cu/Zn and S were increased in the treated group compared to age-matched controls at six and 12 months, respectively. Cr significantly decreased in the treated group at 12 months. PCA analysis showed both a best difference between treated and age-matched control groups at six months. The present findings support the evidence that the Cu/Zn ratio and K, measured at six months, are the best biomarkers for neurodegeneration. This study supports the use of hair analysis to identify biomarkers of neurodegeneration induced by early life permethrin pesticide exposure.
Towards a European Framework to Monitor Infectious Diseases among Migrant Populations: Design and Applicability

There are limitations in our capacity to interpret point estimates and trends of infectious diseases occurring among diverse migrant populations living in the European Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA). The aim of this study was to design a data collection framework that could capture information on factors associated with increased risk to infectious diseases in migrant populations in the EU/EEA. The authors defined factors associated with increased risk according to a multi-dimensional framework and performed a systematic literature review in order to identify whether those factors well reflected the reported risk factors for infectious disease in these populations. Following this, the feasibility of applying this framework to relevant available EU/EEA data sources was assessed. The proposed multidimensional framework is well suited to capture the complexity and concurrence of these risk factors and in principle applicable in the EU/EEA. The authors conclude that adopting a multi-dimensional framework to monitor infectious diseases could favor the disaggregated collection and analysis of migrant health data.
A Practical Study of Regenerating Codes for Peer-to-Peer Backup Systems

In distributed storage systems, erasure codes represent an attractive solution to add redundancy to stored data while limiting the storage overhead. They are able to provide the same reliability as replication requiring much less storage space. Erasure coding breaks the data into pieces that are encoded and then stored on different nodes. However, when storage nodes permanently abandon the system, new redundant pieces must be created. For erasure codes, generating a new piece requires the transmission of k pieces over the network, resulting in a k times higher reconstruction traffic as compared to replication. Dimakis proposed a new class of codes, called Regenerating Codes, which are able to provide both the storage efficiency of erasure codes and the communication efficiency of replication. However, Dimakis gave only a theoretical description of the codes without discussing implementation issues or computational costs. We have done a real implementation of Random Linear Regenerating Codes that allows us to measure their computational cost, which can be significant if the parameters are not chosen properly. However, we also find that there exist parameter values that result in a significant reduction of the communication overhead at the expense of a small increase in storage cost and computation, which makes these codes very attractive for distributed storage systems.