Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Epitaxial ScAlN Etch-Stop Layers Grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy for Selective Etching of AlN and GaN

Although selective dry etches exist for GaN, it is difficult to selectively etch AlN in heterostructures with other conventional III-N epitaxial materials. The reduction in etch rate resulting from the addition of 2%–16% scandium to Sc<sub><italic>x</italic></sub>Al<sub>1–<italic>x</italic></sub>N in conventional Cl<sub>2</sub>/BCl<sub>3</sub>/Ar inductively coupled plasma etching is presented. Smooth, epitaxial Sc<sub><italic>x</italic></sub>Al<sub>1–<italic>x</italic></sub>N layers are grown by RF-plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy directly on 4H-SiC substrates. The etch selectivity with respect to AlN is as high as 10.6 and 11.2 for <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${x}~\boldsymbol =0.02$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and 0.16, respectively, allowing Sc<sub><italic>x</italic></sub>Al<sub>1–<italic>x</italic></sub>N to act as an etch-stop layer with minimal misfit strain when grown within either AlN or GaN based heterostructures.
Proximal-type epithelioid sarcoma : a report of two privileged site cases and a review of literature

Proximal-type epithelioid sarcomas are exceedingly rare but are characterized by high local recurrence and metastatic rates. As a consequence, patients suffer from a very poor long-term survival. We present one case of a 54-year-old man with proximal-type epithelioid sarcoma. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to report a case of proximal-type epithelioid sarcoma with both infraorbital and nasion masses. Another case of a 53-year-old woman with primary proximal-type epithelioid sarcoma on the right inguinal region experienced recurrence on the right vulva and bilateral inguinal and pelvic lymph node metastasis. Pathological findings revealed that both patients were cases of proximal-type epithelioid sarcoma. Despite surgical resection, patients with early tumor metastasis and large masses are associated with poor outcome of proximal-type sarcoma. The lack of directed therapies against epithelioid sarcoma emphasizes the need to identify the molecular causes of the disease.
Perspective shape-from-shading by fast marching

Shape-from-shading (SfS) is a fundamental problem in computer vision. At its basis lies the image irradiance equation. Recently, the authors proposed to base the image irradiance equation on the assumption of perspective projection rather than the common orthographic one. The current paper presents a greatly-improved reconstruction method based on the perspective formulation. The proposed model is solved efficiently via a modification of the fast marching method of Kimmel and Sethian. We compare the two versions of the fast marching method (orthographic vs. perspective) on medical images. The perspective algorithm outperformed the orthographic one. This shows that the more realistic hypothesis of perspective projection improves reconstruction significantly. The comparison also demonstrates the usability of perspective SfS for real-life applications such as medical endoscopy.
A Pulse Immunization Model for Inhibiting Malware Propagation in Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks

Mobile wireless sensor networks (MWSNs) may be under attack due to their large-scale characteristics. One of the main threats is to inject malware into some nodes. To prevent malware from spreading in a largescale MWSN, an effective measure is to immunize susceptible nodes by disseminating and installing security patches. This work suggests a novel modeling framework and some mathematical models based on the pulse differential equation and the epidemic theory, in which the immunization operations are implemented on susceptible nodes in a pulse way. The maximum immunization period of time is derived to minimine the number of immunization operations while ensuring malware extinct over time in the MWSN. The theoretical results are confirmed by extensive simulations. Keywords— MWSN, Malware propagation, Susceptibleinfected-recovered (SIR), Pulse differential equation, Maximum immunization period of time.
Design considerations of a topology control prototype for Wireless Mesh Networks

Topology Control has been shown to produce beneficial outcomes when applied to wireless ad-hoc networks. Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) may also benefit from the use of TC in its backbone network but the actual extent of the benefit remains unknown as prototype studies are rare. In this paper we distill our experiences developing two TC prototypes into a set of design criteria for TC prototypes intended for the WMN backbone. A case study of the PlainTC+ prototype is also provided. The case study explores the design decisions taken in order for the prototype to satisfy the various design criteria provided. It is hoped that the case study will provide a practical starting point for future prototypes.
Calibration and Validation of the Hybrid-Maize Crop Model for Regional Analysis and Application over the U.S. Corn Belt

AbstractDetailed parameter sensitivity, model validation, and regional calibration of the Hybrid-Maize crop model were undertaken for the purpose of regional agroclimatic assessments. The model was run at both field scale and county scale. The county-scale study was based on 30-yr daily weather data and corn yield data from the National Agricultural Statistics Service survey for 24 locations across the Corn Belt of the United States. The field-scale study was based on AmeriFlux sites at Bondville, Illinois, and Mead, Nebraska. By using the one-at-a-time and interaction-explicit factorial design approaches for sensitivity analysis, the study found that the five most sensitive parameters of the model were potential number of kernels per ear, potential kernel filling rate, initial light use efficiency, upper temperature cutoff for growing degree-days’ accumulation, and the grain growth respiration coefficient. Model validation results show that the Hybrid-Maize model performed satisfactorily for field-scale .
SCENE CLASSFICATION BASED ON THE SEMANTIC-FEATURE FUSION FULLY SPARSE TOPIC MODEL FOR HIGH SPATIAL RESOLUTION REMOTE SENSING IMAGERY

Abstract. Topic modeling has been an increasingly mature method to bridge the semantic gap between the low-level features and high-level semantic information. However, with more and more high spatial resolution (HSR) images to deal with, conventional probabilistic topic model (PTM) usually presents the images with a dense semantic representation. This consumes more time and requires more storage space. In addition, due to the complex spectral and spatial information, a combination of multiple complementary features is proved to be an effective strategy to improve the performance for HSR image scene classification. But it should be noticed that how the distinct features are fused to fully describe the challenging HSR images, which is a critical factor for scene classification. In this paper, a semantic-feature fusion fully sparse topic model (SFF-FSTM) is proposed for HSR imagery scene classification. In SFF-FSTM, three heterogeneous features – the mean and standard deviation based spectral feature, wavelet based texture feature, and dense scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) based structural feature are effectively fused at the latent semantic level. The combination of multiple semantic-feature fusion strategy and sparse based FSTM is able to provide adequate feature representations, and can achieve comparable performance with limited training samples. Experimental results on the UC Merced dataset and Google dataset of SIRI-WHU demonstrate that the proposed method can improve the performance of scene classification compared with other scene classification methods for HSR imagery.
A proportional fair scheduling for multicarrier transmission systems

In this paper, we proposed a proportional fair (PF) scheduling algorithm for systems with multiple carriers such as orthogonal frequency division multiple access systems. The scheduler assigns users to carriers to maximize the sum of logarithmic transmission rate, which is compatible with the definition by RE Kelly (Journal Operational Research Soc., vol.49, p.237-252, 1998). It is shown that the PF scheduling in the high data rate (HDR) system proposed by Qualcomm is a special case of our proposed scheme. A simple system is presented, which proves its superiority over other schemes for multicarrier transmission, e.g. extended round robin and the PF scheduling scheme for the HDR system.
Sexual dimorphism in superantigen shock involves elevated TNF-alpha and TNF-alpha induced hepatic apoptosis.

RATIONALE There is conflicting evidence regarding sex differences in the outcome from severe sepsis and toxic shock. Superantigen-mediated toxic shock affects a higher proportion of female patients. OBJECTIVES The objective of the current study was to investigate sexual dimorphism in superantigen-associated sepsis and in superantigen-mediated shock and to identify the key mechanisms responsible for this sex difference. METHODS We measured mortality and serum cytokines after induction of sepsis with isogenic superantigen-positive and superantigen-negative Streptococcus pyogenes in HLA class II transgenics. During superantigen-mediated toxic shock, we measured mortality, T-cell responses, systemic tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha and TNF receptors, TNF-alpha-induced hepatocyte apoptosis, and conditioning of these responses by tamoxifen treatment. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS In both superantigen-associated sepsis and in superantigen-mediated shock, serum TNF-alpha was increased in females compared with males. This was not attributable to a detectable difference in splenic TNF-alpha transcription; rather, serum soluble TNF receptors were higher in males. Pretreatment of females with the estrogen receptor modulator tamoxifen increased serum soluble TNF receptors, reduced the early serum TNF-alpha response, and improved mortality in females challenged with staphylococcal enterotoxin B. Lethal superantigen shock was characterized by hepatocyte apoptosis, and was reproduced by injection of TNF-alpha. Females had enhanced susceptibility to TNF-alpha-mediated lethality. TNF-alpha-induced hepatocyte apoptosis was greater in females, and was reduced by tamoxifen pretreatment. CONCLUSIONS Sexual dimorphism in experimental superantigen toxic shock results from increased systemic TNF-alpha in females, coupled with an increased susceptibility to TNF-alpha-induced hepatocyte apoptosis. Both processes are abrogated by estrogen receptor modulators.
Clinical significance of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor in Egyptian colorectal cancer patients

Angiogenesis represents an essential step in tumor proliferation, expansion, and metastasis. Among angiogenic molecules, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) appears to have a central role. The objective of the current study was to assess the prognostic significance of VEGF plasma level as an indicator of recurrent disease in patients with colorectal carcinoma scheduled for surgery with curative intent, and to determine its relationship with disease stage at presentation. Also, we studied the protein expression pattern of VEGF isoforms in colorectal tumors in comparison to the corresponding adjacent normal tissues. Preoperative and postoperative plasma VEGF, Serum CEA, CA19-9 levels were determined by ELISA and vascular endothelial growth factor Protein expression was detected in 78 patients with colorectal cancer scheduled for surgery. Fifty healthy individuals served as a control group. This study showed that preoperative VEGF, carbohydrate antigen 19.9 (CA 19-9) and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels were significantly high in patients with colorectal carcinoma compared to control group. Moreover, VEGF plasma levels were significantly lowered in patients who underwent curative surgery, with a further downward trend until the 6 month postoperative (P <0.05). Multiple regression analysis demonstrated significant positive correlation (r) between preoperative VEGF plasma levels and Dukes stages, TNM stages, T classes, CEA levels, and CA 19-9 (P<0.05). Combining of VEGF and CEA markers result in significant increase in the specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and accuracy (P<0.05) in comparison with CEA alone. Over-expression of VEGF in colorectal cancer tissue was confirmed by western blot (WB); a main protein band was detected with molecular weight of 23 kDa (VEGF165), which was expressed in both normal and tumor tissues of colorectal, but the expression of VEGF165 was detected at higher levels in tumor tissues and the intensities of the bands varied according to plasma VEGF concentrations. This study revealed that preoperative plasma VEGF concentrations might be valuable parameter for tumor burden and predicting the outcome of colorectal cancer patients. Also, post-operative VEGF plasma level can be considered as indicator for recurrent disease. VEGF165, considered as a predominant form of VEGF expression secreted by a variety of normal and transformed cells.
A Proteomic Approach for the Identification of Cell-surface Proteins Shed by Metalloproteases*

Proteolytic cleavage (shedding) of extracellular domains of many membrane proteins by metalloproteases is an important regulatory mechanism used by mammalian cells in response to environmental and physiological changes. Here we describe a proteomic system for analyzing cell surface shedding. The method utilized short-term culture supernatants from induced cells as starting material, followed by lectin-affinity purification, deglycosylation, and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis separation. Relative quantitation of proteins was achieved via isotope dilution. In this study, a number of proteins already known to be shed were identified from activated monocytes and endothelial cells, thereby validating the method. In addition, a group of proteins were newly identified as being shed. The method provides an unbiased means to screen for shed proteins.
Coupling Inductor Fault Detection and Estimation in Three-Phase Adjustable-Speed Drives With Direct Power Control-Based Active Front-End Rectifiers

Coupling inductors are the most commonly utilized filtering option in grid-connected direct power control (DPC)-based active front-end rectifiers integrated into three-phase adjustable-speed drives (ASDs). Inductor faults, e.g., common interturn short circuits, can drive the whole system to failure. In this paper, a novel strategy is proposed for the early detection of incipient faults in the coupling inductors of the aforementioned ASDs. The proposed method enables a fast identification of the defective phase. The strategy also provides an accurate estimation of the inductance value of the coupling inductors that improves the performance of the DPC method. Simulations and experimental tests demonstrate the validity of this detection and estimation strategy.
Research Models in Information Systems

The use of research models in driving scholarly investigation is of great importance in any field, including information systems (IS). As such, a taxonomy of IS research models should be of substantial value to the discipline. Such a taxonomy is developed in this article based on the IS research literature. Eleven model types are examined in detail in order to investigate how they are used by researchers, in articles published in seven leading IS journals during a recent six year period. Interesting results emerge in the use of models overall, as well as trends over time and relationships with specific methodologies and IS journals. Multi-tier influence diagram is the most used research model in IS research, while the no model, listing of variables, mathematical model, and simple influence diagram also find significant usage among the IS research community. Patterns of model use were also identified based on top journals and prevalent research methodologies.
A paper-text perspective: Studies on the influence of feature granularity for Chinese short-text-classification in the Big Data era

Purpose In the era of Big Data, network digital resources are growing rapidly, especially the short-text resources, such as tweets, comments, messages and so on, are showing a vigorous vitality. This study aims to compare the categories discriminative capacity (CDC) of Chinese language fragments with different granularities and to explore and verify feasibility, rationality and effectiveness of the low-granularity feature, such as Chinese characters in Chinese short-text classification (CSTC). Design/methodology/approach This study takes discipline classification of journal articles from CSSCI as a simulation environment. On the basis of sorting out the distribution rules of classification features with various granularities, including keywords, terms and characters, the classification effects accessed by the SVM algorithm are comprehensively compared and evaluated from three angles of using the same experiment samples, testing before and after feature optimization, and introducing external data. Findings The granularity of a classification feature has an important impact on CSTC. In general, the larger the granularity is, the better the classification result is, and vice versa. However, a low-granularity feature is also feasible, and its CDC could be improved by reasonable weight setting, even exceeding a high-granularity feature if synthetically considering classification precision, computational complexity and text coverage. Originality/value This is the first study to propose that Chinese characters are more suitable as descriptive features in CSTC than terms and keywords and to demonstrate that CDC of Chinese character features could be strengthened by mixing frequency and position as weight.
Cloning, Sequencing, and Role in Serum Susceptibility of Porin II from Mesophilic Aeromonas hydrophila

ABSTRACT We cloned and sequenced the structural gene for Aeromonas hydrophila porin II from strain AH-3 (serogroup O:34). The genetic position of this gene, like that of ompF inEscherichia coli, is adjacent to aspC and transcribed in the same direction. However, upstream of the porin II gene no similarities with E. coli were found. We obtained defined insertion mutants in porin II gene either in A. hydrophila (O:34) or A. veronii sobria (serogroup O:11) serum-resistant or -sensitive strains. Furthermore, we complemented these mutants with a plasmid harboring only the porin II gene, which allowed us to define the role of porin II as an important surface molecule involved in serum susceptibility and C1q binding in these strains.
A behavior-based architecture for performance improvement of ad-hoc networks with DSR

This paper presents a new approach to improve performance in wireless ad-hoc networks with the DSR protocol using a behavior-based architecture. Four levels of competence based on strategies to improve the cache were implemented for the behavior-based architecture: sort routes, prefer fresher routes, selection, and disperse traffic. A conflict solver was implemented to solve counter level commands. Three different activation criteria for the conflict solver were developed, generating instances of the architecture. Two metrics were used to evaluate the performance of the ad-hoc network: end-to-end delay and dropped packet average for voice and data services, respectively. Six scenarios were analyzed showing the improvement of the network performance with respect to the original DSR protocol.
Topoisomerase I and RecQL1 Function in Epstein-Barr Virus Lytic Reactivation

ABSTRACT Cellular topoisomerases and helicases are thought to play an essential role in herpesvirus replication and gene expression and are considered to be potential targets for antiviral therapies. Topoisomerase I (Topo I) and Topo II inhibitors can selectively inhibit Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) lytic cycle DNA replication. We found that the Topo I inhibitor camptothecin and, to a lesser extent, the Topo II inhibitor etoposide are potent inhibitors of the transcription and replication function of the EBV-encoded immediate-early protein Zta (also referred to as ZEBRA, EB1, and BZLF1). Camptothecin inhibited the Zta transcription activation of endogenous and reporter-linked viral promoters. Small interfering RNA depletion of Topo I also inhibited the Zta-dependent activation of lytic cycle DNA replication. Topo I could be coimmunoprecipitated with Zta, but this interaction was restricted to EBV-positive cells, suggesting that other viral proteins stabilize the interaction between Zta and Topo I. We also found that the RecQL1 helicase, which is known to associate with Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) OriLyt, interacts with EBV OriLyt. Treatment with camptothecin reduced both Zta and RecQL1 binding to OriLyt in vivo, suggesting that Topo I promotes replication protein assembly at OriLyt.
Una Estrategia para la Selección Dinámica de Características Aplicada a la Estabilización de Secuencias de Imágenes

This work introduces an algorithm to discriminate between either moving or static features of a given scene as observed from a fixed camera, which is under the effects of vibration,. In our strategy, we select the features minimizing the registration error from one image to the next one. The process discards the features corresponding to moving objects and untrackable regions. The algorithm is applied to the task of stabilizing an image sequence. In our experiments, we benchmark our approach with several images sequences and match the results with a randomized strategy known as RANSAC.
Class of constructive asymptotically good algebraic codes

For any rate R, 0 , a sequence of specific (n,k) binary codes with rate R_n > R and minimum distance d is constructed such that \begin{equation} \lim_{n \rightarrow \infty} \inf \frac{d}{n} \geq (1 - r ^{-1} R)H^{-1} (1 - r)> 0 \end{equation} (and hence the codes are asymptotically good), where r is the maximum of \frac{1}{2} and the solution of \begin{equation} R = \frac{r^2}{1 + \log_2 [1 - H^{-1}(1 - r)]}. \end{equation} The codes are extensions of the Reed-Solomon codes over GF(2^m) With a simple algebraic description of the added digits. Alternatively, the codes are the concatenation of a Reed-Solomon outer code of length N = 2^m - 1 with N distinct inner codes, namely all the codes in Wozeneraft's ensemble of randomly shifted codes. A decoding procedure is given that corrects all errors guaranteed correctable by the asymptotic lower bound on d . This procedure can be carried out by a simple decoder which performs approximately n^2 \log n computations.
Determination of maternal serum acetylcholinesterase in pregnancies with fetal neural tube defects

We have investigated the occurrence of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) (E.C.3.1.1.7) in fetal serum, amniotic fluid and maternal serum using an immuno‐chemical assay‐technique employing both polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies. Fetal serum had increased amounts of AChE, which is due to an increase in the 10.5S form of the enzyme. This form was also found in amniotic fluids of pregnancies with a fetal neural tube defect (NTD), but not in normal amniotic fluid. The increase in amniotic fluid AChE was however, not reflected in the maternal serum.