Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An OX40/OX40L interaction directs successful immunity to hepatitis B virus

Effective immunity and therapeutic targets are identified with a model of hepatitis B virus clearance and persistence. Hepatitis immunity: Better with age Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection can have severe complications, including cirrhosis and cancer. Most chronic HBV patients are infected at an early age, as adults can readily clear the virus. Publicover et al. used a mouse model of age-dependent HBV clearance and samples from patients to study the mechanisms leading to effective immunity in adults. They discovered that OX40 ligand expression in hepatic immune cells increases with age and is important for viral control. These results clarify some of the chronological differences in the immune response and also suggest that boosting OX40 activity in infants and chronically-infected adults could promote effective HBV immunity. Depending on age of acquisition, hepatitis B virus (HBV) can induce a cell-mediated immune response that results in either cure or progressive liver injury. In adult-acquired infection, HBV antigens are usually cleared, whereas in infancy-acquired infection, they persist. Individuals infected during infancy therefore represent the majority of patients chronically infected with HBV (CHB). A therapy that can promote viral antigen clearance in most CHB patients has not been developed and would represent a major health care advance and cost mitigator. Using an age-dependent mouse model of HBV clearance and persistence in conjunction with human blood and liver tissue, we studied mechanisms of viral clearance to identify new therapeutic targets. We demonstrate that age-dependent expression of the costimulatory molecule OX40 ligand (OX40L) by hepatic innate immune cells is pivotal in determining HBV immunity, and that treatment with OX40 agonists leads to improved HBV antigen clearance in young mice, as well as increased strength of T cell responses in young mice and adult mice that were exposed to HBV when they were young and developed a CHB serological profile. Similarly, in humans, we show that hepatic OX40L transcript expression is age-dependent and that increased OX40 expression on peripheral CD4+ T cells in adults is associated with HBV clearance. These findings provide new mechanistic understanding of the immune pathways and cells necessary for HBV immunity and identify potential therapeutic targets for resolving CHB.
Dynamic TDD support in the LTE-B enhanced Local Area architecture

The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has been studying dynamic allocation of sub-frames to uplink (UL) or downlink (DL) in Time Division Duplex (TDD), called `Dynamic TDD,' since the Long Term Evolution (LTE) Rel. 11 timeframe. At the same time, 3GPP is also standardizing Enhanced Local Area (eLA) small-cell heterogeneous architectures for inclusion in LTE-B (LTE Rel. 12) as a solution offering high data rate to user terminals (UEs) along with high system capacity through spatial reuse of spectrum. In this paper, we focus on a particular eLA architecture proposed by DOCOMO, called the Phantom Cell architecture, that has the option to support dynamic TDD. For an arbitrarily-located UE in an eLA cell network, we apply results from stochastic geometry to derive expressions for the distribution of DL signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) at an arbitrary UE and the distribution of UL SINR at its serving eLA base station (BS). We use these results to study aspects of eLA cell system design, and the sensitivity of SINR to the extent of coordination across eLA cells employing dynamic TDD.
The multicast service model for Next Generation Internet based on Identifier/Locator Separation

The traditional multicast service is based on the host group model, which transmits the packets to a set of receivers with a single destination address. In this model, anyone can send or receive the multicast packets once it joins the multicast group. As a result, the multicast service is difficult to deploy due to the lack of effective authentication and accounting mechanisms. The recent development of the new Internet architecture based on the Identifier/Locator Separation mechanisms brings a promising opportunity to improve the multicast service model. In this paper, we propose a Multicast service model based on Identifier/Locator Separation (MILS) mechanism. This model introduces Multicast Service Identifier (MSI) and Multicast Group Identifier (MGI) to identify the multicast membership and the multicast delivery. Besides, it utilizes Multicast Controller (MC) to maintain the mapping between MSI and MGI to provide the authentication and accounting functions, so as to satisfy the different requirements of multicast services. We evaluate its performance by simulations, and analyze its scalability in terms of the group number and session density. The results show that the MILS can reduce the multicast states and improve the performance of multicast services.
Quality perception of coding artifacts and packet loss in networked video communications

Typical wireless video communication applications involve two important basic chains, namely, coding and transmission. Video coding artifacts and packet losses are often introduced in the chains, respectively, which affect the quality of experience (QoE) of end-users for the delivered contents. In order to provide insights for design of QoE-aware content delivery applications, this paper presents a subjective quality assessment study that investigates the mechanism of quality perception under simultaneous existence of the coding and packet loss artifacts. Experimental results based on the paired comparison methodology show interesting observations such as the masking effect of one type of artifacts by the other one, the content-dependence of the visibility of the artifacts, and so on.
Unsupervised Hyperspectral Band Selection by Dominant Set Extraction

Unsupervised hyperspectral band selection has been an important topic in hyperspectral imagery. This technique aims at selecting some critical and decisive spectral bands from an original image for compact representation without compromising and distorting the raw information in the relevant spectral bands. Although many efforts have been made to this topic, the structural information has not yet been well exploited during band selection, and there are still several deficiencies in search strategies, leaving room for further improvement. This paper tackles the unsupervised hyperspectral band selection problem from a global perspective and proposes a novel method claiming the following main contributions: structure-aware measures for band informativeness and independence; and a graph formulation of band selection allowing for an efficient integrated search by means of dominant set extraction. Experiments on three real hyperspectral images demonstrate the superiority of the proposed band selector in comparison with benchmark methods.
Circadian actin dynamics drive rhythmic fibroblast mobilization during wound healing

The circadian clock in fibroblasts determines the efficiency of wound healing through rhythmic regulation of actin cytoskeletal dynamics. Time heals all wounds Disrupting circadian rhythm, the 24-hour cycle corresponding to light and darkness, is associated with disease and aging. Here, Hoyle et al. discovered a role for circadian control in wound healing. Skin wounds in mice wounded during the circadian rest period healed less quickly than those wounded during the active period. The authors uncovered a circadian regulation of actin, a cytoskeletal protein involved in cell migration, in fibroblasts in the wound-healing response. Analysis of a database of human burn injuries showed that those incurred during the night (rest period) healed more slowly than wounds acquired during the day (active period). This work extends our understanding of cell-autonomous clock control. Fibroblasts are primary cellular protagonists of wound healing. They also exhibit circadian timekeeping, which imparts an approximately 24-hour rhythm to their biological function. We interrogated the functional consequences of the cell-autonomous clockwork in fibroblasts using a proteome-wide screen for rhythmically expressed proteins. We observed temporal coordination of actin regulators that drives cell-intrinsic rhythms in actin dynamics. In consequence, the cellular clock modulates the efficiency of actin-dependent processes such as cell migration and adhesion, which ultimately affect the efficacy of wound healing. Accordingly, skin wounds incurred during a mouse’s active phase exhibited increased fibroblast invasion in vivo and ex vivo, as well as in cultured fibroblasts and keratinocytes. Our experimental results correlate with the observation that the time of injury significantly affects healing after burns in humans, with daytime wounds healing ~60% faster than nighttime wounds. We suggest that circadian regulation of the cytoskeleton influences wound-healing efficacy from the cellular to the organismal scale.
Photonic network vision 2020 — Smart photonic networking, synthetic transport platform, and scale-free photonics

A vision of photonic network in 2020 is presented, which envisages “smart photonic cloud” in the Big Data era. The smart photonic cloud is referred to as an atmosphere which serves as a universal infrastructure, providing with connectivities to machine-to-machine communications such as networked high-performance computing and intra- and inter data center networks. To cope with strong demands for network virtualization without any physical and logical constraint, its photonic layer 2 virtualization will becomes feasible, which differentiates from the conventional one in terms of the number of slices and the dynamic range of the bandwidth of each slice. For the starter, the guiding principle and the objectives of the vision will be addressed. Next, three “Ss” key enabling technologies, including smart photonic networking, synthetic transport platform, and scale-free photonics will be presented. A key building block to the above three enabling technologies is the photonic network processor, which can synthesize desired functions of the switch node and the transmission link. The photonic network processor leverages on a recent progress of digital signal processing for coherent optical transmission systems an optical interconnect based upon silicon photonics, and it allows software-defining its functions.
Propulsive Activity of the Isolated Choledochoduodenal Junction of the Guinea Pig

The isolated choledochoduodenal junction of the guinea pig exhibited unidirectional propulsive activity when perfused with prewarmed Krebs' solution through the upper common bile duct. The mean perfusion pressure that elicited propulsive contractions was 6.1 ± 0.3 cm water (n= 20). The mean frequency of propulsive contractions was 19.1 ± 1.2 per minute (n= 20), and the mean volume of each expelled bolus of perfusate was 17.5 ± 1.6 μl (n= 16) when superfused with normal Krebs' solution. The propulsive activity was abolished by atropine (1.4 μM) and by tetrodotoxin (3.1 μM). The contractions became nonpropulsive when d‐tubocurarine (140 μM) was added to the perfusate. Cholecystokinin octapeptide (10 nM) significantly decreased the propulsive contractile frequency from 19.1 to 14.3 per minute (p < 0.001) and increased the mean ejected bolus volume from 17.5 to 25.1 μl (p < 0.05). These actions of cliolecystokinin octapeptide were markedly depressed by atropine but less so by d‐tubocurarine. The results suggest that the guinea‐pig choledochoduodenal junction acts like a propulsive motor unit under the control of intrinsic motor nerves whose activities may be modulated by hormones such as cholecystokinin octapeptide.
Power allocation in OFDM based NOMA systems: A DC programming approach

In this work, we have considered the downlink of an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing based Non Orthogonal Multiple Access system where transmission to multiple number of users is performed on the same sub-band (time-frequency resource unit) using Superposition Coding (SC) technique. At the receiver side, the SC coded symbols are recovered with Successive Interference Cancellation (SIC). Assuming that complete channel state information is present at the base station, we propose (1) co-channel user set selection, (2) power distribution among the multiplexed users on each sub-band, and (3) power allocation across the sub-bands to maximize the weighted sum rate of the system. Since the problem is a non-convex combinatorial optimization problem, two step heuristic solution is employed. In the first step, for each of the sub-bands, a greedy user selection and iterative sub-optimal power allocation algorithm based on Difference of Convex (DC) programming is presented. In the second step, exploiting the DC structure of the modified problem, power allocation across sub-band is carried out through the same iterative power allocation algorithm. Simulation results are provided to assess and compare the performance of the proposed algorithms.
Secure cluster-based cooperative spectrum sensing against malicious attackers

The presence of malicious attackers in cognitive radio networks (CRNs) deeply degrades the overall performance in terms of detection accuracy, throughput and energy efficiency. A popular attack, called spectrum sensing data falsification (SSDF) attack, invades the CRN during cooperative spectrum sensing process. SSDF attack is represented by a malicious user that sends false sensing results to the fusion center, trying to mislead the global decision regarding the spectrum occupancy. Detecting such type of attack becomes a challenge especially in cluster-based CRNs. In this paper we propose an attacker-identification and removal algorithm that is able to detect attackers in cluster-based CRNs. The proposed algorithm requires that each transmitting user should send a report about the delivery of its transmitted data. The delivery report is then used to assess the local decisions of all users in order to recognize attackers and remove them. Mathematical formulation and computer simulations show a better performance than the previous works.
Targeting KRAS-dependent tumors with AZD4785, a high-affinity therapeutic antisense oligonucleotide inhibitor of KRAS

AZD4785 is a therapeutic antisense oligonucleotide targeting KRAS mRNA with promising preclinical antitumor activity and a favorable safety profile. An antisensible approach to targeting KRAS Mutations that cause activation of the KRAS oncogene are common in human cancer, including treatment-resistant tumor types such as lung and pancreatic cancer. KRAS has also proven to be notoriously difficult to target with small molecules. To overcome this issue, Ross et al. have turned to genetic technology, demonstrating an antisense oligonucleotide–based therapy for inhibiting KRAS. The antisense oligonucleotide used in this study was chemically modified, allowing systemic delivery through subcutaneous injection and avoiding the need for a specialized delivery vehicle. The authors tested the efficacy of this therapy in multiple mouse models of non–small cell lung cancer and evaluated its safety in primates, demonstrating its potential suitability for translation to humans. Activating mutations in KRAS underlie the pathogenesis of up to 20% of human tumors, and KRAS is one of the most frequently mutated genes in cancer. Developing therapeutics to block KRAS activity has proven difficult, and no direct inhibitor of KRAS function has entered clinical trials. We describe the preclinical evaluation of AZD4785, a high-affinity constrained ethyl–containing therapeutic antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) targeting KRAS mRNA. AZD4785 potently and selectively depleted cellular KRAS mRNA and protein, resulting in inhibition of downstream effector pathways and antiproliferative effects selectively in KRAS mutant cells. AZD4785-mediated depletion of KRAS was not associated with feedback activation of the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway, which is seen with RAS-MAPK pathway inhibitors. Systemic delivery of AZD4785 to mice bearing KRAS mutant non–small cell lung cancer cell line xenografts or patient-derived xenografts resulted in inhibition of KRAS expression in tumors and antitumor activity. The safety of this approach was demonstrated in mice and monkeys with KRAS ASOs that produced robust target knockdown in a broad set of tissues without any adverse effects. Together, these data suggest that AZD4785 is an attractive therapeutic for the treatment of KRAS-driven human cancers and warrants further development.
A Frequency-Domain Imaging Algorithm for Highly Squinted SAR Mounted on Maneuvering Platforms With Nonlinear Trajectory

The imagery of highly squinted synthetic aperture radar mounted on maneuvering platforms with nonlinear trajectory is a challenging task due to the existence of acceleration and the cross-range-dependent range migration and Doppler parameters. In order to accommodate these issues, a frequency-domain imaging algorithm based on tandem two-step nonlinear chirp scaling (TNCS) with small aperture is proposed. For the cross-range-dependent range cell migration (RCM) caused by the linear range walk correction and acceleration, the first-step NCS is introduced to suppress this dependence and realize the unified RCM correction. Based on the differences between full-aperture and small-aperture data in the cross-range processing, the second-step NCS is introduced in frequency domain to equalize the cross-range-dependent Doppler parameters, for cross-range processing is more sensitive to the cross-range dependence than range processing. Furthermore, a novel geometric correction method based on inverse projection is utilized to eliminate the negative effects caused by the imaging processing. Simulation results and real data processing are presented to validate the proposed approach.
FLEX End-to-End Mission Performance Simulator

The FLuorescence EXplorer (FLEX) mission, selected as the European Space Agency's eighth Earth Explorer, aims to globally measure the sun-induced-chlorophyll-fluorescence spectral emission from terrestrial vegetation. In the frame of the FLEX mission, several industrial and scientific studies have analyzed the instrument design, image processing algorithms, or modeling aspects. At the same time, a common tool is needed to address the overall FLEX mission performance by combining all these features. For this reason, an end-to-end mission performance simulator has been developed for the FLEX mission (FLEX-E). This paper describes the FLEX-E software design, which combines the generation of complex synthetic scenes with an advanced modeling of the instrument behavior and the full processing scheme up to the final fluorescence product. The results derived from FLEX-E simulations indicate that the instrument and developed image processing algorithms are able to retrieve the sun-induced fluorescence with an accuracy below the 0.2 mW · m-2 · sr-1 · nm-1 mission requirement. It is expected that FLEX-E will not only optimize the FLEX retrieval algorithms and technical requirements, but also serve as the baseline for the ground processing implementation and testing of calibration/validation procedures.
Path Loss, Shadow Fading, and Line-of-Sight Probability Models for 5G Urban Macro-Cellular Scenarios

This paper presents key parameters including the line-of-sight (LOS) probability, large-scale path loss, and shadow fading models for the design of future fifth generation (5G) wireless communication systems in urban macro- cellular (UMa) scenarios, using the data obtained from propagation measurements at 38 GHz in Austin, US, and at 2, 10, 18, and 28 GHz in Aalborg, Denmark. A comparison of different LOS probability models is performed for the Aalborg environment. Alpha-beta-gamma and close-in reference distance path loss models are studied in depth to show their value in channel modeling. Additionally, both single-slope and dual-slope omnidirectional path loss models are investigated to analyze and contrast their root-mean-square (RMS) errors on measured path loss values. While the results show that the dual-slope large-scale path loss model can slightly reduce RMS errors compared to its single-slope counterpart in non-line-of-sight (NLOS) conditions, the improvement is not significant enough to warrant adopting the dual- slope path loss model. Furthermore, the shadow fading magnitude versus distance is explored, showing a slight increasing trend in LOS and a decreasing trend in NLOS based on the Aalborg data, but more measurements are necessary to gain a better knowledge of the UMa channels at centimeter- and millimeter-wave frequency bands.
Low Complexity Analog Beam Selection for Uplink Multiuser Hybrid Beamforming System

In this paper, we consider an uplink multiuser hybrid beamforming system where an access point (AP) communicates with multiple stations (STAs) simultaneously. The performance of the uplink multiuser hybrid beamforming system depends on the effective channel which is given by the product of channel matrix and the analog beams. Therefore, to maximize the performance, we need to select the appropriate analog beams from the set of predefined analog beams. In this paper, we propose a low complexity analog beam selection algorithm for the uplink multiuser hybrid beamforming system. Additionally, we compare the complexity to show that the proposed analog beam selection algorithm has much less complexity than the exhaustive search based optimum analog beam selection while the performance loss of the proposed analog beam selection algorithm is not significant compared to the optimum analog beam selection, which is shown by the numerical results.
Comparison of Commonly Used Placement Sites for Activity Monitoring

Background: No accepted standard exists to evaluate nonsleep-related activity in nursing facility residents where monitors are variously placed at the ankle, waist, wrist, thigh, or embedded in sheeting and set to record activity frequency. Objectives: To determine optimal placement of activity monitors by site—at the ankle, waist, or wrist for nursing facility residents. Methods: Nursing facility residents (N = 16) wore accelerometers at three sites: the nondominant ankle, waist, and wrist, while recording activity in three modes: frequency, duration, and intensity. Results: The natural log activity mean for each mode by site and time revealed no significant differences between the three sites for activity intensity, F(2, 62.78) = . 15, p = . 86; activity duration, F(2, 69.84) = . 50, p = . 61; and activity frequency, F(2, 70.04) = 1.25, p = . 29. There were no significant site—time interactions. The natural log activity by site and mode indicated no significant differences by site for the 24-hr mean, F(2, 107.64) = . 20, p = . 82; activity median, F(2, 100.42) = . 47, p = . 63; and activity standard deviation, F(2, 108.69) = 1.5, p = . 23. A significant difference was seen by site for the acceleration index, F(2, 106.32) = 9.57, p < . 001. No significant site—mode interactions were found. Conclusions: Similarity between ankle, waist, or wrist sites when measuring activity by various modes, frequency, duration, or intensity, suggests the monitors measure nonsleep-related activity equally well at any of the sites.