Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Orthogonal procrustes-based semi-blind channel estimation for MIMO-OFDM systems

This paper introduces a novel semi-blind channel estimation algorithm based on Orthogonal Procrustes (OP) approach for Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) systems using Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) modulation. The presented joint estimator is based on decomposition of channel matrix H as a whitening matrix R and a unitary rotation matrix Q. The whitening matrix R can be estimated blindly based on the eigenvalue decomposition (EVD) of the received signal correlation matrix, while Q has to be fed by using the properties of the constrained OP estimator for an orthogonal pilot sequence. The estimation gain is obtained by the power method with low complexity as it offers such optimum rotation matrices which are parameterized a fewer number of parameters. Various numerical examples are conducted to support the algorithms and analysis, and they demonstrate improved performance up to 3–5 dB compared to exclusively training-based estimation.
Differences in Shiga toxin and phage production among stx2g-positive STEC strains

Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) are characterized by the production of Shiga toxins (Stx) encoded by temperate bacteriophages. Stx production is linked to the induction of the phage lytic cycle. Several stx variants have been described and differentially associated with the risk of developing severe illness. The variant named stx2g was first identified in a STEC strain isolated from the faeces of healthy cattle. Analysis of stx2g-positive strains isolated from humans, animals, and environmental sources have shown that they have a close relationship. In this study, stx2g-positive STEC isolated from cattle were analyzed for phage and Stx production, with the aim to relate the results to differences observed in cytotoxicity. The presence of inducible phages was assessed by analyzing the bacterial growth/lysis curves and also by plaque assay. Bacterial growth curves in the absence of induction were similar for all isolates, however, notably differed among induced cultures. The two strains that clearly evidenced bacteriolysis under this condition also showed higher phage titers in plaque assays. However, only the phage plaques produced by one of these strains (FB 62) hybridized with a stx2-probe. Furthermore, the production of Stx was evaluated by enzyme immunoassay (EIA) and Western immunoblotting in overnight supernatants. By EIA, we detected Stx only in supernatants of FB 62, with a higher signal for induced than uninduced cultures. By immunoblotting, Stx2 could be detected after induction in all stx2g-positive isolates, but with lower amounts of Stx2B subunit in those supernatants where phages could not be detected. Taking into account all the results, several differences could be found among stx2g-positive strains. The strain with the highest cytotoxic titer showed higher levels of stx2-phages and toxin production by EIA, and the opposite was observed for strains that previously showed low cytotoxic titers, confirming that in stx2g-positive strains Stx production is phage-regulated.
Experimental stabilisation of 2D vortex patterns using time-dependent forcing

Experimental results of the effect of time-periodic and “chirped” (electro-magnetic) forcing on vortex patterns in shallow-water-layer flows are presented. Analogously to vibrational control, the use of a time-periodic forcing results in stabilisation of otherwise unstable vortex patterns. Chirped frequency forcing yields self-organising patterns that are different from those in stationary and periodically forced experiments. The results are shown to be consistent with theoretical analysis of 2D Taylor-Green vortices, i.e. unstable analytical solutions of the 2D Navier-Stokes equation. These results imply that, compared to the more often analysed stationary forced flows, time-varying forcing can stabilise different vortex patterns in shallow-water-layer flows.
Integrating hospital‐acquired lessons into community health practice: Optimizing antimicrobial use in Bangalore

Introduction: Even as antimicrobial resistance is a serious public health concern worldwide, the uncertainties of diagnosis and treatment of fever strongly influence community practitioners toward prescribing antibiotics. To help community practitioners resolve their diagnostic questions and reduce the unnecessary use of antibiotics for viral fevers, thus helping to contain antibiotic resistance, we suggest fever‐charting and monitoring fever patterns for two days. Methods: This was a qualitative study, with relevant quantitative descriptions. Patients presenting with recent onset fever to the Vydehi Institute of Medical Sciences (VIMS) and Research Centre, Bangalore, India, were monitored with simple fever charting and managed based on their fever patterns for two days. Initially only antipyretics were given in optimal doses; if the fever showed a continuous pattern suggestive of septicemia, antibiotics were instituted for typhoid, the commonest organism to cause sepsis in a community setting short of pointers to other causes. The different clinical profiles of these patients of viral and enteric fevers were circulated among the community practitioners, and an assessment of their approach was made. Finally, it was revealed to the practitioners how successful management of the patient was possible without antibiotics. Results: During the study period, 4289 patients presented to VIMS. The antibiotic prescribing rate when given the clinical profiles of true patients with viral fevers was high among community practitioners. Community practitioners agreed that in a controlled hospital setting, the results could be spectacular, but the challenges were different in community practice. There was an initial reluctance to use fever charting due to fear of patient noncompliance. Discussion: Fever charting can be an invaluable means to help differentiate viral and enteric fevers and thus help reduce unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions for viral fevers.
Crime Trends and the Elasticity of Evil: Has a Broadening View of Violence Affected Our Statistical Indicators?

Macro-social theories posit that societies become more civil as they modernize. An open question is whether these changes affect major social indicators of crime. To produce level and change estimates, national data collection systems employ safeguards to promote stability. Cultural changes, though, might affect these systems in more subtle ways by affecting what citizens view as criminal violence and how these behaviors are recounted in crime surveys and reported to police. Three subclasses of violence appear most susceptible: rape and sexual assault, domestic violence, and lesser forms of violence such as verbal threats. Findings are strongest that changing cultural definitions have affected official statistics for domestic violence. Rape and sexual assault also have shown changes in the willingness of victims to report to the police. Evidence does not indicate that the cultural definition of lesser violence has changed in a way that has affected trends in official statistics. Estimating change over time is a key reason statistical systems employ safeguards to remove shifting views of violence. These safeguards may limit an accurate view of victimization risk and exposure. Balancing the need for stability with a desire to capture emerging crimes and risks requires developing careful systematic processes for reviewing and updating national crime statistics.
HAMLET Binding to α-Actinin Facilitates Tumor Cell Detachment

Cell adhesion is tightly regulated by specific molecular interactions and detachment from the extracellular matrix modifies proliferation and survival. HAMLET (Human Alpha-lactalbumin Made LEthal to Tumor cells) is a protein-lipid complex with tumoricidal activity that also triggers tumor cell detachment in vitro and in vivo, suggesting that molecular interactions defining detachment are perturbed in cancer cells. To identify such interactions, cell membrane extracts were used in Far-western blots and HAMLET was shown to bind α-actinins; major F-actin cross-linking proteins and focal adhesion constituents. Synthetic peptide mapping revealed that HAMLET binds to the N-terminal actin-binding domain as well as the integrin-binding domain of α-actinin-4. By co-immunoprecipitation of extracts from HAMLET-treated cancer cells, an interaction with α-actinin-1 and -4 was observed. Inhibition of α-actinin-1 and α-actinin-4 expression by siRNA transfection increased detachment, while α-actinin-4-GFP over-expression significantly delayed rounding up and detachment of tumor cells in response to HAMLET. In response to HAMLET, adherent tumor cells rounded up and detached, suggesting a loss of the actin cytoskeletal organization. These changes were accompanied by a reduction in β1 integrin staining and a decrease in FAK and ERK1/2 phosphorylation, consistent with a disruption of integrin-dependent cell adhesion signaling. Detachment per se did not increase cell death during the 22 hour experimental period, regardless of α-actinin-4 and α-actinin-1 expression levels but adherent cells with low α-actinin levels showed increased death in response to HAMLET. The results suggest that the interaction between HAMLET and α-actinins promotes tumor cell detachment. As α-actinins also associate with signaling molecules, cytoplasmic domains of transmembrane receptors and ion channels, additional α-actinin-dependent mechanisms are discussed.
TρFSP: Forward Stochastic Planning using Probabilistic Reachability

In order to deal with real-world sequential decision making, stochastic outcomes for actions have to be explicitly taken into account, as in the Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) framework. While MDPs have been studied for a long time, dealing with a large number of states is still an open issue. As the initial state is given, most state-of-the-art algorithms use heuristic information over the MDP domain, in order to deal only with states that are reachable from the initial one. But we think this information still is under-exploited. We give a formal definition of such probabilistic reachability and propose a new algorithm that uses much more explicitly this information in a parametric way. We present results that show that our algorithm outperforms previous algorithms. Introduction Planning under uncertainty in large stochastic domains has been a very active field of Artificial Intelligence research for many years. Most of recent algorithms use either approximation techniques (Poupart et al. 2002; O. and Aberdeen 2006) or a heuristic function to guide the search of the best solution towards the “good” states that are reachable from a given initial state (Hansen and Zilberstein 2001; Barto, Bradtke, and Singh 1995; Buffet and Aberdeen 2007). In the case of optimal heuristic algorithms like LAO∗(Hansen and Zilberstein 2001), the information gathered from the reachable states is still under-exploited: the quest of optimality conduces such algorithms to optimize the problem over much more states than the ones that are reachable with the current solution. In this paper, we propose a new optimal heuristic algorithm for planning under uncertainty, named FSP, that only optimizes the states that are reachable from a given initial state. We introduce as well an extended version named TρFSP, that performs a probabilistic reachability analysis in order to prune the states whose probability of being reached from the initial state is compared to a given threshold ρ. In section 2, we present Markov Decision Processes (MDPs), that are a popular framework for planning under uncertainty, and LAO∗. In sections 3 and 4, we respectively present our algorithm FSP and its extended version Copyright c © 2008, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (www.aaai.org). All rights reserved. TρFSP. In section 5, we compare our algorithms to RTDP and LAO∗, that still remain state-of-the-art heuristic algorithms, for two different heuristics: we show that FSP and TρFSP perform better than RTDP and LAO∗ depending on the quality of the heuristic. We then conclude with a discussion and some perspectives for future work. Background: MDPs and LAO∗ In this section, we give a brief overview of Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) (Puterman 1994) and present an in-deep view of a state-of-the art heuristic search algorithm: LAO∗ (Hansen and Zilberstein 2001). Markov Decision Processes
Dynamic load balancing algorithms for replicated data molecular dynamics

Algorithms to enhance parallel performance of molecular dynamics simulations on parallel computers by dynamic load balancing are described. Load balancing is achieved by redistribution of work based on either a history of time spent computing per processor or on the number of pair interactions computed per processor. The two algorithms we detail are designed to yield optimal load balancing on both workstation clusters and parallel supercomputers. We illustrate these methods using a small molecular dynamics kernel developed for the simulation of rigid molecular solvents. In addition, we discuss our observation regarding global communications performance on workstation clusters with a fiber distributed data interface (FDDI) using a high‐speed point‐to‐point switch (Gigaswitch) and the k‐ary 3‐cube of the Cray T3D. © 1995 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
BODY MANAGEMENT AND ITS RELATION WITH BODY IMAGE AND SELF CONCEPT

The purpose of this study was done to explore the correlation between body management, body image and self concept. Statistical population of this research was all students of Sistan and Baluchestan University, 385 students (190 female and 195 male who were selected through a multi-stage cluster. The participants were asked to complete the Body Management, multidimensional body–self relations questionnaire: MBSRQ (Cash, 1997), and Rogers's self-concept Scales (1951). Results analysis, using Pearson Correlation test, revealed a significant negative relationship (P<0.01) between body management and body image and its dimensions; appearance evaluation, appearance orientation, fitness evaluation, fitness orientation, and a positive correlation was found with body areas satisfaction. Additionally, there was a significant positive correlation (P<0.01) between body management and positive self concept. Findings of this research focus on the role of body image and self concept in body management behaviors of individuals.
Detecting early stage osteoarthritis by optical coherence tomography?

Abstract Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common chronic disease of our joints, manifested by a dynamically increasing degeneration of hyaline articular cartilage (AC). While currently no therapy can reverse this process, the few available treatment options are hampered by the inability of early diagnosis. Loss of cartilage surface, or extracellular matrix (ECM), integrity is considered the earliest sign of OA. Despite the increasing number of imaging modalities surprisingly few imaging biomarkers exist. In this narrative review, recent developments in optical coherence tomography are critically evaluated for their potential to assess different aspects of AC quality as biomarkers of OA. Special attention is paid to imaging surface irregularities, ECM organization and the evaluation of posttraumatic injuries by light-based modalities.
Association of VAMP-2 and Syntaxin 1A Genes with Adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Objective The etiology of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has not been entirely clarified yet. Structural and metabolic differences at the prefrontal striatal cerebellary system and the interaction of gene and environment are the main factors that thought to play roles in the etiology. Genetic investigations are performed especially about the dopamine pathways and receptors. In this study; it was aimed to investigate the association of the synaptobrevin-2 (VAMP-2) gene Ins/Del polymorphism and syntaxin 1A gene intron 7 polymorphism, which take place in encoding presynaptic protein, with adult ADHD. Methods One hundred thirty-nine patients, having ADHD aging between 18 and 60 years and 106 healthy people as controls were included into the study. DNA samples were extracted from whole blood and genetic analysis were performed. Results A significant difference was determined between ADHD and VAMP-2 Ins/Del polymorphism and syntaxin 1A intron 7 polymorphism according to the control group. These polymorphisms were found not to be associated with subtypes of ADHD. Conclusion It is supposed that synaptic protein genes together with dopaminergic genes might have roles in the etiology of ADHD.
A Simple, Efficient, Context‐sensitive Approach for Code Completion

Code completion helps developers use application programming interfaces (APIs) and frees them from remembering every detail. In this paper, we first describe a novel technique called Context‐sensitive Code Completion (CSCC) for improving the performance of API method call completion. CSCC is context sensitive in that it uses new sources of information as the context of a target method call. CSCC indexes method calls in code examples by their context. To recommend completion proposals, CSCC ranks candidate methods by the similarities between their contexts and the context of the target call. Evaluation using a set of subject systems and five popular state‐of‐the‐art techniques suggests that CSCC performs better than existing type or example‐based code completion systems. We conduct experiments to find how different contextual elements of the target call benefit CSCC. Next, we investigate the adaptability of the technique to support another form of code completion, i.e., field completion. Evaluation with eight different subject systems suggests that CSCC can easily support field completion with high accuracy. Finally, we compare CSCC with four popular statistical language models that support code completion. Results of statistical tests from our study suggest that CSCC not only outperforms those techniques that are based on token level language models, but also in most cases performs better or equally well with GraLan, the state‐of‐the‐art graph‐based language model. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Design of complex FIR filters using the frequency-response masking approach

Complex coefficient FIR filters have applications in a variety of areas. The paper addresses the design of complex FIR filters using the frequency-response masking (FRM) approach, which is well known to be very efficient in the design and implementation of FIR filters with sharp transition bands. We first present a simple method for designing linear phase complex FIR filters using FRM and frequency shifting. We then propose a modified FRM structure for designing complex filters with approximately linear phases and reduced group delays. An illustrative example is included.
De la construction du corpus émotionnel au système de détection. Le point de vue applicatif de la surveillance dans les lieux publics

The study presented in this paper deals with the modelling of extreme emotions occurring in abnormal situations. The aimed application is civil safety and surveillance in the public places in particular. A corpus of fiction (SAFE Corpus) is selected illustrating rich and varied contexts with the presence of extreme emotions, mainly fear. An annotation strategy adapted to the application is then developed, with both generic and specific descriptors. Finally, a detection system of fear emotions based on acoustic cues is implemented to carry out an evaluation. On the one hand the system is robust to context changes. On the other hand, the influence of multimodal annotation is minor. Results obtained with the various protocols are similar: fear is recognized with 67% of success.
Distribution of Citations in one Volume of a Journal

Citations to published scientific articles are regularly collected and processed, bringing about the impact factor and a large number of other bibliometric indicators. We interpret the set of citations collected during fixed period as a characteristic statistical distribution of citations, argue about its properties and conjecture what statistical measures represent reliably such distributions. In that way we try to contribute to determining precisely the scope and level of suitability of impact factor if accompanied with a small set of additional indicators, all derived solely from the distribution function.
Mast Cell Degranulation Induced by Lectins: Effect on Neutrophil Recruitment

The mammalian lectin macrophage-derived neutrophil chemotactic factor (MNCF) and the plant lectin KM+ were characterized for their ability to activate and degranulate mast cells. The association between mast cell activation and the induction of neutrophil migration was also investigated. Incubation of rat peritoneal mast cells with these lectins resulted in degranulation and mediator release. By confocal microscopy, both lectins were evenly distributed on the cell surface. MNCF activated RBL-2H3 mast cells only if the cells had been sensitized with IgE. KM+ was able to activate either unsensitized or IgE sensitized RBL-2H3 cells. In microplate assays MNCF, but not KM+, bound to rat IgE. In rats that were depleted of mast cells, neutrophil recruitment by MNCF and KM+ were significantly reduced indicating that mast cell activation provides an amplification loop for the neutrophil recruitment induced by these lectins. The present study supports the concept that mammalian lectins play a fundamental role in innate immunity.
Psychometric Properties of the Persian Version of the Activities of Daily Living Scale and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Scale in elderly

Background and purpose: The Activities of Daily Living scale (ADL) and instrumental activities of daily living scale (IADL) are two instruments that screen elderly respondents for physical functioning. They also assess whether they are dependent or independent in performing their activities. This study was conducted to investigate the reliability and validity of Iranian version of ADL and IADL. Materials and methods: ADL and IADL Persian versions were prepared by the forwardbackward method. Content Validity Index (CVI) was also used. The questionnaire was given to 300 individuals. To determine the criterion validity, sensitivity and specificity of the ADL and IADL were calculated. To assess the construct validity convergent validity and known groups were used and ADL and IADL mean scores were compared using the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE). Internal consistency and reliability was assessed by Cronbach's alpha and test-retest. Results: The content validity index was more than 0.82 for both ADL and IADL. Convergent validity showed that the mean scores of ADL and IADL in elderly individuals with normal and adverse normal cognitive ability were significantly different. Also, the studied instruments were able to differentiate between different age groups. The sensitivity and specificity of ADL and IADL were 0.75 and 0.96, respectively. Cronbach'salpha and ICC were more than 0.75. Conclusion: The Persian version of ADL and IADL were found to be consistent and valid measures for assessing daily activities and instrumental activities of Iranian elderly. They are also easy to use and are recommended for research projects.