Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A joint backhaul and RAN perspective on the benefits of centralised RAN functions

Cloud-RAN (C-RAN) is considered a prime 5G enabler with promising resource pooling gains, tighter coordination among cells, and cost saving in remote radio heads and corresponding deployment and operation. However, C-RAN brings stringent requirements on the backhaul last mile, or the fronthaul, in terms of capacity, latency, and synchronisation, to the extent that direct fibre is believed to be the only plausible fronthaul solution. Knowing that more often than not, fibre to the home is not available and is a cumbersome and costly technology to provide, what are the alternatives for deploying C-RAN? How much loss is incurred in a 5G network if C-RAN is not available? On the other hand, the distributed RAN (D-RAN) is less demanding on the backhaul but is believed to lack in performance in terms of resource usage and efficiency of RAN deployment. In this work we address the comparison between C-RAN and D-RAN from a joint RAN and backhaul perspective in a quantitative manner, using a case study approach. Our results show that C-RAN is indeed cost effective and advantageous from a joint perspective; moreover, intermediate functional splits between the C-RAN and the D-RAN are promising as an evolution path towards 5G, in the absence of fibre.
Post-translational maturation of IDA, a peptide signal controlling floral organ abscission in Arabidopsis

ABSTRACT The abscission of sepals, petals and stamens in Arabidopsis flowers is controlled by a peptide signal called IDA (Inflorescence Deficient in Abscission). IDA belongs to the large group of small post-translationally modified signaling peptides that are synthesized as larger precursors and require proteolytic processing and specific side chain modifications for signal biogenesis. Using tissue-specific expression of proteinase inhibitors as a novel approach for loss-of-function analysis, we recently identified the peptidases responsible for IDA maturation within the large family of subtilisin-like proteinases (subtilases; SBTs). Further biochemical and physiological assays identified three SBTs (AtSBT5.2, AtSBT4.12, AtSBT4.13) that cleave the IDA precursor to generate the N-terminus of the mature peptide. The C-terminal processing enzyme(s) remain(s) to be identified. While proline hydroxylation was suggested as additional post-translational modification required for IDA maturation, hydroxylated and non-hydroxylated IDA peptides were found to be equally active in bioassays for abscission.
Effects of blood glucose level on 18F-FDG uptake for PET/CT in normal organs: A systematic review

Purpose To perform a systematic review of the effect of blood glucose levels on 2-Deoxy-2-[18F]fluoro-D-glucose (18F-FDG) uptake in normal organs. Methods We searched the MEDLINE, EMBASE and Cochrane databases through 22 April 2017 to identify all relevant studies using the keywords “PET/CT” (positron emission tomography/computed tomography), “standardized uptake value” (SUV), “glycemia,” and “normal. ” Analysis followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses recommendations. Maximum and mean SUVs and glycemia were the main parameters analyzed. To objectively measure the magnitude of the association between glycemia and 18F-FDG uptake in different organs, we calculated the effect size (ES) and the coefficient of determination (R2) whenever possible. Results The literature search yielded 225 results, and 14 articles met the inclusion criteria; studies included a total of 2714 (range, 51–557) participants. The brain SUV was related significantly and inversely to glycemia (ES = 1.26; R2 0.16–0.58). Although the liver and mediastinal blood pool were significantly affected by glycemia, the magnitudes of these associations were small (ES = 0.24–0.59, R2 = 0.01–0.08) and negligible (R2 = 0.02), respectively. Lung, bone marrow, tumor, spleen, fat, bowel, and stomach 18F-FDG uptakes were not influenced by glycemia. Individual factors other than glycemia can also affect 18F-FDG uptake in different organs, and body mass index appears to be the most important of these factors. Conclusion The impact of glycemia on SUVs in most organs is either negligible or too small to be clinically significant. The brain SUV was the only value largely affected by glycemia.
Transductive Adversarial Networks (TAN)

Transductive Adversarial Networks (TAN) is a novel domain-adaptation machine learning framework that is designed for learning a conditional probability distribution on unlabelled input data in a target domain, while also only having access to: (1) easily obtained labelled data from a related source domain, which may have a different conditional probability distribution than the target domain, and (2) a marginalised prior distribution on the labels for the target domain. TAN leverages a fully adversarial training procedure and a unique generator/encoder architecture which approximates the transductive combination of the available source- and target-domain data. A benefit of TAN is that it allows the distance between the source- and target-domain label-vector marginal probability distributions to be greater than 0 (i.e. different tasks across the source and target domains) whereas other domain-adaptation algorithms require this distance to equal 0 (i.e. a single task across the source and target domains). TAN can, however, still handle the latter case and is a more generalised approach to this case. Another benefit of TAN is that due to being a fully adversarial algorithm, it has the potential to accurately approximate highly complex distributions. Theoretical analysis demonstrates the viability of the TAN framework.
Cracking in Brittle Coatings during Nanoindentation

The FIB/SEM investigations of the microstructure changes in the hard brittle W-C based coating deposited on softer steel substrate after nanoindentation tests revealed that a set of approximately equidistant circular cracks forms in the coating in a sink-in zone around the indent and single cracks appear under the indenter tip. Finite element modeling (FEM) indicated development and concentration of the highest principal tensile stresses in the sink-in zone and in the zone below the indenter, which are considered to be the reason for the experimentally observed cracking. The distance from the indenter tip to the first circular crack combined with the calibration curve obtained from the FEM of the location of tensile stress maxima in sink-in zone can be used as a simple method for the determination of the strength of the studied coatings.
The Influence of Hydroxylation on Maintaining CpG Methylation Patterns: A Hidden Markov Model Approach

DNA methylation and demethylation are opposing processes that when in balance create stable patterns of epigenetic memory. The control of DNA methylation pattern formation by replication dependent and independent demethylation processes has been suggested to be influenced by Tet mediated oxidation of 5mC. Several alternative mechanisms have been proposed suggesting that 5hmC influences either replication dependent maintenance of DNA methylation or replication independent processes of active demethylation. Using high resolution hairpin oxidative bisulfite sequencing data, we precisely determine the amount of 5mC and 5hmC and model the contribution of 5hmC to processes of demethylation in mouse ESCs. We develop an extended hidden Markov model capable of accurately describing the regional contribution of 5hmC to demethylation dynamics. Our analysis shows that 5hmC has a strong impact on replication dependent demethylation, mainly by impairing methylation maintenance.
Embedded deterministic test

This paper presents a novel test-data volume-compression methodology called the embedded deterministic test (EDT), which reduces manufacturing test cost by providing one to two orders of magnitude reduction in scan test data volume and scan test time. The presented scheme is widely applicable and easy to deploy because it is based on the standard scan/ATPG methodology and adopts a very simple flow. It is nonintrusive as it does not require any modifications to the core logic such as the insertion of test points or logic bounding unknown states. The EDT scheme consists of logic embedded on a chip and a new deterministic test-pattern generation technique. The main contributions of the paper are test-stimuli compression schemes that allow us to deliver test data to the on-chip continuous-flow decompressor. In particular, it can be done by repeating certain patterns at the rates, which are adjusted to the requirements of the test cubes. Experimental results show that for industrial circuits with test cubes with very low fill rates, ranging from 3% to 0.2%, these schemes result in compression ratios of 30 to 500 times. A comprehensive analysis of the encoding efficiency of the proposed compression schemes is also provided.
Offset addressing approach to memory-efficient IP address lookup

This paper presents a novel offset encoding scheme for memory-efficient IP address lookup, called Offset Encoded Trie (OET). Each node in the OET contains only a next hop bitmap and an offset value, without the child pointers and the next hop pointers. Each traversal node uses the next hop bitmap and the offset value as two offsets to determine the location address of the next node to be searched. The on-chip OET is searched to find the longest matching prefix, and then the prefix is used as a key to retrieve the corresponding next hop from an off-chip prefix hash table. Experiments on real IP forwarding tables show that the OET outperforms previous multi-bit trie schemes in terms of the memory consumption. The OET facilitates the far more effective use of on-chip memory for faster IP address lookup.
SAC1 degrades its lipid substrate PtdIns4P in the endoplasmic reticulum to maintain a steep chemical gradient with donor membranes

Gradients of PtdIns4P between organelle membranes and the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) are thought to drive counter-transport of other lipids via non-vesicular traffic. This novel pathway requires the SAC1 phosphatase to degrade PtdIns4P in a “cis” configuration at the ER to maintain the gradient. However, SAC1 has also been proposed to act in “trans” at membrane contact sites, which could oppose lipid traffic. It is therefore crucial to determine which mode SAC1 uses in living cells. We report that acute inhibition of SAC1 causes accumulation of PtdIns4P in the ER, that SAC1 does not enrich at membrane contact sites, and that SAC1 has little activity in “trans”, unless a linker is added between its ER-anchored and catalytic domains. The data reveal an obligate “cis” activity of SAC1, supporting its role in non-vesicular lipid traffic and implicating lipid traffic more broadly in inositol lipid homeostasis and function.
Subcutaneous tocilizumab in rheumatoid arthritis: findings from the common-framework phase 4 study programme TOZURA conducted in 22 countries

Abstract Objectives The aim of this pooled analysis of the TOZURA study programme was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of subcutaneous tocilizumab (TCZ-SC) as monotherapy or in combination with conventional synthetic DMARDs (csDMARDs) in patients with moderate to severe RA who had an inadequate response to csDMARD or anti-TNF agent therapy or who were MTX naïve. Methods TOZURA is a multinational, open-label, single-arm, common-framework, phase 4 study programme (11 protocols, 22 countries). Patients received TCZ-SC 162 mg each week for ⩾24 weeks, administered at the investigator’s discretion, as monotherapy or in combination with a csDMARD. Efficacy, safety and immunogenicity were evaluated; propensity score–based matching was used for between-group comparisons. Results Of 1804 patients, 353 (19.6%) received monotherapy and 1451 (80.4%) received combination therapy. The 28-joint DAS using ESR (DAS28-ESR) in both groups decreased significantly from baseline to week 24 (mean change: monotherapy −3.40, combination therapy −3.46), with no significant difference between groups (P = 0.46). The proportion of patients who achieved DAS28-ESR or Clinical Disease Activity Index remission or ACR 20/50/70/90 responses was similar between groups. Overall, 13.9% of patients withdrew—6.2% for safety reasons and 1.6% for insufficient therapeutic response; 5.8% of patients experienced one or more serious adverse events [14.6/100 patient-years (PY)]; six deaths occurred (0.64/100 PY). Conclusion In a common framework of 11 studies in 22 countries, this phase 4 study programme confirmed TCZ-SC’s known efficacy and safety profile with comparable effects as monotherapy and in combination with csDMARDs. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov (http://www.clinicaltrials.gov) NCT01941940, NCT01941095, NCT01951170, NCT01987479, NCT01988012, NCT01995201, NCT02001987, NCT02011334, NCT02031471, NCT02046603 and NCT02046616.
Circulating and Exosome-Packaged Hepatitis C Single-Stranded RNA Induce Monocyte Differentiation via TLR7/8 to Polarized Macrophages and Fibrocytes

Monocytes and macrophages (MΦs) play a central role in the pathogenesis of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. The tissue microenvironment triggers monocyte differentiation into MΦs, with polarization ranging within the spectrum of M1 (classical) to M2 (alternative) activation. Recently, we demonstrated that HCV infection leads to monocyte differentiation into polarized MΦs that mediate stellate cell activation via TGF-β. In this study, we aimed to identify the viral factor(s) that mediate monocyte-to-MΦ differentiation. We performed coculture experiments using healthy monocytes with exosome-packaged HCV, cell-free HCV, or HCV ssRNA. Coculture of monocytes with exosome-packaged HCV, cell-free HCV, or HCV ssRNA induced differentiation into MΦs with high M2 surface marker expression and production of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines. The HCV ssRNA–induced monocyte activation and differentiation into MΦs could be prevented by TLR7 or TLR8 knockdown. Furthermore, TLR7 or TLR8 stimulation, independent of HCV, caused monocyte differentiation and M2 MΦ polarization. In vivo, in chronic HCV–infected patients, we found increased expression of TLR7/8 in circulating monocytes that was associated with increased intracellular expression of procollagen. Furthermore, knockdown of TLR8 completely attenuated collagen expression in monocytes exposed to HCV, and knockdown of TLR7 partially attenuated this expression, suggesting roles for TLR7/8 in induction of fibrocytes in HCV infection. We identified TLR7/8 as mediators of monocyte differentiation and M2 MΦ polarization during HCV infection. Further, we demonstrated that HCV ssRNA and other TLR7/8 ligands promote MΦ polarization and generation of circulating fibrocytes.
Optimal optode montage on electroencephalography/functional near-infrared spectroscopy caps dedicated to study epileptic discharges

Abstract. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), acquired simultaneously with electroencephalography (EEG), allows the investigation of hemodynamic brain responses to epileptic activity. Because the presumed epileptogenic focus is patient-specific, an appropriate source/detector (SD) montage has to be reconfigured for each patient. The combination of EEG and fNIRS, however, entails several constraints on montages, and finding an optimal arrangement of optodes on the cap is an important issue. We present a method for computing an optimal SD montage on an EEG/fNIRS cap that focuses on one or several specific brain regions; the montage maximizes the spatial sensitivity. We formulate this optimization problem as a linear integer programming problem. The method was evaluated on two EEG/fNIRS caps. We simulated absorbers at different locations on a head model and generated realistic optical density maps on the scalp. We found that the maps of optimal SD montages had spatial resolution properties comparable to those of regular SD arrangements for the whole head with significantly fewer sensors than regular SD arrangements. In addition, we observed that optimal montages yielded improved spatial density of fNIRS measurements over the targeted regions together with an increase in signal-to-noise ratio.
Modelling Dam Break Evolution over a Wet Bed with Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics: A Parameter Study

When investigating water flow in spillways and energy dissipation, it is important to know the behavior of the free surfaces. To capture the real dynamic behavior of the free surfaces is therefore crucial when performing simulations. Today, there is a lack in the possibility to model such phenomenon with traditional methods. Hence, this work focuses on a parameter study for one alternative simulation tool available, namely the meshfree, Lagrangian particle method Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH). The parameter study includes the choice of equation-of-state (EOS), the artificial viscosity constants, using a dynamic versus a static smoothing length, SPH particle spatial resolution and the finite element method (FEM) mesh scaling of the boundaries. The two dimensional SPHERIC Benchmark test case of dam break evolution over a wet bed was used for comparison and validation. The numerical results generally showed a tendency of the wave front to be ahead of the experimental results, i.e. to have a greater wave front velocity. The choice of EOS, FEM mesh scaling as well as using a dynamic or a static smoothing length showed little or no significant effect on the outcome, though the SPH particle resolution and the choice of artificial viscosity constants had a major impact. A high particle resolution increased the number of flow features resolved for both choices of artificial viscosity constants, but at the expense of increasing the mean error. Furthermore, setting the artificial viscosity constants equal to unity for the coarser cases resulted in a highly viscous and unphysical solution, and thus the relation between the artificial viscosity constants and the particle resolution and its impact on the behavior of the fluid needed to be further investigated.
Green Hybrid Satellite Terrestrial Networks: Fundamental Trade-Off Analysis

With the worldwide evolution of 4G generation and revolution in the information and communications technology(ICT) field to meet the exponential increase of mobile data traffic in the 2020 era, the hybrid satellite and terrestrial network based on the soft defined features is proposed from a perspective of 5G. In this paper, an end-to-end architecture of hybrid satellite and terrestrial network under the control and user Plane (C/U) split concept is studied and the performances are analysed based on stochastic geometry. The relationship between spectral efficiency (SE) and energy efficiency (EE) is investigated, taking consideration of overhead costs, transmission and circuit power, backhaul of gateway (GW), and density of small cells. Numerical results show that, by optimizing the key parameters, the hybrid satellite and terrestrial network can achieve nearly 90% EE gain with only 3% SE loss in relative dense networks, and achieve both higher EE and SE gain (20% and 5% respectively) in sparse networks toward the future 5G green communication networks.
Implementing top-k query in duty-cycled wireless sensor networks

Top-k query is a very useful and important query in wireless sensor networks (WSNs), aiming to find the k nodes with highest readings among the sensor nodes. In WSNs, there are generally two kinds of networks: always-on WSNs (AO-WSNs) in which sensors always keep awake and duty-cycled WSNs (DC-WSNs) where sensors dynamically sleep and wake. To the best of our knowledge, there are a lot of work about top-k query in AO-WSNs but little research has been done regarding top-k query in DC-WSNs. However, DC-WSN is a very practical network model in which energy consumption can be greatly saved. In this paper, we analyze the research issues when implementing top-k query in DC-WSNs and propose the DCDC-WSNs (DC-WSNs with data replication (DR) and connected k-neighborhood (CKN)) to implement top-k query. Further theoretical analysis and simulation results show that implementing top-k query in DCDC-WSNs can achieve the best tradeoff with respect to query data accessibility and query cost (total energy consumption, query response time), compared with AO-WSNs and DCC-WSNs (DC-WSNs with only CKN).
Advanced Wi-Fi attacks using commodity hardware

We show that low-layer attacks against Wi-Fi can be implemented using user-modifiable firmware. Hence cheap off-the-shelf Wi-Fi dongles can be used carry out advanced attacks. We demonstrate this by implementing five low-layer attacks using open source Atheros firmware. The first attack consists of unfair channel usage, giving the user a higher throughput while reducing that of others. The second attack defeats countermeasures designed to prevent unfair channel usage. The third attack performs continuous jamming, making the channel unusable for other devices. For the fourth attack we implemented a selective jammer, allowing one to jam specific frames already in the air. The fifth is a novel channel-based Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attack, enabling reliable manipulation of encrypted traffic. These low-layer attacks facilitate novel attacks against higher-layer protocols. To demonstrate this we show how our MitM attack facilitates attacks against the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) when used as a group cipher. Since a substantial number of networks still use TKIP as their group cipher, this shows that weaknesses in TKIP have a higher impact than previously thought.
Analysis of Open Answers to Survey Questions through Interactive Clustering and Theme Extraction

This paper describes design principles for and the implementation of Gavagai Explorer---a new application which builds on interactive text clustering to extract themes from topically coherent text sets such as open text answers to surveys or questionnaires. An automated system is quick, consistent, and has full coverage over the study material. A system allows an analyst to analyze more answers in a given time period; provides the same initial results regardless of who does the analysis, reducing the risks of inter-rater discrepancy; and does not risk miss responses due to fatige or boredom. These factors reduce the cost and increase the reliability of the service. The most important feature, however, is relieving the human analyst from the frustrating aspects of the coding task, freeing the effort to the central challenge of understanding themes. Gavagai Explorer is available on-line.
QUANTITATIVE IMAGING AND ANALYSIS OF BIOLOGICAL SPECIMENS IN THE FIELD-EMISSION SCANNING TRANSMISSION ELECTRON MICROSCOPE: CAPABILITIES AND LIMITATIONS

We have been applying a field-emission scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) to high-resolution imaging and analysis of biological specimens. This instrument is equipped with a cold/cryotransfer stage, digital image acquisition system, energy-dispersive x-ray (EDX) detector, and electron energy loss spectrometer (EELS). It has been optimized to give low detection limits for elemental microanalysis and to provide quantitative images of cells and macromolecular assemblies, while minimizing damage to beam-sensitive specimens through the use of cryotechniques and highly efficient electron detectors. The versatility of the STEM allows low-dose mapping of projected mass distributions of individual molecular assemblies at ~2 nm spatial resolution and of cryosectioned cells at ~10 nm; as a consequence of the low applied dose, the structural quality of low-dose images of tissue cryosections (nominal thickness 80 nm) is comparable to conventional embedded sections. Subsequently, quantitative analysis of elemental composition can be carried out on the same specimen using either EDX and/or EELS microanalysis. For calcium, EDX sensitivity can approach 0.3 mmol/kg dry weight, while EELS is even better, achieving within a few minutes near single-atom detectability for phosphorus as well as for calcium. More recently, new techniques have been introduced, including EELS spectrum imaging which can produce quantitative core-loss calcium maps of freeze-dried tissue cryosections.