Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Decodable Network Coding : From Centralized to Device-to-Device Communications

From its introduction to its quindecennial, network coding has built a strong reputation for enhancing packet recovery and achieving maximum information flow in both wired and wireless networks. Traditional studies focused on optimizing the throughput of the system by proposing elaborate schemes able to reach the network capacity. With the shift toward distributed computing on mobile devices, performance and complexity become both critical factors that affect the efficiency of a coding strategy. Instantly decodable network coding presents itself as a new paradigm in network coding that trades off these two aspects. This paper review instantly decodable network coding schemes by identifying, categorizing, and evaluating various algorithms proposed in the literature. The first part of the manuscript investigates the conventional centralized systems, in which all decisions are carried out by a central unit, e.g., a base-station. In particular, two successful approaches known as the strict and generalized instantly decodable network are compared in terms of reliability, performance, complexity, and packet selection methodology. The second part considers the use of instantly decodable codes in a device-to-device communication network, in which devices speed up the recovery of the missing packets by exchanging network coded packets. Although the performance improvements are directly proportional to the computational complexity increases, numerous successful schemes from both the performance and complexity viewpoints are identified.
Relation Between Cycling Exercise Capacity, Fiber-Type Composition, and Lower Extremity Muscle Strength and Muscle Endurance

Segerström, ÅB, Holmbäck, AM, Hansson, O, Elgzyri, T, Eriksson, K-F, Ringsberg, K, Groop, L, Wollmer, P, and Thorsson, O. Relation between cycling exercise capacity, fiber-type composition, and lower extremity muscle strength and muscle endurance. J Strength Cond Res 25(1): 16-22, 2011-The aim of the study was to determine the relation between peak oxygen uptake (&OV0312;o2peak), peak work rate (WRpeak), fiber-type composition, and lower extremity strength and endurance during a maximal incremental cycle test. Thirty-nine healthy sedentary men, aged 30-46, participated in the study. Subjects performed a maximal incremental cycle test and isokinetic knee extension (KE) and flexion (KF) strength and endurance tests at velocities of 60 and 180°·s−1. Muscle biopsies were taken from m. vastus lateralis and analyzed for fiber-type composition. A significant correlation existed between KE strength and &OV0312;o2peak and WRpeak. Also, KF endurance correlated significantly to &OV0312;o2peak and WRpeak. The KE endurance correlated significantly to WRpeak (rp = 0.32, p < 0.05) and almost significantly to &OV0312;o2peak (rp = 0.28, p = 0.06). Stepwise multiple regression analyses showed that KE strength, KF endurance, and the percentage of type I fibers could explain up to 40% of the variation in &OV0312;o2peak and WRpeak. The performance of sedentary subjects in a maximal incremental cycle test is highly affected by knee muscle strength and endurance. Fiber-type composition also contributes but to a smaller extent.
Phosphorylation of the C Terminus of RHD3 Has a Critical Role in Homotypic ER Membrane Fusion in Arabidopsis1[OPEN]

The Arabidopsis dynamin-like GTPase RHD3 has membrane fusion activity needed to form a proper endoplasmic reticulum network, and this activity is regulated by phosphorylation of its C terminus. The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) consists of dynamically changing tubules and cisternae. In animals and yeast, homotypic ER membrane fusion is mediated by fusogens (atlastin and Sey1p, respectively) that are membrane-associated dynamin-like GTPases. In Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), another dynamin-like GTPase, ROOT HAIR DEFECTIVE3 (RHD3), has been proposed as an ER membrane fusogen, but direct evidence is lacking. Here, we show that RHD3 has an ER membrane fusion activity that is enhanced by phosphorylation of its C terminus. The ER network was RHD3-dependently reconstituted from the cytosol and microsome fraction of tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) cultured cells by exogenously adding GTP, ATP, and F-actin. We next established an in vitro assay system of ER tubule formation with Arabidopsis ER vesicles, in which addition of GTP caused ER sac formation from the ER vesicles. Subsequent application of a shearing force to this system triggered the formation of tubules from the ER sacs in an RHD-dependent manner. Unexpectedly, in the absence of a shearing force, Ser/Thr kinase treatment triggered RHD3-dependent tubule formation. Mass spectrometry showed that RHD3 was phosphorylated at multiple Ser and Thr residues in the C terminus. An antibody against the RHD3 C-terminal peptide abolished kinase-triggered tubule formation. When the Ser cluster was deleted or when the Ser residues were replaced with Ala residues, kinase treatment had no effect on tubule formation. Kinase treatment induced the oligomerization of RHD3. Neither phosphorylation-dependent modulation of membrane fusion nor oligomerization has been reported for atlastin or Sey1p. Taken together, we propose that phosphorylation-stimulated oligomerization of RHD3 enhances ER membrane fusion to form the ER network.
Short leukocyte telomere length is associated with obesity in American Indians: The strong heart family study

Shorter leukocyte telomere length (LTL) has been associated with a wide range of age-related disorders including cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes. Obesity is an important risk factor for CVD and diabetes. The association of LTL with obesity is not well understood. This study for the first time examines the association of LTL with obesity indices including body mass index, waist circumference, percent body fat, waist-to-hip ratio, and waist-to-height ratio in 3,256 American Indians (14-93 years old, 60% women) participating in the Strong Heart Family Study. Association of LTL with each adiposity index was examined using multivariate generalized linear mixed model, adjusting for chronological age, sex, study center, education, lifestyle (smoking, alcohol consumption, and total energy intake), high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, hypertension and diabetes. Results show that obese participants had significantly shorter LTL than non-obese individuals (age-adjusted P=0.0002). Multivariate analyses demonstrate that LTL was significantly and inversely associated with all of the studied obesity parameters. Our results may shed light on the potential role of biological aging in pathogenesis of obesity and its comorbidities.
Characterization of two atypical promoters and alternate mRNA processing in the mouse Thy-1.2 glycoprotein gene

The promoter and 5' flanking region of the mouse Thy-1.2 glycoprotein gene were characterized by DNA sequencing, primer extension analysis, and deletion analysis. Transcriptional initiation sites were identified which corresponded to two separate exons upstream of the portion of the gene encoding the Thy-1.2 glycoprotein. We demonstrated that the mouse Thy-1.2 gene was transcribed from two atypical promoters separated by 260 base pairs in the genomic sequence. These promoters contained neither TATAAG nor GGPyCCAATCT homologous sequences but defined a conserved nonamer CTCCCTGCT at -48 from each initiation site. Two Thy-1.2 mRNA species of 1,835 and 1,939 nucleotides, differing in the 5' untranslated region of the mRNA, were thus transcribed from the single Thy-1.2 gene by mRNA splicing to the same downstream exon. Recombinant genomes in which the bacterial chloramphenicol acetyltransferase gene was expressed from either of the two Thy-1.2 promoters demonstrated that each promoter functioned independently and did not direct cell-specific expression in lymphoid cells. The 5' flanking region of the Thy-1.2 gene upstream of -68 could be eliminated without altering cell-type-specific expression. This suggests that regulatory elements responsible for tissue and developmental stage-specific expression of the Thy-1.2 gene are not present in the 5' flanking DNA but may reside downstream of the promoters.
Undertaking Cancer Research in International Settings: Report from the American Society for Preventive Oncology Special Interest Group on International Issues in Cancer

The mission of the American Society for Preventive Oncology Special Interest Group in International Issues in Cancer is to serve as a worldwide cancer prevention resource. At the 2013 annual meeting, we presented three early career investigators who conducted research with international collaborators as part of postdoctoral studies. We present a synopsis of each of the scientific presentations. The investigators also highlight useful strategies to encourage a more successful international collaboration, including seeking out existing collaborations between colleagues and international researchers, maintaining awareness and sensitivity of cultural norms, establishing clear communication about investigator roles and expectations, and persevering in the face of potential challenges due to the nature of these collaborations. Incorporation of these key elements could prove useful for researchers interested in pursuing cross-country projects. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 22(9); 1638–41. ©2013 AACR.
Improving Selection Methods for Evolutionary Algorithms by Clustering

This study applies clustering in population selection to improve the efficiency of evolutionary algorithms. The main contributions include: (a) Proposes a novel selection framework that uses the number of clusters for a population as the measurement the population diversity, (b) Proposes clustering-ranking selection, an instance of this framework, and discusses its mathematical principle by PD-SP equation, (c) Gives experiments over CLPSO (comprehensive learning particle swarm optimization). Experiment result shows that the proposed selection method outperforms canonical exponential ranking on all the sixteen-benchmark functions for both 10-D and 30-D problems except a function for 30-D problem.
Analogy as a paradigm for specification reuse

Specification reuse by analogy is proposed as an alternative paradigm to support requirements analysis. The paradigm is founded on a descriptive model of analogy in software engineering problems, which suggests critical determinants of software engineering analogies. This model is discussed in terms of two non-simple software engineering analogies, which also suggest the potential of specification reuse by analogy. The requirements of a CASE tool to support reuse of specifications are proposed.
Identification of potential protein partners that bind to the variant surface glycoprotein in Trypanosoma equiperdum

SUMMARY Trypanosoma equiperdum possesses a dense coat of a variant surface glycoprotein (VSG) that is used to evade the host immune response by a process known as antigenic variation. Soluble and membrane forms of the predominant VSG from the Venezuelan T. equiperdum TeAp-N/D1 strain (sVSG and mVSG, respectively) were purified to homogeneity; and antibodies against sVSG and mVSG were raised, isolated, and employed to produce anti-idiotypic antibodies that structurally mimic the VSG surface. Prospective VSG-binding partners were initially detected by far-Western blots, and then by immunoblots using the generated anti-idiotypic antibodies. Polypeptides of ~80 and 55 kDa were isolated when anti-idiotypic antibodies–Sepharose affinity matrixes were used as baits. Mass spectrometry sequencing yielded hits with various proteins from Trypanosoma brucei such as heat-shock protein 70, tryparedoxin peroxidase, VSG variants, expression site associated gene product 6, and two hypothetical proteins. In addition, a possible interaction with a protein homologous to the glutamic acid/alanine-rich protein from Trypanosoma congolense was also found. These results indicate that the corresponding orthologous gene products are candidates for VSG-interacting proteins in T. equiperdum.
Empowerment and Rights-Based Social Work Interventions for Widows in Zimbabwe: A Literature Review

Due to the patriarchal and oppressive nature of the communities, Zimbabwean widows need interventions through empowerment and rights-based approaches. This article argues that those in rural area such as Binga District are more prone to oppression and widowhood has a greater impact on them as they lack the necessary resources coupled with lack of prioritisation in professional interventions. With the aim of refocusing social work interventions on empowerment and rights of widows, the article reviews literature from various sources to discuss how social work may intervene. Literature is reviewed thematically to give structure and to ensure focus on relevant discussion points. This revealed the current perspectives on widowhood elucidating on the loopholes existing within these perspectives suggesting that a more comprehensive and context specific understanding of widowhood is needed especially taking into account the young generation of widows in Zimbabwe that needs empowerment and rights-based intervention approaches. This paper has shown that such social work interventions are possible as it is a professional and ethical requisite to intervene where people are marginalised and oppressed in an endeavor to restore their worth and dignity.
The Effect Of Foreign Direct Investment On Economic Growth: The Case Of Turkey

In developing countries adequate and necessary investment cannot be realized since their domestic savings rate is low and foreign savings rate is very low. Here FDI helps diminish domestic and foreign savings deficits. Capital account liberalization in Turkey was initiated in conjunction with the process of economic and financial reforms that started in 1980, and was fully completed in 1989. In this paper, the objective is to analyze the relationship between FDI and economic growth in Turkey by using the data covering the time period between 2002:Q1 and 2014:Q1. For this purpose unit root test, Johansen cointegration test, and variance decomposition were applied. According to the findings there is no relationship between these variables in the long run.
Design of a near-field radar imaging system based on MIMO array

This paper presents the design of a near-field radar imaging system based on Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) array. Without any mechanical movement, this system can process 2-D image in seconds or 3-D image in minutes. This paper describes the hardware design and the software design of the system, gives out the method of calibration and the imaging results.
Phonon Dynamics and Damping in Three-Dimensional Acoustic Bandgap Cavity-Optomechanical Resonators

Mechanical resonators are used in a wide variety of technical applications, from precision time keeping and sensing, to the delay and filtering of microwave signals in mobile communication systems. Critical to many of these applications is the ability of a mechanical object to store vibrational energy at a well defined frequency of oscillation and with minimal damping. Energy damping can occur through acoustic radiation into the resonator support structure, or through impurities and defects in the resonator material, and is highly dependent on the temperature of operation due to the inherent anharmonic motion of atoms within solid-state materials. Here, we present optical measurements down to milliKelvin temperatures of the acoustic mode properties of a crystalline silicon nanobeam cavity incorporating a three-dimensional phononic bandgap support structure for acoustic confinement. Utilizing pulsed laser light to excite a co-localized optical mode of the optomechanical crystal (OMC) device, we are able to measure the dynamics of the internal cavity acoustic modes which are coupled to the light field via radiation pressure. These measurements represent an almost ideal scenario in which the ringdown occurs free of any additional mechanical or probe field contact, and where elastic scattering or radiation of the acoustic field does not lead to energy damping due to the full bandgap shield. The resulting ringdown measurements for the fundamental 5 GHz acoustic mode of the cavity show an exponential increase in phonon lifetime versus phononic shield period number, which at a bath temperature of 35 milliKelvin saturates above six periods to a value as long as 1.5 seconds. This ultra-long lifetime, corresponding to an effective phonon propagation length of several kilometers, is found at the lowest temperatures to be consistent with damping from non-resonant tunneling states whose energy lies below the acoustic shield phononic bandgap, and which are most likely present in the amorphous etch-damaged region of the silicon surface. Other, more rapid forms of damping such as resonant tunneling state damping or three-phonon scattering are suppressed due to the phononic bandgap shield and the reduced density of phonon states in the effectively one-dimensional nanobeam geometry. Prospects for newapplications of ultra-coherent nanoscale mechanical resonators include tests of various collapse models of quantum mechanics, or, if appropriately integrated with microwave superconducting quantum circuits, as miniature quantum memory or processing units with potentially many-orders of magnitude longer coherence time than their electromagnetic counterparts.
Heterogeneous Multi-sensor Calibration based on Graph Optimization

Many robotics and mapping systems contain multiple sensors to perceive the environment. Extrinsic parameter calibration, the identification of the position and rotation transform between the frames of the different sensors, is critical to fuse data from different sensors. When obtaining multiple camera to camera, lidar to camera and lidar to lidar calibration results, inconsistencies are likely. We propose a graph-based method to refine the relative poses of the different sensors. We demonstrate our approach using our mapping robot platform, which features twelve sensors that are to be calibrated. The experimental results confirm that the proposed algorithm yields great performance.
Bounds on the capacity of the unidirectional channels

In the usual binary symmetric channel, both 1/spl rarr/0 and 0/spl rarr/1 types of errors can occur. In the binary asymmetric channel, only 1/spl rarr/0 type of errors can occur, whereas, in the unidirectional channel, both 1/spl rarr/0 and 0/spl rarr/1 types of errors can occur, but, unlike the binary symmetric channel, for any particular transmitted word of length n, all the errors are of the same type. In general, a symmetric/ unidirectional channel is a channel, which shows the behavior of both the symmetric and unidirectional channel. Many practical systems, such as semiconductor memories and circuits, can be modeled as a unidirectional and/or symmetric/unidirectional channels. This paper gives the formal definition of these last two channels and shows some interesting simple bounds on their information capacities.
Phosphorylation of CLASP2 by GSK-3β regulates its interaction with IQGAP1, EB1 and microtubules

Polarised cell migration is required for various cell behaviours and functions. Actin and microtubules are coupled structurally and distributed asymmetrically along the front-rear axis of migrating cells. CLIP-associating proteins (CLASPs) accumulate near the ends of microtubules at the front of migrating cells to control microtubule dynamics and cytoskeletal coupling. Regional inhibition of GSK-3β is responsible for this asymmetric distribution of CLASPs. However, it is not known how GSK-3β regulates the activity of CLASPs for linkage between actin and microtubules. Here we identified IQGAP1, an actin-binding protein, as a novel CLASP-binding protein. GSK-3β directly phosphorylates CLASP2 at Ser533 and Ser537 within the region responsible for the IQGAP1 binding. Phosphorylation of CLASP2 results in the dissociation of CLASP2 from IQGAP1, EB1 and microtubules. At the leading edges of migrating fibroblasts, CLASP2 near microtubule ends partially colocalises with IQGAP1. Expression of active GSK-3β abrogates the distribution of CLASP2 on microtubules, but not that of a nonphosphorylatable CLASP2 mutant. The phosphorylated CLASP2 does not accumulate near the ends of microtubules at the leading edges. Thus, phosphorylation of CLASP2 by GSK-3β appears to control the regional linkage of microtubules to actin filaments through IQGAP1 for cell migration.
The effect of a dietary supplement of potassium chloride or potassium citrate on blood pressure in predominantly normotensive volunteers

Blood pressure (BP) shows a continuous relationship with the risk of CVD. There is substantial evidence that dietary potassium exerts an anti-pressor effect. Most clinical trials have used KCl. However, the chloride ion may have a pressor effect and in foods potassium is associated with organic anions. In a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled trial we explored the effect on BP of two salts of potassium, KCl and potassium citrate (K-cit), in predominantly young healthy normotensive volunteers. The primary outcome was the change in mean arterial pressure as measured in a clinic setting. After 6 weeks of supplementation, compared with the placebo group (n 31), 30 mmol K-cit/d (n 28) changed mean arterial pressure by − 5·22 mmHg (95 % CI − 8·85, − 4·53) which did not differ significantly from that induced by KCl (n 26), − 4·70 mmHg ( − 6·56, − 2·84). The changes in systolic and diastolic BP were − 6·69 (95 % CI − 8·85, − 4·43) and − 4·26 (95 % CI − 6·31, − 2·21) mmHg with K-cit and − 5·24 (95 % CI − 7·43, − 3·06) and − 4·30 (95 % CI − 6·39, − 2·20) mmHg with KCl, and did not differ significantly between the two treatments. Changes in BP were not related to baseline urinary electrolytes. A greater treatment-related effect was observed in those with higher systolic BP. Increasing dietary potassium could therefore have a significant impact on the progressive rise in BP in the entire population.