Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Measurements for body-to-body UWB WBAN radio channels

This article examines body-to-body ultra wideband (UWB) wireless body area network signal propagation. The results are based on static frequency domain measurements conducted in an anechoic chamber in the frequency band of 2 - 8 GHz using a vector network analyzer. Two test persons both equipped with two on-body antennas were involved. Two planar UWB antenna types were used: dipole and double loop. The effect of distance and the relative position of the persons were examined. Path loss (PL) models were developed in the case the persons standing face to face. The noted PL exponents were between 1.87. 2.53. The first arriving paths showed lower PL and channel power imbalance for the loops. The cross-correlations between the channels were found to be high.
Planar antenna arrays for long range links

In the paper, we describe two antenna concepts for reliable long range links. First, we model separate antenna elements to investigate their electrical properties in a frequency band from 4.4 to 5.0 GHz. We compare electrical properties of designed antennas with required ones and we design large antenna arrays (8×8). In order to meet the radiation pattern requirements, we use special techniques suppressing the level of sidelobes and defining the width of the main lobe. Finally, the comparisons of numerical simulations obtained by the full wave solver (CST Microwave Studio) and measurements are discussed.
Fine Structural Variations of αβTCRs Selected by Vaccination with Natural versus Altered Self-Antigen in Melanoma Patients1

Immunotherapy of cancer is often performed with altered “analog” peptide Ags optimized for HLA class I binding, resulting in enhanced immunogenicity, but the induced T cell responses require further evaluation. Recently, we demonstrated fine specificity differences and enhanced recognition of naturally presented Ag by T cells after vaccination with natural Melan-A/MART-1 peptide, as compared with analog peptide. In this study, we compared the TCR primary structures of 1489 HLA-A*0201/Melan-A26–35-specific CD8 T cells derived from both cohorts of patients. Although a strong preference for TRAV12-2 segment usage was present in nearly all patients, usage of particular TRAJ gene segments and CDR3α composition differed slightly after vaccination with natural vs analog peptide. Moreover, TCR β-chain repertoires were broader after natural than analog peptide vaccination. In all patients, we observed a marked conservation of the CDR3β amino acid composition with recurrent sequences centered on a glycyl-leucyl/valyl/alanyl-glycyl motif. In contrast to viral-specific TCR repertoires, such “public” motifs were primarily expressed by nondominant T cell clonotypes, which contrasted with “private” CDR3β signatures frequently found in T cell clonotypes that dominated repertoires of individual patients. Interestingly, no differences in functional avidity were observed between public and private T cell clonotypes. Collectively, our data indicate that T cell repertoires generated against natural or analog Melan-A peptide exhibited slightly distinct but otherwise overlapping and structurally conserved TCR features, suggesting that the differences in binding affinity/avidity of TCRs toward pMHC observed in the two cohorts of patients are caused by subtle structural TCR variations.
The efficacy of diffusion-weighted imaging for the detection of colorectal cancer.

BACKGROUND/AIMS Diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) is a new magnetic resonance (MR) imaging technique that evaluates the diffusion of water molecules. Its clinical usefulness in the acute stage of cerebral infraction has been established. Recent technical developments have enabled DWI for human body and the usefulness of DWI for detecting malignant tumors such as liver, kidney, ovary, and breast tumors has been reported. This study documents cases of colorectal cancer detected by DWI and discusses the efficacy of DWI for the evaluation of colorectal cancer. METHODOLOGY DWI, computed tomography (CT) and colonoscopy examinations were performed on 18 patients with colorectal cancer. MRI examinations were performed using a 1.5-T imager (Toshiba, Otawara, Japan). The signal intensity was measured in a series of DWI and the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values were calculated in order to differentiate the cancers from normal tissues. Two experienced radiologists evaluated the depth of tumor invasion into the colorectal wall (tumor staging), the involvement of regional lymph nodes (nodal staging), and the presence or absence of metastasis (metastatic staging) on DWI and CT images according to the TNM classification system. TNM staging of each tumor was compared with the pathologic and surgical findings. RESULTS There were no differences between the DWI and the CT images regarding their abilities to detect early colorectal cancer. However, DWI could detect advanced colorectal cancer and liver metastasis more sensitivity, or accurately than CT with no enhancing material. In one patient who did not undergo a surgical resection, a follow up DWI showed peritoneal seeding and bone metastasis. CONCLUSION Although DWI has a difficulty to detect early colorectal cancer, DWI has the potential to be clinically effective for the evaluation of preoperative TNM staging and the postoperative follow-up of colorectal cancer.
PRE AND POST CHINESE NEW YEAR HOLIDAY EFFECTS: EVIDENCE FROM HONG KONG STOCK MARKET

This paper investigated the existence of pre-Chinese New Year (CNY) and post-CNY holiday effect in the Hong Kong stock market for the period covering January 1988 to July 2012. The generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH)-M model is adopted to examine the average returns and associated with symmetrical behavior. Then, asymmetric effect will be identified by using the Threshold GARCH-M (TGARCH-M) and Exponential GARCH-M (EGARCH-M) models. Results obtained indicate the significant two days pre-CNY and one day post-CNY holiday effects. Results also showed that post-CNY is found to be more volatile than the pre-CNY. Besides, the study found evidence of asymmetrical market reactions towards positive and negative news. The CNY holiday effects can be explained with the arguments drawn from behavioral finance, where the Chinese superstition and tradition cultures can alter investors' attitudes toward risk and affect investors' decision making in stock trading.
Analysis of nordihydroguaiaretic acid in Larrea divaricata Cav. extracts by micellar electrokinetic chromatography.

INTRODUCTION Larrea divaricata Cav. is a common shrub used in folk medicine to treat a variety of diseases. The main product extracted from this bush is nordihydroguaiaretic acid (NDG), which is a potent antioxidant. OBJECTIVE In this paper we propose a novel method for the quantification of NDG in different extracts of Larrea divaricata. The concentration of NDG in two different aqueous extracts (I and D) and an ethanolic extract (Eet) was analysed, in order to evaluate the safe use of the extracts for pharmacological purposes. METHODOLOGY Micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC) was performed under the following conditions: the background electrolyte used consisted of 20 mm phosphate buffer (pH 7.5), 10 mm sodium dodecyl sulphate and 10% acetonitrile. RESULTS The limits of detection and quantitation of NDG were 4.54 × 10(-4) and 10.6 × 10(-4) mg/mL, respectively. The concentration of this acid in both aqueous extracts was within the safe levels. However, the decoction must be used carefully because the concentration of the acid was almost over the recommended limit. In the case of ethanolic extracts, the amount of NDG was above the safe concentration, which is in agreement with the solubility of the active compound in ethanol. CONCLUSIONS The conclusions of this study demonstrate that most of these plant extracts should be used with care, especially those which are used with medicinal purposes. This is the first research on the quantification of NDG using MEKC in jarilla extracts.
The Stages of Team Venture Formation: A Decision-making Model

This model of multi-founder organizational formation assumes that organizations emerge In stages, following an a priori sequence of transitions. The idea stage comes first. In it, individuals or groups within the context of their social networks make decisions about the business concept and what Is needed to implement it. The second stage consists of implementation decisions, Including who will supply resources, what Inducements will be used to attract more partners if necessary, and how the team will be kept together. Feedback loops Indicate that the process may return to the concept and implementation needs decisions, depending upon choices made at certain critical points.
Empirical Evidence of CAC 40 Futures Volatility Under Crisis

This paper explores intraday dynamics of the CAC 40 index futures market and the underlying spot in the light of the financial crisis. The GJR-GARCH model shows a decrease (increase) of the futures market volatility (spot market) during the crisis. Contrary to the spot index, we find no evidence of "leverage effect" in the futures market. The study of half-lives suggests that the speed of the mean reversion process differ across the chosen time scales, the market and the study period. Contrary to the spot market, the half-lives are lower during the period of crisis for futures markets series. Further investigating of the futures market, where there is no problem of non-synchronous trading, through the EAR-GARCH model shows that volatility movements and asymmetric effects differ depending on the sampling frequency. Regarding the transmission of volatility, the EC-GARCH model shows that it is bidirectional before the crisis with a predominance of the futures market. During the crisis, volatility spreads only from spot to futures. Earlier studies have shown lower co-movement between spot markets and futures markets in the high variance regimes.
A new scincid lizard from the Miocene of northern Australia, and the evolutionary history of social skinks (Scincidae: Egerniinae)

ABSTRACT The Egerniinae (formerly the Egernia group) is a morphologically diverse clade of skinks comprising 61 extant species from eight genera, spread across Australia, New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands. The relatively large size and robustness of many egerniines has meant that they fossilize more readily than other Australian skinks and have been more frequently recorded from paleontological excavations. The Riversleigh World Heritage Area of northeastern Australia has yielded multiple egerniine fossils, but most are isolated jaw elements, and only one taxon (‘Tiliqua’ pusilla) has been formally described. Articulated remains recently recovered from the mid-Miocene AL90 site (14.8 Ma) at Riversleigh are here described as Egernia gillespieae and represent the first opportunity to describe the morphology of a significant portion of a single individual of a fossil member of the Egerniinae. We include this fossil and ‘T. ’ pusilla in an integrated analysis of morphology and published molecular data to assess their relationships and to provide calibration points for the timing of the egerniine radiation. Our calibrated tree combining molecular and morphological data suggests that the modern Australian radiation dates to the end of the Eocene (34.1 Ma). Both fossils are within the Australian crown clade Egerniinae: Egernia gillespieae is placed close to species of the living genus Egernia, whereas ‘Tiliqua’ pusilla likely sits basal to the divergence of the clade inclusive of Tiliqua and Cyclodomorphus. The fossils thus provide direct evidence that the Australian radiation of the Egerniinae was well underway by the mid-Miocene.
Cluster-Based Resource Allocation for Interference Mitigation in LTE Heterogeneous Networks

In order to provide high data rate for indoor services, femtocells are proposed in LTE-Advanced system. Under this architecture, the main problem is how to reduce the interference between macro and femto cells and that among femtocells. In this paper, an interference graph is constructed in which the vertexes are Macro User (MUE) and femtocell. Besides, Regional Average Channel State (RACS) metric is proposed to estimate the weight of interference. Therefore, a dynamic spectrum assignment algorithm called hybrid clustering based on interference graph (HCIG) is proposed to reduce the interference, in which the optimal clustering problem is constructed as a MAX-K cut problem and a heuristic algorithm is given. Based on the cluster results, a resource allocation scheme is given to reduce the interference and improve the spectrum efficiency. System level simulation results show that compared to other three schemes, the SINR of both MUE and femto user are improved by HCIG.
A Grid-Based successive point-of-interest recommendation method

With the increasing popularity of location-based social networks (LBSNs), users are able to share the point-of-interests (POIs) they visited by check-ins. By analyzing the users' historical check-in records, POI recommendation can help users get better visiting experiences by recommending POIs which users may be interested in. Although recent successive POI recommendation methods consider geographical influence by measuring distances among POIs, most of them ignore the influence of the regions where the POIs are located. Therefore, we propose a grid-based successive POI recommendation method, named UGSE-LR, to take the regional influence into consideration when recommending POIs. UGSE-LR first splits an area into grids for estimating regional influence. Then, UGSE-LR applies Edge-weighted Personalized PageRank (EdgePPR) for modeling the successive transitions among POIs. Finally, UGSE-LR fuses user preference, regional preference and successive transition preference into a unified recommendation framework. Experimental results on two real LBSN datasets show that our method is more accurate than the state-of-the-art successive POI recommendation methods in terms of precision and recall.
Unemployment Benefits and Matching Efficiency in an Estimated DSGE Model with Labor Market Search

To explain the high and persistent unemployment rate in the U.S. during and after the Great Recession, this effort develops and estimates a DSGE model with search and matching frictions and shocks to unemployment benefits and matching efficiency. It finds that the unemployment benefits play an important role in the cyclical movement of unemployment through their effects on labor demand, a channel overlooked in previous studies. From the second half of 2008 to 2011, extended unemployment benefits may have increased the overall unemployment rate by 1 percentage point. In contrast, matching efficiency changes have less effect on the cyclical movement of unemployment for the same period, but significantly slowed down the recovery after 2012.
Reliability of the Fox-walk test in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Purpose: The Fox-walk test is a new method used to estimate aerobic capacity outside a clinical environment, which may be useful in the implementation of daily health-enhancing physical activity. The aim of our study was to investigate the reliability of the test in people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Method: Fifteen participants performed the Fox-walk test three times with weekly intervals. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), the standard error of measurement (SEM) and the smallest detectable change (SDC) were used to estimate the reliability. General health perception, lower limb pain and fatigue were measured to determine their potential influence on the reliability. Results: There were no systematic differences between the three test occasions (p = 0.190) and the reliability was almost perfect (ICC = 0.982). None of the covariates influenced the reliability. The SEM was 0.999 ml/kg/min or 3.4% and the SDC was 2.769 ml/kg/min or 9.4%. Conclusions: These findings demonstrate that the Fox-walk test is reliable in people with RA and enables differentiation between people with RA and monitoring progress. The validity of the test among people with RA is still to be determined. Implications for Rehabilitation The Fox-walk test is a new method to estimate aerobic capacity and could be performed walking or running. The test is self administered without expensive equipment and is available in 150 public places in Sweden and several other European countries. The Fox-walk test is a reliable test for use among people with rheumatoid arthritis monitoring the progress of their physical activity.
An Optimal Governance Model of Land Use in Watershed: The Case of the Paldang Reservoir

This study focuses on the Paldang reservoir in Korea to introduce an optimal governance model of land use in the watershed from a property rights perspective,. The particular model is developed based on the premise that land use activities, which differ in attributes, can properly be aligned with governance mechanisms in such a way that minimizes the governance costs. Given the intrinsic limitations of the measurement of governance costs, this study applies the discrete structural analysis for the alignment. The model developed in such a manner prescribes very diverse and specific mechanisms for the governance of land use activities, and as such, the relevance of this model to the real world situation is much greater. The diversification of policy measures can not only contribute to the improvement of the water quality in the reservoir, but also provide the watershed residents with the opportunity to develop a series of environmentally sensitive and economically viable patterns for growth and diversity.
Stabilization theory of iterative operator-splitting methods

In this paper we present a stabilization theory of iterative operator-splitting methods for linear and nonlinear differential equations. Continuous formulation is described and also the stability for linear and nonlinear cases. We apply linearization techniques to adduce proof of the linear theory. Iterative methods are applied to linearize and couple operator equations. A general theory is derived for linear and nonlinear iterative-splitting methods. Test examples verify the underlying theoretical results.
The Influence of Clicks versus Short Tone Bursts on the Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potentials

Objective Vestibular evoked myogenic potential (VEMP) has become a diagnostic tool to evaluate the integrity of sacculo-collic reflex. To obtain a more consistent VEMP response in normal-hearing subjects, we examine whether clicks or short tone bursts are more effective in eliciting VEMP responses. Design Prospective study. Twenty-nine normal-hearing volunteers (58 ears) were given VEMP tests. Clicks and short tone bursts were presented alternately to evoke VEMPs. The latencies of peak p13 and n23, peak-to-peak interval and amplitude (p13-n23) were measured and compared. Results Click stimulation of 57 ears (98%) produced VEMPs (C-VEMPs), whereas 51 (88%) revealed positive short tone burst-evoked VEMPs (STB-VEMPs), exhibiting a significant difference (p < 0.05). Furthermore, C-VEMPs displayed shorter latency, longer interval and larger amplitude than STB-VEMPs, with a significant difference (p < 0.05), respectively. Conclusions C-VEMPs had a higher response rate, shorter latency, and larger amplitude than STB-VEMPs. These findings suggest that click is superior to short tone burst to trigger VEMPs. Because C-VEMPs have a shorter p13 latency than STB-VEMPs, the interpretation of prolonged latency differs in each stimulus condition.
Localization of Breast Cancer Resistance Protein (BCRP) in Microvessel Endothelium of Human Control and Epileptic Brain

Summary: Purpose: Breast cancer resistance protein (BCRP) is a half adenosine triphosphate (ATP)‐binding cassette (ABC) transporter expressed on cellular membranes and included in the group of multidrug resistant (MDR)‐related proteins. Recently, upregulation of different MDR proteins has been shown in human epilepsy‐associated conditions. This study investigated the expression and cellular distribution of BCRP in human control and epileptic brain, including a large number of both neoplastic and nonneoplastic specimens from patients with chronic pharmacoresistant epilepsy.
Suggestions for assessment of muscle mass in primary care setting

Abstract Sarcopenia is one of the prevalent geriatric syndromes that adversely affects the functionality in the older adults. The diagnosis of sarcopenia requires documentation of decreased muscle mass and decreased muscle strength or physical function. The implication of user-friendly and inexpensive methods that could be used to assess sarcopenia in real-life settings is suggested in a recent debate paper. For muscle mass assessment, bioelectric impedance analysis (BIA), and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) were described as having the same ease for muscle mass assessment in terms of applicability. However, BIA is easier to perform, has greater availability, inexpensive, and does not require specialist trained staff. The authors proposed the use of DXA as primary tool to assess muscle mass in the primary care setting. However, BIA is recommended as a first-line method both in research and clinical practice by EWGSOP. Regarding its much easier applicability, we conclude that BIA is a more practical method for muscle mass assessment in the primary care setting than the DXA. Thus, we suggest that BIA could be the method of choice for muscle mass assessment in the primary care setting.
Not All Money Is Equal: The Differential Effect of Spending by Incumbents and Challengers in Gubernatorial Primaries

What is the impact of campaign spending on the vote in gubernatorial primaries? Is spending by challengers and incumbents equally effective? Answering these questions could shed light on the effectiveness of incumbent spending in elections generally and on the impact of campaign finance reform. In a two-stage least squares analysis of primaries from 1980 to 2000, this study finds that spending by incumbent governors has no independent impact on their vote share. On the other hand, spending by challengers is effective in attracting votes, even after controlling for challenger quality and incumbent popularity. However, relatively few races are close enough for challenger spending to be decisive. This suggests that to improve gubernatorial primary competition, states would need to increase public campaign funding and spending limits substantially.