Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Computational intelligence techniques for multiuser detection of DS/CDMA signals

Multiple access interference and near-far effect cause the performance of the conventional single user detector in DS/CDMA systems to degrade. Due to high complexity of the optimum multiuser detector, suboptimal multiuser detectors with less complexity and reasonable performance have received considerable attention. In this paper we apply computational intelligence techniques including proposed modified genetic algorithm and our analysis of multilayer perceptron neural network for multiuser detection of DS/CDMA signals. We compare their performance form different points of view such as computational complexity, implementation and error rate. We also compare their performance with the other detectors used in CDMA.
Chondrogenic differentiation of human umbilical cord blood-derived multilineage progenitor cells in atelocollagen.

BACKGROUND For successful stem cell-based therapy, not only are alternative good cell sources needed but appropriate scaffolds are key factors. The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the multipotentiality of multilineage progenitor cells (MLPC) and assess the three-dimensional cultivation and chondrogenic differentiation of MLPC in atelocollagen gel for application of tissue-engineered cartilage constructs. METHODS MLPC, human umbilical cord blood-derived clonal cell lines, from BioE Inc. were used. Immunophenotypes of MLPC were characterized using a fluorescence-activated cell sorter (FACS). In vitro differentiation potentials into osteogenic, adipogenic and chondrogenic lineages were examined. Differentiated cells were characterized by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), histologic and immunofluorescence staining. RESULTS Clonogenic MLPC maintained immunophenotypes with specific surface markers of mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC). The osteogenic and adipogenic potentials of MLPC were demonstrated by quantitative real-time PCR, alkaline phosphates activity and Oil Red O staining. Furthermore, MLPC were successfully differentiated into chondrocytes in atelocollagen gel, which was confirmed by RT-PCR and immunofluorescence staining for type II collagen protein. DISCUSSION Whenever MSC are considered for the treatment of cartilage defects, a variety of scaffolds have been utilized as successful carriers for cell delivery. Our results suggest that MLPC can serve as an alternative source for stem cell-based therapy and transplantation. The chondrogenic potential of MLPC in atelocollagen could be suitable for cartilage tissue engineering.
Identification of a nonlinear power-amplifier L-N-L structure for pre-distortion purposes

Based on power amplifier measurements a low-complex nonlinear model with memory, consisting of a memoryless, but parameterized nonlinearity, sandwiched between two linear FIR-filter is developed (L-N-L structure). Although the signal bandwidth is with 2 MHz rather small, memory effects can be noticed. Furthermore, an adaptive algorithm for continuous identification of the model parameters is developed. Simulations show that the algorithm converges in the mean-square sense to the global minimum, given only little knowledge regarding the region where this minimum lies.
Formation tracker design of multiple mobile robots with wheel perturbations: adaptive output-feedback approach

ABSTRACT This paper presents a theoretical design approach for output-feedback formation tracking of multiple mobile robots under wheel perturbations. It is assumed that these perturbations are unknown and the linear and angular velocities of the robots are unmeasurable. First, adaptive state observers for estimating unmeasurable velocities of the robots are developed under the robots’ kinematics and dynamics including wheel perturbation effects. Then, we derive a virtual-structure-based formation tracker scheme according to the observer dynamic surface design procedure. The main difficulty of the output-feedback control design is to manage the coupling problems between unmeasurable velocities and unknown wheel perturbation effects. These problems are avoided by using the adaptive technique and the function approximation property based on fuzzy logic systems. From the Lyapunov stability analysis, it is shown that point tracking errors of each robot and synchronisation errors for the desired formation converge to an adjustable neighbourhood of the origin, while all signals in the controlled closed-loop system are semiglobally uniformly ultimately bounded.
New polyvinyl alcohol gel material for MRI phantoms

Nambu PVA gel which is produced by repeated freezing and thawing of PVA solution has overcome almost all of the problems which present substances have: (1) It is close to human soft tissue in MRI parameters. (2) MRI parameters (1H density, T1, T2) are adjustable to some extent. (3) It has appropriate physical characteristics. The important problem with PVA gel is long‐term stability. It is assumed that this problem can be solved by its periodic calibration and replacement. © 1986 Academic Press, Inc.
An energy efficient D2D LTE structure for PMR based on FlashLinQ

Device-to-device communications are one of the most important challenges for cellular mobile communications. Professional Mobile Radio (PMR) networks could change the current standard for a new one based on 4G, when this type of communications will be included. PMR users such as police, fire brigades also use the D2D communications in under coverage and out of coverage scenarios. This type of users also operate with D2D broadcast group communication in this scenarios, transmitting at its maximum power to be understood by all group members. In this paper we present a new D2D broadcast mechanism based on FlashLinQ that will allow seamless communications in under coverage and out of coverage scenarios reducing the total energy consumed by the terminals. To that endm we implement a collision avoidance mechanism as well as power control mechanism to avoid wasted energy and thus, improving terminals energy efficiency (EE) while the communications are still guaranteed for all group members.
Specific Involvement of G Proteins in Regulation of Serum Response Factor-mediated Gene Transcription by Different Receptors*

Regulation of serum response factor (SRF)-mediated gene transcription by G protein subunits and G protein-coupled receptors was investigated in transfected NIH3T3 cells and in a cell line that was derived from mice lacking Gαq and Gα11. We found that the constitutively active forms of the α subunits of the Gqand G12 class of G proteins, including Gαq, Gα11, Gα14, Gα16, Gα12, and Gα13, can activate SRF in NIH3T3 cells. We also found that the type 1 muscarinic receptor (m1R) and α1-adrenergic receptor (AR)-mediated SRF activation is exclusively dependent on Gαq/11, while the receptors for thrombin, lysophosphatidic acid (LPA), thromboxane A2, and endothelin can activate SRF in the absence of Gαq/11. Moreover, RGS12 but not RGS2, RGS4, or Axin was able to inhibit Gα12 and Gα13-mediated SRF activation. And RGS12, but not other RGS proteins, blocked thrombin- and LPA-mediated SRF activation in the Gαq/11-deficient cells. Therefore, the thrombin, LPA, thromboxane A2, and endothelin receptors may be able to couple to Gα12/13. On the contrary, receptors including β2- and α2-ARs, m2R, the dopamine receptors type 1 and 2, angiotensin receptors types 1 and 2, and interleukin-8 receptor could not activate SRF in the presence or absence of Gαq/11, suggesting that these receptors cannot couple to endogenous G proteins of the G12 or Gqclasses.
ADCS Prevention Instrument Project: Overview and Initial Results

One objective of the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study (ADCS) is to develop new or improved instruments and assessment methods for evaluating treatment efficacy in Alzheimer disease (AD) clinical trials. The ADCS Instrument Committee has previously helped to define the state of the art in assessment for AD and Mild Cognitive Impairment clinical trials. We are now entering an exciting era of primary prevention trials to evaluate promising treatments that may delay disease onset and there is a need to develop appropriate instruments for these trials. The ADCS instrument committee has undertaken a project to develop instruments for prevention studies that assess domains known to be important in AD. Prevention trials are long and require large numbers of subjects, making them costly and requiring a high burden of participation for subjects. The current study focused on developing instruments that can be completed at home and in the clinic. The instruments are being evaluated in a cohort of nondemented elderly participating in a 4-year longitudinal study that simulates the design of a primary prevention trial. This report describes the design, baseline characteristics, and some longitudinal outcomes of the study cohort through the completion of the first 2 years of follow-up. We also describe the assessment domains to be measured with our new experimental instruments. This study recruited 644 subjects, 75 years of age and older. Participation in a “book club” that provided free books of interest to elders was offered as a recruitment incentive. Approximately 23% had some mild cognitive symptoms consistent with a Clinical Dementia Rating of 0.5. All subjects received a standardized in-clinic evaluation at baseline, which is repeated annually for 4 years to identify cases suspected of developing dementia and to measure longitudinal change on established clinical assessments. Subjects completed a set of self-administered experimental instruments at home or in the clinic designed to assess cognitive function and behavior, global change, activities of daily living, quality of life, and resource use. An additional “mail-in cognitive function questionnaire” was obtained separately by mail, 1 month before the other assessments. To evaluate the feasibility, efficiency, and validity of the home-based instruments in comparison with acquiring the same information during a clinic visit, subjects were randomized to 1 of 2 conditions in which the baseline and annual follow-up assessments are completed either at home (“home group”) or at the study site during their clinic visits (“clinic group”). This initial report describes the ongoing 4-year longitudinal study and provides baseline results, which confirm the feasibility of obtaining home-based clinical information via mail or telephone. Initial results for the experimental instruments and for the book club are reported in separate accompanying articles.
Capturing self-propelled particles in a moving microwedge.

Catching fish with a fishing net is typically done either by dragging a fishing net through quiescent water or by placing a stationary basket trap into a stream. We transfer these general concepts to micron-sized self-motile particles moving in a solvent at low Reynolds number and study their collective trapping behavior by means of computer simulations of a two-dimensional system of self-propelled rods. A chevron-shaped obstacle is dragged through the active suspension with a constant speed v and acts as a trapping "net. " Three trapping states can be identified corresponding to no trapping, partial trapping, and complete trapping and their relative stability is studied as a function of the apex angle of the wedge, the swimmer density, and the drag speed v. When the net is dragged along the inner wedge, complete trapping is facilitated and a partially trapped state changes into a complete trapping state if the drag speed exceeds a certain value. Reversing the drag direction leads to a reentrant transition from no trapping to complete trapping and then back to no trapping upon increasing the drag speed along the outer wedge contour. The transition to complete trapping is marked by a templated self-assembly of rods forming polar smectic structures anchored onto the inner contour of the wedge. Our predictions can be verified in experiments of artificial or microbial swimmers confined in microfluidic trapping devices.
The Impact of Retirement on Participation in Leisure Activities

A six-year longitudinal panel study was undertaken to investigate the impact of retirement on participation in leisure activities. A pattern of mild decline in overall levels of activity coupled with a great deal of individual variation was documented. Moreover, leisure involvement prior to retirement was an important factor in retirement activity and adjustment. The evidence presented suggests that the relationship between retirement and leisure patterns is more complex than generally assumed.
Oxidative‐mechanical stress signals stem cell niche mediated Lrp5 osteogenesis in eNOS−/− null mice

Calcific aortic valve disease (CAVD) is the most common indication for valve surgery in the USA. This study hypothesizes that CAVD develops secondary to Wnt3a/Lrp5 activation via oxidative‐mechanical stress in eNOS null mice. eNOS−/− mice were tested with experimental diets including a control (n = 20), cholesterol (n = 20), cholesterol + Atorvastatin (n = 20). After 23 weeks the mice were tested for the development of aortic stenosis by Echo, Histology, MicroCT, and RTPCR for bone markers. In vitro studies measured Wnt3a secretion from aortic valve endothelial cells and confirmed oxidative stress via eNOS activity. Anion exchange chromatography was performed to isolate the mitogenic protein. Myofibroblast cells were tested to induce bone formation. Cholesterol treated eNOS mice develop severe stenosis with an increase in Wnt3a, Lrp5, Runx2 (threefold increase (P < 0.0001) in the bicuspid versus tricuspid aortic valves. Secretion of Wnt3a from aortic valve endothelium in the presence of abnormal oxidative stress was correlated with diminished eNOS enzymatic activity and tissue nitrite levels. Initial characterization of the architecture for a stem cell nice was determined by protein isolation using anion‐exchange chromatography and cell proliferation via thymidine incorporation. Osteoblastogenesis in the myofibroblast cell occurred via Lrp5 receptor upregulation in the presence of osteogenic media. Targeting the Wnt3a/Lrp5 pathway in valve calcification and activation of osteogenesis is via an oxidative‐mechanical stress in CAVD. These findings provide a foundation for treating this disease process by targeting the cross talk mechanism in a resident stem cell niche. J. Cell. Biochem. 113: 1623–1634, 2012. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The Aarhus County Vagotomy Trial : Trends in the Problem of Recurrent Ulcer After Parietal Cell Vagotomy and Selective Gastric Vagotomy with Drainage

In a prospective, randomized study, 691 patients with duodenal (DU), pyioric (PU), or prepyloric (PPU) ulcers have been followed for 2-5 years after operation with parietal cell vagotomy (PCV) or selective gastric vagotomy with drainage (SGV + D). About half the patients have been followed for 5 years. Cumulative 5-year recurrence rates, calculated by a life table method, suggest a higher recurrence rate for patients with DU when operated with PCV (15%) than when operated with SGV + D (9%), but the difference was not statistically significant (p > 0.05). Patients with PU/PPU had higher recurrence rates following either procedure than patients with DU (PCV: 33%; SGV + D: 14%). A study of the change in recurrence risk as a function of time after operation suggests that the recurrence rate following SGV + D when used for DU will continue to rise after 5 years, but probably very slowly. The recurrence rate after 5 years is unpredictable, however, for PCV when used for DU, and unpredictable for both methods when used for PU/PPU. The recurrence rate was found to be independent of the level of preoperative gastric acid secretion, and this was true for both PCV and SGV + D. An increased recurrence rate was, on the other hand, found to be associated with < 50% postoperative reduction in pentagastrin-stimulated acid secretion.
Estimating System Effectiveness Scores with IncompleteEvidence

It is common for only partial relevance judgments to be used when comparing retrieval system effectiveness, in order to control experimental cost. Using TREC data, we consider the uncertainty introduced into per-topic effectiveness scores by pooled judgments, and measure the effect that incomplete evidence has on both the systems scores that are generated, and also on the quality of paired system comparisons. We measure system behavior from three different points of view: the trend in effectiveness scores; the separability of system pairs; and the number of reversals in significance outcomes as the depth of judgments increases. Our results show that when shallow pooled judgments are used system separability remains relatively high, but that there is also a high rate of significance reversal. We then show that explicitly adjusting effectiveness scores to allow for the known amount of uncertainty gives a reduced number of reversals, and hence more consistent experimental outcomes.
Design and Implementation of a STATCOM Based on a Multilevel FHB Converter with Delta-Connected Configuration for Unbalanced Load Compensation

A delta-connected STATCOM with cascade multilevel full H-bridge (FHB) converter has been applied for phase balancing and power factor correction of unbalanced load in a three-phase, three-wire power distribution system. In this paper, a feedforward compensation formula is presented for the STATCOM by using the symmetrical components method to compensate unbalanced load. Computer simulation is performed for preliminary verification. Accordingly, a hardware prototype employing a TMS320F2812 DSP-based system is built for final verification test. Experimental results show that the proposed STATCOM is very effective for real-time unbalanced load compensation.
Modular and flexible coordination for web-based applications

In this research, I want to investigate programming language and middleware abstractions which offer an alternative approach in client/server Web application development, for dealing specifically with coordination between client and server components that has flexibility in mapping components to physical locations. I work on a middleware and JavaScript interpreter that provides support for modular coordination that avoid problems with both of the patterns presented in this Introduction. In my approach, developers would write a separate coordination specification which mediated client and server workflow. To evaluate the performance of my framework and prove the low-performance overhead, I have modified a well-known open source Web application, Java Pet Store by using my framework and then I have evaluated the modified Web application provides low-performance overhead.
Light Exposure Among Adolescents With Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder: A Prospective Cohort Study

The objective of this study was to compare light exposure and sleep parameters between adolescents with delayed sleep phase disorder (DSPD; n = 16, 15.3 ± 1.8 yrs) and unaffected controls (n = 22, 13.7 ± 2.4 yrs) using a prospective cohort design. Participants wore wrist actigraphs with photosensors for 14 days. Mean hourly lux levels from 20:00 to 05:00 h and 05:00 to 14:00 h were examined, in addition to the 9-h intervals prior to sleep onset and after sleep offset. Sleep parameters were compared separately, and were also included as covariates within models that analyzed associations with specified light intervals. Additional covariates included group and school night status. Adolescent delayed sleep phase subjects received more evening (p < .02, 22:00–02:00 h) and less morning (p < .05, 08:00–09:00 h and 10:00–12:00 h) light than controls, but had less pre-sleep exposure with adjustments for the time of sleep onset (p < .03, 5–7 h prior to onset hour). No differences were identified with respect to the sleep offset interval. Increased total sleep time and later sleep offset times were associated with decreased evening (p < .001 and p = .02, respectively) and morning (p = .01 and p < .001, respectively) light exposure, and later sleep onset times were associated with increased evening exposure (p < .001). Increased total sleep time also correlated with increased exposure during the 9 h before sleep onset (p = .01), and a later sleep onset time corresponded with decreased light exposure during the same interval (p < .001). Outcomes persisted regardless of school night status. In conclusion, light exposure interpretation requires adjustments for sleep timing among adolescents with DSPD. Pre- and post-sleep light exposures do not appear to contribute directly to phase delays. Sensitivity to morning light may be reduced among adolescents with DSPD. (Author correspondence: auger.raymond1@mayo.edu)
AN EFFICIENT SKELETON-FREE MESH DEFORMATION METHOD WITH MOTION CAPTURE DATA

We present an efficient skeleton-free mesh deformation method with motion capture data. With this technique, the user can directly drive 3D virtual characters without building skeleton structures for motion capture data. Furthermore, the computation complexity of our method is irrelative to the number of retro-reflective markers, as the markers just serve as the constraints of our solution system in the uniform least squares sense. The final results are obtained by optimizing a quadratic functional, which can be efficiently minimized by solving a sparse linear system.
A Novel Approach for Wi-Fi Fingerprinting Using Logical Sequences of Intelligent Checkpoints

Commonly location fingerprinting is employed for Wi-Fi positioning. In the training phase RSSI scans have to be measured at known reference points (RPs) which are usually distributed in a grid within the area of interest. The grid has to be rather dense and therefore RSSI measurements are very labour consuming. The newly developed approach aims at a significant reduction of the number of required RPs. For that purpose particular points are selected which we call intelligent checkpoints (iCPs). To navigate a user to a certain room in a building certain iCPs have to passed on the way. Doors, stairs and corridors can serve as iCPs. Hence, a logical sequence can be derived due to the interdependence of these points along the way. iCPs are twofold intelligent, i.e., because of the fact that they depend on the selection of the points for the RSSI scans and because of the logical sequence in their correct order along the path depending on the building. While navigating then always the following iCP is known due to the vector graph allocation in the fingerprinting database. Further constraints between the iCPs are definable, e.g. the heading of the moving user can be logically defined while walking along a corridor or even the step length while climbing stairs. Thus only a small limited number of iCPs needs to be tested when matching the current RSSI values. The required processing time is significantly reduced. Furthermore the scanned Wi-Fi Access Points can be weighted on the RSSI value level. From field tests in an office building it could be seen that the iCP approach achieves a higher success rate for correct matching of the RSSI fingerprints than conventional approaches. In average correct matching results of 90.0 % were achieved using a joint Wi-Fi database including training measurements of all employed smartphones. An even higher success rate is achieved if the same mobile device is used in both phases. Thus the positioning accuracy can be crucially increased.