Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Flt3 Ligand Regulates Dendritic Cell Development from Flt3+ Lymphoid and Myeloid-committed Progenitors to Flt3+ Dendritic Cells In Vivo

Stimulation of Flt3 receptor tyrosine kinase through its cognate ligand expands early hematopoietic progenitor and dendritic cells (DCs) in humans and mice. The exact developmental stages at which hematopoietic progenitors express Flt3, are responsive to its ligand, and subsequently develop to DCs, are not known. Here we show that common lymphoid and common myeloid progenitors, as well as steady state DCs in thymus, spleen, and epidermis, express Flt3. The receptor is down-regulated once definitive B cell, T cell, and megakaryocyte/erythrocyte commitment occurs, and Flt3 is not detectable on other steady state hematopoietic cell populations. Upon in vivo Flt3 ligand (Flt3L) administration, Flt3+ progenitor cells and their progeny DCs are expanded, whereas Flt3− downstream progenitors are not, or are only slightly increased. Transplantation of common lymphoid and common myeloid progenitors and subsequent Flt3L injection increases progeny DCs of both precursor populations. These findings provide a definitive map of Flt3 expression in the hematopoietic hierarchy and directly demonstrate that Flt3L can drive DC development along both the lymphoid and myeloid developmental pathways from Flt3+ progenitors to Flt3+ DCs.
The Fundamental Incompatibility of Hamiltonian Monte Carlo and Data Subsampling

Leveraging the coherent exploration of Hamiltonian flow, Hamiltonian Monte Carlo produces computationally efficient Monte Carlo estimators, even with respect to complex and high-dimensional target distributions. When confronted with data-intensive applications, however, the algorithm may be too expensive to implement, leaving us to consider the utility of approximations such as data subsampling. In this paper I demonstrate how data subsampling fundamentally compromises the efficient exploration of Hamiltonian flow and hence the scalable performance of Hamiltonian Monte Carlo itself.
Modeling Semi-Automated Forces with Neural Networks : Performance Improvement through a Modular Approach

A recent report by the National Research Council (NRC) declares neural networks “hold the most promise for providing powerful learning models”. While some researchers have experimented with using neural networks to model battlefield behavior for Computer Generated Forces (CGF) systems used in distributed simulations, the NRC report indicates that further research is needed to develop a hybrid system that will integrate the newer neural network technology into the current rule-based paradigms. This paper supports this solicitation by examining the use of a context structure to modularly organize the application of neural networks to a low-level Semi-Automated Forces (SAF) reactive task. Specifically, it reports on the development of a neural network movement model and illustrates how its performance is improved through the use of the modular context paradigm. Further, this paper introduces the theory behind the neural networks’ architecture and training algorithms as well as the specifics of how the networks were developed for this investigation. Lastly, it illustrates how the networks were integrated with SAF software, defines the networks’ performance measures, presents the results of the scenarios considered in this investigation, and offers directions for future work.
The Succinate Receptor GPR91 Is Involved in Pressure Overload-Induced Ventricular Hypertrophy

Background Pulmonary arterial hypertension is characterized by increased pressure overload that leads to right ventricular hypertrophy (RVH). GPR91 is a formerly orphan G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) that has been characterized as a receptor for succinate; however, its role in RVH remains unknown. Methods and Results We investigated the role of succinate-GPR91 signaling in a pulmonary arterial banding (PAB) model of RVH induced by pressure overload in SD rats. GPR91 was shown to be located in cardiomyocytes. In the sham and PAB rats, succinate treatment further aggravated RVH, up-regulated RVH-associated genes and increased p-Akt/t-Akt levels in vivo. In vitro, succinate treatment up-regulated the levels of the hypertrophic gene marker anp and p-Akt/t-Akt in cardiomyocytes. All these effects were inhibited by the PI3K antagonist wortmannin both in vivo and in vitro. Finally, we noted that the GPR91-PI3K/Akt axis was also up-regulated compared to that in human RVH. Conclusions Our findings indicate that succinate-GPR91 signaling may be involved in RVH via PI3K/Akt signaling in vivo and in vitro. Therefore, GPR91 may be a novel therapeutic target for treating pressure overload-induced RVH.
Adolescents Conceived through Donor Insemination in Mother‐Headed Families: A Qualitative Study of Motivations and Experiences of Contacting and Meeting Same‐donor Offspring

This study interviewed adolescents conceived using sperm donation to examine their experiences of contacting and meeting ‘same‐donor offspring’ (i.e. donor‐conceived offspring raised in different families who share the same donor), their motivations for this contact, and how they make meaning of these relationships. This in‐depth qualitative study involved semi‐structured interviews with 23 young people aged 12–19 years (mean = 14 years). Interviewees were motivated by curiosity about their biological relations and by wanting to extend their family. Contact with same‐donor offspring was described as being either normal/neutral or as a unique experience that was integrated into their identity. This study highlights the importance of contact between same donor offspring, particularly during adolescence, a developmental stage associated with identity formation. The findings have important policy implications as they suggest that donor‐conceived individuals may benefit from contact with others conceived using the same donor prior to the age of 18 years.
Schema Matching as complex adaptive system

Many algorithms and approaches were proposed to deal with the problem of automatic schema matching and mapping. Yet, managing uncertainty and complexity for Schema Matching still remains as an open question. The challenges and difficulties caused by the complexity characterising the process of Schema Matching motivated us to investigate how the application of a bio-inspired emerging paradigm can lead us to understand, manage and ultimately overcome the inherent uncertainty in this process. The central idea of our work, is to consider the process of matching as a complex adaptive system and model it using the approach of agent-based modeling and simulation. The aim being the exploitation of the intrinsic properties of the agent-based models, such as emergence, stochasticity and self-organization, to help provide answers to better manage complexity and uncertainty of Schema Matching.
Investigations of structural damage caused by the fertilizer plant explosion at West, Texas. I: air-blast incident overpressure

AbstractAn explosion occurred at a fertilizer plant in the town of West, Texas, on Wednesday, April 17, 2013, devastating a populated neighborhood. A total of 15 people were killed, and approximately 160 people were injured. Approximately 150 buildings were damaged in the explosion. The damage to affected homes and businesses was estimated to exceed $100 million. The purpose of this study was to collect on-site technical data of the explosion and gain knowledge of blast loadings and structural responses from this unprecedented explosion. Specifically, this research documented the building damages caused by the West Fertilizer plant explosion and the affected buildings’ construction and materials and evaluated the technical information for the explosion, including the blast loadings, i.e., the air-blast incident overpressures and ground shocks, on different buildings with respect to the standoff distances. A total of two technical papers have been prepared. The Part I paper (this manuscript) focused on the.
Dependency Based Automatic Service Composition Using Directed Graph

In this paper a method of automatic composition plan creation that relies on automatic extraction of dependencies among services is investigated. For automatic dependency extraction our approach makes use of semantic similarities between I/O parameters of services. Extracted I/O dependencies are represented using a directed graph. The approach recognizes when cyclic dependencies exist and proposes a way of dealing with it. Modified topological sorting algorithm is used for the execution plan generation showing execution order of candidate services. A case study is used to explain the proposed approach.
Routing versus Network Coding in Erasure Networks with Broadcast and Interference Constraints

This paper determines upper and lower bounds on the order behavior (as the number of nodes increases) of throughput in an erasure network with transmit and receive-side constraints. This model is a useful abstraction of the network-layer behavior of a wireless network. An upper bound on throughput is determined for such a network, which is found to be achievable by routing if the parameter that determines the decay of channel quality with distance is greater than a critical value.
Microstructural Correlates of Infant Functional Development: Example of the Visual Pathways

The development of cognitive functions during childhood relies on several neuroanatomical maturation processes. Among these processes is myelination of the white matter pathways, which speeds up electrical conduction. Quantitative indices of such structural processes can be obtained in vivo with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), but their physiological significance remains uncertain. Here, we investigated the microstructural correlates of early functional development by combining DTI and visual event-related potentials (VEPs) in 15 one- to 4-month-old healthy infants. Interindividual variations of the apparent conduction speed, computed from the latency of the first positive VEP wave (P1), were significantly correlated with the infants' age and DTI indices measured in the optic radiations. This demonstrates that fractional anisotropy and transverse diffusivity are structural markers of functionally efficient myelination. Moreover, these indices computed along the optic radiations showed an early wave of maturation in the anterior region, with the posterior region catching up later in development, which suggests two asynchronous fronts of myelination in both the geniculocortical and corticogeniculate fibers. Thus, in addition to microstructural information, DTI provides noninvasive exquisite information on the functional development of the brain in human infants.
Comparative study of aging in the mouse olfactory bulb

Gene knockout technologies have been used to elevate the mouse as a model species. However, little work has examined age and strain differences in the mouse olfactory system. The present study compared the olfactory bulbs of mature (6 month) and aged (24 month) males of BALB/cBy, C57BL/6J, and DBA/2 strains. Volumes of the glomerular (GLM), external plexiform (EPL), and mitral/granule cell (MIG) layers varied little from strain to strain. Volume measurements increased with age even when corrected for body weight differences. Two nonoverlapping interneuron populations were examined with immunohistochemistry. Staining for the calcium binding protein calretinin varied little between strains, but age‐related increases in staining were seen in EPL of C57BL/6J mice. Typical patterns of tyrosine hydroxylase immunoreactivity were observed in all subjects except for old DBA/2 mice, which evidenced considerable staining in submitral areas. Age‐related increases were observed in BALB/cBy and DBA/2 mice but not in the C57BL/6J strain. Glial fibrillary acidic protein staining was similar in old BALB/cBy and DBA/2 mice, with astrocytes in all layers of the bulb, but more concentrated in the MIG. However, C57BL/6J tissue revealed very large astrocytes relatively evenly distributed in all layers. Cell proliferation dropped dramatically with age. Labeled cells could still be observed along the lateral ventricles, but very few were observed within the rostral migratory stream or subventricular zone. Although TUNEL labeling revealed many apoptotic figures in the granule cell layer of young subjects, almost no staining was seen in aged mice. J. Comp. Neurol. 454:361–372, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Estimating Markov-modulated compound Poisson processes

This paper addresses a parameter estimation problem for Markov-modulated compound Poisson process (MMCPP) and compound Markovian arrival process (CMAP). MMCPP and CMAP are extended from Markov-modulated Poisson process (MMPP) and Markovian arrival process (MAP) by combining compound Poisson process (CPP). The EM (expectation-maximization) algorithm is well known as an effective method in order to perform the statistical estimation for the family of MAPs. In this paper, we develop the EM algorithm for MMCPP and CMAP by using the similar technique to the forward-backward algorithm of hidden Markov model (HMM). In particular, we derive concrete estimation algorithms for MMCPP and CMAP whose outputs are given by exponential distributions or multivariate normal distributions.
A Stream Processor Cluster Architecture Model with the Hybrid Technology of MPI and CUDA

Nowadays, the compute capability of traditional cluster system can't keep up with the computing needs of a practical application, and these aspects of energy, space technology, etc. have become a huge problem. However, as parallel computing equipment, the stream processor (SP) has a high performance of floating-point operations. NVIDIA GPUs is a typical stream processor device, CUDA technology enables the way to develop a better parallel program on GPUs to become flexible. In this paper, we make use of the hybrid parallel computing programming environment (HPCPE) with MPI and CUDA technology to build the simple CPU + GPU-based stream processor cluster system. In addition, we also proposed the "Two Level Model (TLM)" to separate the intensive computing tasks and controlling tasks, and exploit the compute capability of contemporary GPUs to accelerate computing tasks. Finally, we conducted a relevant experiment about the calculation of N-Body problem, and verified the better performance that stream processor cluster system has than the traditional one.
Omega: flexible, scalable schedulers for large compute clusters

Increasing scale and the need for rapid response to changing requirements are hard to meet with current monolithic cluster scheduler architectures. This restricts the rate at which new features can be deployed, decreases efficiency and utilization, and will eventually limit cluster growth. We present a novel approach to address these needs using parallelism, shared state, and lock-free optimistic concurrency control. We compare this approach to existing cluster scheduler designs, evaluate how much interference between schedulers occurs and how much it matters in practice, present some techniques to alleviate it, and finally discuss a use case highlighting the advantages of our approach -- all driven by real-life Google production workloads.
The Potential for Plurality and Prevalence of the Religious Institutional Logic

Religion is a significant social force on organizational practice yet has been relatively underexamined in organization theory. In this article, I assert that the institutional logics perspective is especially conducive to examine the macrolevel role of religion for organizations. The notion of the religious logic offers conceptual means to explain the significance of religion, its interrelationship with other institutional orders, and embeddedness into and impact across interinstitutional systems. I argue for intrainstitutional logic plurality and show that specifically the intrareligious logic plurality has been rather disregarded with a relative focus on Christianity and a geographical focus on “the West. ” Next, I propose the concept of interinstitutional logic prevalence and show that the religious logic in particular may act as a metalogic due to its potential for uniqueness, ultimacy, and ubiquity. Through illustrations from Islamic Finance and Entrepreneurship, I exemplify implications of logic plurality and prevalence for organizations and societies.
A 3.33Gb/s (1200,720) low-density parity check code decoder

In this paper, a (1200,720) LDPC decoder based on an irregular parity check matrix is presented. For achieving higher chip density and less critical path delay, the proposed architecture features a data reordering such that only one specific data bus exists between message memories and computational units. Moreover, the LDPC decoder can also process two different codewords concurrently to increase throughput and datapath efficiency. After chip implementation, a 3.33Gb/s data rate is achieved with 8 decoding iterations in the 21.23mm/sup 2/ 0.18/spl mu/m silicon area. The other 0.13/spl mu/m chip with the 10.24mm/sup 2/ core can further reach a 5.92Gb/s data rate under 1.02V supply.
High power GaN monolithically integrated RF MEMS switches

This paper outlines the design for a high power MEMS switch monolithically integrated on a CPFC MMIC GaN500 process. The switch was designed and optimized to facilitate integrated, reconfigurable, GaN HFET amplifiers. The measurement results for the switch show an insertion loss of less than 0.4 dB and isolation higher than 15 dB when used at frequencies of up to 10 GHz. During continuous wave measurements, the switches can handle high power (higher than 3.6 W) under hot switching with a third order input intercept point of more than 68 dBm.
Four-dimensional Effective M-theory on a Singular G(2) Manifold

We reduce M theory on a G{sub 2} orbifold with codimension four singularities, taking explicitly into account the additional gauge fields at the singularities. As a starting point, we use 11-dimensional supergravity coupled to seven-dimensional super-Yang-Mills theory, as derived in a previous paper. The resulting four-dimensional theory has N=1 supersymmetry with non-Abelian N=4 gauge theory subsectors. We present explicit formulas for the Kaehler potential, gauge-kinetic function and superpotential. In the four-dimensional theory, blowing up of the orbifold is described by a Higgs effect induced by continuation along D-flat directions. Using this interpretation, we show that our results are consistent with the corresponding ones obtained for smooth G{sub 2} spaces. In addition, we consider the effects of switching on flux and Wilson lines on singular loci of the G{sub 2} space, and we discuss the relation to N=4 super-Yang-Mills theory.
Induction of Metamorphosis Decreases Nitric Oxide Synthase Gene Expression in Larvae of the Marine Mollusc Ilyanassa obsoleta (Say)

Many marine organisms spend the early part of their lives as larvae suspended in the water column before metamorphosing into benthic reproductive adults. Metamorphosis does not occur until a larva has become competent to respond to appropriate stimuli and after a suitable habitat for the young juvenile has been encountered. The gaseous neurotransmitter nitric oxide is thought to be important in the regulation of metamorphosis by holding the organism in the larval state. We have investigated expression of the neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) gene in larval and metamorphosing individuals of the marine mud snail Ilyanassa obsoleta. Our results indicate that nNOS is expressed at constant levels throughout larval development. In contrast, expression of nNOS decreases markedly during the first 24 h of metamorphosis. Our observations support previous findings that demonstrate that nitric oxide is present in larvae though competence. The decrease in nNOS gene expression that occurs during metamorphosis corresponds with a previously described reduction in nNOS activity.
3D multizone soundfield reproduction using spherical harmonic analysis

Multizone soundfield reproduction with various potential applications has recently been drawn more and more attention in acoustic signal processing. However, the literatures related to multizone soundfield reproduction are mainly limited to 2D multizone scenarios. In this paper, based on spherical harmonic analysis, we seek to recreate a 3D multizone soundfield using a single spherical loudspeaker array. The desired local soundfield coefficients are mapped into the equivalent global soundfield coefficients using spherical addition theorem for Bessel function. The mode matching approach is used to derive loudspeaker weights in the reproduction step. The experiments show that the proposed method can reproduce the target 3D spatial multizone soundfield accurately.
Fast Food- the early years: Geography and the growth of a chain-store in the UK*

We examine the development of UK outlets of a major fast food chain, from inauguration in 1974 until 1990, after which industry structure changed somewhat. The chain effectively introduced the counter-service burger concept. Locational spread across local authority district markets is explained by the characteristics of the areas where the outlets are sited. Of special interest is the effect of scale economies, measured by outlet numbers in neighboring districts. Both first and second entry are examined. We find that the hazard of first entry is positively influenced by market size and population density and negatively by distance from company headquarters.
Modeling Analysis on New Products Potential Profits

New products potential profits prediction is a quite difficult task involving a lot of factors such as market construct, pricing strategy and technique capacity performance. The principles of cybernetics and system dynamics (SD) have been used in constructing models, which is developed to analyze the factors related. The results indicate that market-skimming pricing strategy is suitable for the market with customers who behave more like innovators. In the contrary, market-penetration pricing strategy will be better used in the market with customers who behave more like imitators. At the same time, earlier to seize the opportunity of drastic cost reduction, more profits will be got.
Per-Survivor Processing: a general approach to MLSE in uncertain environments

Per-survivor processing (PSP) provides a general framework for the approximation of maximum likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE) algorithms whenever the presence of unknown quantities prevents the precise use of the classical Viterbi algorithm. This principle stems from the idea that data-aided estimation of unknown parameters may be embedded into the structure of the Viterbi algorithm itself. Among the numerous possible applications, the authors concentrate on (a) adaptive MLSE, (b) simultaneous trellis coded modulation (TCM) decoding and phase synchronization, (c) adaptive reduced state sequence estimation (RSSE). As a matter of fact, PSP is interpretable as a generalization of decision feedback techniques of RSSE to decoding in the presence of unknown parameters. A number of algorithms for the simultaneous estimation of data sequence and unknown channel parameters are presented and compared with "conventional" techniques based on the use of tentative decisions. Results for uncoded modulations over interSymbol interference (ISI) fading channels and joint TCM decoding and carrier synchronization are presented. In all cases, it is found that PSP algorithms are clearly more robust than conventional techniques both in tracking a time-varying channel and acquiring its characteristics without training. >