Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dispersion flat and low non-linear optical link with new type of reverse dispersion fiber (RDF-60)

New type of reverse dispersion fiber (RDF-60) has been developed successfully. Totally flat line in a wide band could be obtained by connecting RDF-60 with SMF. RDF-60 had large dispersion as -60 ps/nm/km and A/sub eff/ as large as conventional RDF, so low non-linearity could be realized.
Open Problem: Tightness of maximum likelihood semidefinite relaxations

We have observed an interesting, yet unexplained, phenomenon: Semidefinite programming (SDP) based relaxations of maximum likelihood estimators (MLE) tend to be tight in recovery problems with noisy data, even when MLE cannot exactly recover the ground truth. Several results establish tightness of SDP based relaxations in the regime where exact recovery from MLE is possible. However, to the best of our knowledge, their tightness is not understood beyond this regime. As an illustrative example, we focus on the generalized Procrustes problem.
P300 Development across the Lifespan: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background The P300 component of the event-related potential is a large positive waveform that can be extracted from the ongoing electroencephalogram using a two-stimuli oddball paradigm, and has been associated with cognitive information processing (e.g. memory, attention, executive function). This paper reviews the development of the auditory P300 across the lifespan. Methodology/Principal Findings A systematic review and meta-analysis on the P300 was performed including 75 studies (n = 2,811). Scopus was searched for studies using healthy subjects and that reported means of P300 latency and amplitude measured at Pz and mean age. These findings were validated in an independent, existing cross-sectional dataset including 1,572 participants from ages 6–87. Curve-fitting procedures were applied to obtain a model of P300 development across the lifespan. In both studies logarithmic Gaussian models fitted the latency and amplitude data best. The P300 latency and amplitude follow a maturational path from childhood to adolescence, resulting in a period that marks a plateau, after which degenerative effects begin. We were able to determine ages that mark a maximum (in P300 amplitude) or trough (in P300 latency) segregating maturational from degenerative stages. We found these points of deflection occurred at different ages. Conclusions/Significance It is hypothesized that latency and amplitude index different aspects of brain maturation. The P300 latency possibly indexes neural speed or brain efficiency. The P300 amplitude might index neural power or cognitive resources, which increase with maturation.
Constructible isocrystals

We introduce a new category of coefﬁcients for p -adic cohomology called constructible isocrystals. Conjecturally, the category of constructible isocrystals endowed with a Frobenius structure is equivalent to the category of perverse holonomic arithmetic D -modules. We prove here that a constructible isocrystal is completely determined by any of its geometric realizations.
Drug resistance at low viraemia in HIV-1-infected patients with antiretroviral combination therapy

Objective To study the appearance of drug-induced mutations at low viraemia in treated HIV-1-infected patients. Design and methods Fourteen patients, who received their first (n = 5), second (n = 7) or third (n = 2) line antiretroviral combination therapy, developed a persistent low-grade viraemia after an initial decrease of the viral load (VL) to less than 500 copies/ml. The amount of HIV-1 RNA (n = 71) and reverse transcriptase (RT)/protease sequences (n = 56) were determined in longitudinally obtained plasma samples during a mean period of 16.6 months. Results In the vast majority (93%) of patients, new primary resistance mutations were found in the RT and/or protease genes at virological failure at a median VL of 500 and 200 copies/ml, respectively. Drug-experienced patients developed mutations at a lower VL than naive patients. In one previously protease inhibitor-naive patient, primary RT and protease mutations were detected, although the VL was less than 50 copies/ml. A serial accumulation of drug resistance mutations was seen despite the VL increase being mostly modest, reaching a median of 1450 copies/ml at the end of the study, and the CD4 T cell counts continued to increase. One patient still had a VL of 300 copies/ml after 28 months, despite the presence of the multidrug-resistance Q151M mutation. Conclusion Low viraemia after virological treatment failure can select for virus with several new drug resistance mutations, despite a concomitant increase in CD4 T cell counts. This serial accumulation of mutations is likely to exhaust future drug options
Caregivers’ experience of risk in dementia: The LASER-AD Study

The objective was to explore caregivers’ experience of and concerns about the safety of care recipients (CRs) with Alzheimer's disease (AD) living at home. We interviewed family caregivers about their concerns regarding CR's safety, occurrence of risk over the last year and safety measures taken to manage risk. A total of 89 family caregiver/CR dyads participated. All had been recruited as part of a larger longitudinal study based in London and South East Region (LASER) of the UK. Caregivers spent a substantial proportion of the day supervising the CR (mean = 15.5 hours). Most caregivers (39; 81.2%) of the 48/89 CRs left alone worried about their safety. Sixty-one (68.5%) caregivers reported at least one incident in which the CR had been at risk within the past year. A majority (71; 79.8%) had taken measures to prevent risk behaviours. Greater impairment in activities of daily living and the caregiver not being the CR's spouse were associated with more measures being taken. Caregivers themselves provide supervision most of the time for the CR, and are worried when they are left alone. This is realistic as despite caregiver's attempts at managing their CR's risks, including direct supervision, dangerous incidents still frequently occur in people with AD.
A Compact Programmable CMOS Reference With ±40μV Accuracy

A compact programmable CMOS voltage reference that is determined by the charge difference between two floating-gate transistors is introduced in this paper. A prototype circuit has been implemented in a 0. 35μm CMOS process; reference voltages ranging from 50mV - 0.6V have been achieved and initial accuracy of ±40muV has been demonstrated as well. Experimental results indicate a temperature sensitivity of approximately 53μV/degC for a nominal reference voltage of 0.4V over a temperature range of -60°C to 140°C
A Semantic Perspective on Query Log Analysis

We present our views on the CLEF log file analysis task. We argue for a task definition that focuses on the semantic enrichment of query logs. In addition, we discuss how additional information about the context in which queries are being made could further our understanding of users’ information seeking and how to better facilitate this process.
Improving assessment of postoperative pain in surgical wards by education and training

Problem: There is a need to improve postoperative pain organisation and management in hospitals. One of the most important factors in achieving this is to improve active assessment of pain in the postoperative phase. Design: Repeated audits on an annual basis over a 3 year period. Ward nurses, appointed as “pain control representatives”, performed the data collection. Setting: Departments of general surgery and orthopaedics in a university hospital with 1200 beds. Key measure for improvement: Assessment of postoperative pain intensity using a numerical rating scale. Strategies for change: On the basis of the first audit in 1999 the team decided to introduce a mandatory training programme in postoperative pain management for all involved staff, including surgeons and ward nurses. Guidelines for postoperative care were upgraded and made accessible through the intranet. Regular staff meetings in the surgical wards with representatives from the acute pain service team were introduced. Effects of change: The assessment of pain according to protocols increased from 71% to 91% in the surgical wards and from 60% to 88% in the orthopaedic wards between 1999 and 2001/2. Lessons learnt: To increase the awareness of pain and improve pain assessment, the importance of mandatory training, regular staff meetings and regular audits must be emphasised. It is also imperative to give feedback on the regular audits to the ward and staff members involved.
An Open-Source Phase Vocoder with Some Novel Visualizations

This project is a phase vocoder implementation that uses multiple, synchronized visual displays to clarify aspects of the involved signal processing techniques. The program can do standard phase vocoder operations such as time-stretching and pitch-shifting which are based on an analysis and resynthesis method using Short-Term Fourier Transform. Conventional 2D displays of digital audio including spectrograms, waveform displays and various frequency domain representations are involved as well as novel 3-D visualizations of frequency domain are adopted to aid users who begin to learn digital signal processing and phase vocoder. This application is intend to serve as an open-source educational tool in the near future.
Two-phase routing, scheduling and power control for wireless mesh networks with variable traffic

We consider the problem of joint routing, scheduling and transmission power assignment in multi-hop wireless mesh networks with unknown traffic. We assume the traffic is unknown, but the traffic matrix, which specifies the traffic load between every source-destination pair in the network, always lies inside a polytope defined by hose model constraints. The objective is to minimize the maximum of the total transmission power in the network over all traffic matrices in a given polytope. We propose efficient algorithms that compute a two-phase routing, schedule and power assignment, and prove the solution to be 3-approximation with respect to an optimal two-phase routing, scheduling and power assignment. We show via extensive simulations that the proposed algorithm has good performance at its worst operating traffic compared to an algorithm optimized for that traffic.
Fast software for box intersections

We present fast implementations of a hybrid algorithm for reporting box and cube intersections. Our algorithm initially takes a divide-and-conquer approach and switches to simpler algorithms for low numbers of boxes. We use our implementations as engines to solve problems about geometric primitives. We look at two such problems in the category of quality analysis of surface triangulations.
An Application of Latent Dirichlet Allocation to Analyzing Software Evolution

We develop and apply unsupervised statistical topic models, in particular latent Dirichlet allocation, to identify functional components of source code and study their evolution over multiple project versions. We present results for two large, open source Java projects, Eclipse and Argo UML, which are well-known and well-studied within the software mining community. Our results demonstrate the effectiveness of probabilistic topic models in automatically summarizing the temporal dynamics of software concerns, with direct application to project management and program understanding. In addition to detecting the emergence of topics on the release timeline which represent integration points for key source code functionality, our techniques can also be used to pinpoint refactoring events in the underlying software design, as well as to identify general programming concepts whose prevalence is dependent only of the size of the code base to be analyzed. Complete results are available from our supplementary materials website at http://sourcerer.ics. uci.edu/icmla2008/software_evolution. html.
Inbreeding by Environmental Interactions Affect Gene Expression in Drosophila melanogaster

Genomewide gene expression patterns were investigated in inbred and noninbred Drosophila melanogaster lines under benign and stressful (high temperature) environmental conditions in a highly replicated experiment using Affymetrix gene chips. We found that both heat-shock protein and metabolism genes are strongly affected by temperature stress and that genes involved in metabolism are differentially expressed in inbred compared with noninbred lines, and that this effect is accentuated after heat stress exposure. Furthermore we show that inbreeding and temperature stress cause increased between-line variance in gene expression patterns. We conclude that inbreeding and environmental stress both independently and synergistically affect gene expression patterns. Interactions between inbreeding and the environment are often observed at the phenotypic level and our results reveal some of the genes that are involved at the individual gene level. Our observation of several metabolism genes being differentially expressed in inbred lines and more so after exposure to temperature stress, together with lower fitness in the investigated inbred lines, supports the hypothesis that superiority of heterozygous individuals partly derives from increased metabolic efficiency.
Initial on-line evaluations of the LF-ASD brain-computer interface with able-bodied and spinal-cord subjects using imagined voluntary motor potentials

Previous research has focused on developing a brain-controlled switch named the low frequency asynchronous switch design (LF-ASD) that is suitable for intermittent control of devices such as environmental control systems, computers, and neural prostheses. On-line implementations of the LF-ASD have shown promising results in response to actual index finger flexions with able-bodied subjects. This paper reports the results of initial on-line evaluations of the LF-ASD brain-controlled switch with both able-bodied subjects and subjects with high-level spinal-cord injuries. This paper has demonstrated that users can activate the LF-ASD switch by imagining movement. In this paper, two able-bodied subjects were able to control the LF-ASD with imagined voluntary movements with hit (true positive) rates above 70% and false positive rates below 3% while two subjects with high-level spinal-cord injuries demonstrated hit rates ranging from 45-48% and false positive rates below 1%.
A 300 GHz CMOS Transmitter With 32-QAM 17.5 Gb/s/ch Capability Over Six Channels

A 300 GHz transmitter (TX) fabricated using a 40 nm CMOS process is presented. It achieves 17.5 Gb/s/ch 32-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) transmission over six 5 GHz-wide channels covering the frequency range from 275 to 305 GHz. With the unity-power-gain frequency fmax of the NMOS transistor being below 300 GHz, the TX adopts a power amplifier-less QAM-capable architecture employing a highly linear subharmonic mixer called a cubic mixer. It is based on and as compact as a tripler and enables the massive power combining necessary above fmax without undue layout complication. The frequency-dependent characteristics of the cubic mixer are studied, and it is shown that even higher data rates of up to 30 Gb/s are possible at certain frequencies, where the channel signal-to-noise ratio is high. The design and the operation of the power-splitting and power-combining circuits are also described in detail. The measurements reported herein were all made “wired” via a WR3.4 waveguide.
Comparative Study of Metaplastic Breast Carcinoma and Triple-Negative Breast Carcinoma Using Histologic and Immunohistochemical Analyses

Background : Metaplastic carcinoma of the breast is a rare subtype of breast cancer, which is characterized by estrogen receptor/progesterone receptor and HER2 negativity. Methods : Tissue specimens from 60 metaplastic breast cancer and 60 triple-negative breast cancer patients diagnosed at a single institution between 1995 and 2009 were analyzed. Immunohistochemistry for caveolin-1 (CAV-1), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), c-kit, p53, Ki-67, breast cancer type 1 susceptibility protein (BRCA1), cytokeratin (CK)14, and CK17 were performed on both retained tissue sets. Results : Of the 60 metaplastic carcinomas, 15 tumors (25%) exhibited spindle cell component, 27 (45%) exhibited chondroid differentiation, and 18 (30%) exhibited squamous areas. Compared to triple-negative carcinomas, metaplastic carcinomas significantly more frequently expressed CK14 (p < 0.0001), CK17 (p = 0.002), EGFR (p < 0.0001), CAV-1 (p < 0.0001), and VEGF (p = 0.029). However, expressions of BRCA1, p53, c-kit, and Ki-67 were not significantly different between both groups. Conclusions : The expression profile of metaplastic carcinoma of the breast is more homogeneous than that of other triple-negative tumors and frequently over-expresses basal markers, CAV-1, and VEGF. A typical “basal-like” phenotype and frequent expressions of CAV-1 and VEGF may justify specific therapeutic approaches.
The LIM Protein Ajuba Regulates Phosphatidylinositol 4,5-Bisphosphate Levels in Migrating Cells through an Interaction with and Activation of PIPKIα

ABSTRACT The phosphoinositide phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate [PI(4,5)P2] regulates the activity of many actin-binding proteins and as such is an important modulator of cytoskeleton organization during cell migration, for example. In migrating cells actin remodeling is tightly regulated and localized; therefore, how the PI(4,5)P2 level is spatially and temporally regulated is crucial to understanding how it controls cell migration. Here we show that the LIM protein Ajuba contributes to the cellular regulation of PI(4,5)P2 levels by interacting with and activating the enzymatic activity of the PI(4)P 5-kinase (PIPKIα), the predominant enzyme in the synthesis of PI(4,5)P2, in a migration stimulus-regulated manner. In migrating primary mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) from Ajuba−/− mice the level of PI(4,5)P2 was decreased with a corresponding increase in the level of the substrate PI(4)P. Reintroduction of Ajuba into these cells normalized PI(4,5)P2 levels. Localization of PI(4,5)P2 synthesis and PIPKIα in the leading lamellipodia and membrane ruffles, respectively, of migrating Ajuba−/− MEFs was impaired. In vitro, Ajuba dramatically activated the enzymatic activity of PIPKIα while inhibiting the activity of PIPKIIβ. Thus, in addition to its effects upon Rac activity Ajuba can also influence cell migration through regulation of PI(4,5)P2 synthesis through direct activation of PIPKIα enzyme activity.
A Pilot Study of Chlorhexidine and Benzydamine Oral Rinses for the Prevention and Treatment of Irradiation Mucositis in Patients With Head and Neck Cancer

This pilot study was designed to compare the efficacy of 0.2% wt/vol chlorhexidine gluconate and 0.15% wt/vol benzydamine hydrochloride oral rinses in alleviating irradiation oropharyngeal mucositis for patients with head and neck cancer. This was a prospective, randomized, and double-blinded study. Fourteen subjects were stratified based on nasopharyngeal cancer and non-nasopharyngeal head and neck cancer, and were randomly assigned to receive oral care protocol either containing with chlorhexidine (n = 7) or benzydamine (n = 7) from the first day to 2 weeks after the completion of radiotherapy. Subjects were evaluated twice weekly through days 1 to 64 using the World Health Organization mucositis scale and the 10-cm visual analogue scale for mouth pain and dysphagia. In the chlorhexidine arm, 4 subjects (57%) had grade 2, and 3 subjects (43%) had grade 3 mucositis. In the benzydamine arm, 5 subjects (71%) had grade 2, and 2 subjects (29%) had grade 3 mucositis (P > .05). The mean area-under-the-curve values of mucositis were 26.5 ± 13.6 (median 26) and 24.1 ± 6.1 (median 22) in the chlorhexidine group and benzydamine group, respectively (P > .05). The mean area-under-the-curve values of pain and dysphagia were 70.8 ± 33 (median 88.5) and 71.5 ± 39 (median 101), and 62.1 ± 17.2 (median 72) and 66 ± 22.3 (median 57.5) in the chlorhexidine and benzydamine groups, respectively (P > .05). A trend has emerged of a lessening of severity of mucositis, pain, and dysphagia for patients with head and neck cancer receiving benzydamine oral rinse. The beneficial effects, however, need to be confirmed in a larger trial.
Psychiatric morbidity in pain conditions: results from the Singapore Mental Health Study.

BACKGROUND Chronic pain is a common problem among the general population and has been found to be associated with psychiatric disorders in studies based on both clinical samples and epidemiological surveys. OBJECTIVES To establish the prevalence, correlates and comorbidities of chronic pain disorders among the adult population of Singapore. METHODS The data used in the present analysis were derived from the Singapore Mental Health Study, a cross-sectional epidemiological survey of a representative sample of the adult resident population of Singapore. Diagnoses of psychiatric disorders were established using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview version 3.0. A modified version of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview 3.0 checklist of chronic medical disorders was used, in which the chronic medical disorders were reclassified into eight types of physical disorders. Chronic pain disorders included arthritis or rheumatism, back problems including disk or spine problems, and migraine headaches. RESULTS The lifetime prevalence estimates for arthritis, back pain and migraine in the Singapore general population were 6.0% (n=282), 7.0% (n=436) and 5.6% (n=446), respectively. After adjusting for sociodemographic factors, comorbid pain disorders and the presence of other chronic physical conditions, migraine remained significantly associated with major depressive disorder (adjusted OR=2.4), generalized anxiety disorder (adjusted OR=3.0) and alcohol use disorders (adjusted OR=2.1), while back pain was significantly associated with major depressive disorder (adjusted OR=2.0). CONCLUSIONS The significant association between pain and psychiatric disorders emphasizes the need to screen individuals with chronic pain conditions for psychiatric disorders, particularly depression. There is a need to develop integrated pharmacological and psychological treatments for both conditions.
Digital Image Stabilization

The ongoing development and miniaturization of consumer devices that have image acquisition capabilities increases the need for robust and efficient image stabilization solutions. The need is driven by two main factors: (i) the difficulty to avoid unwanted camera motion when using a small hand-held device (like a camera phone), and (ii) the need for longer integration times due to the small pixel area resulted from the miniaturization of the image sensors in conjunction with the increase in image resolution. The smaller the pixel area the less photons/second could be captured by the pixel such that a longer integration time is needed for good results.
Modulation of Erbb2 signaling during development: a threshold level of Erbb2 signaling is required for development

We have generated a series of Erbb2 cDNA knock-in animals to explore the role of signaling pathways coupled to Erbb2 during development. Although this knock-in allele was hypomorphic, expressing tenfold less Erbb2 protein than wild type, the knock-in animals were healthy. However, a further twofold reduction in Erbb2 levels in hemizygous knock-in animals resulted in perinatal lethality with defects in the innervation of the diaphragm. Genetic rescue of this hypomorph was accomplished by expression of the Erbb2-Y1028F mutant in a comparable knock-in allele. Interestingly, hemizygous Y1028F animals were viable with normal innervation of the diaphragm. Molecular analyses revealed that the Y1028F allele expressed higher levels of Erbb2 and that Y1028 promoted the turnover of the receptor. In addition, ablation of the Shc-binding site in Erbb2 (Y1227) resulted in subtle defects in the sensory nerves not observed in the other mutant erbb2 strains. Thus, we have established how Erbb2 levels may be modulated through development and that a minimum threshold level of Erbb2 is required.