Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Novel Mitigation Technique for PAPR in Mimo-OFDMA Using RBWA

: A new peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) reduction approach for MIMO-OFDM/A is developed based on the well known Resource block weight algorithm (RBWA). This combines two ideas: 1) time domain signals from “resource blocks” (consisting of several subcarriers) may be linearly combined using precoding weights, transparent to the receiver; 2) the precoding weights can be designed to minimize the modulus variations of the resulting signal, leading generally to a reduction in PAPR. This technique is compatible with various beam forming modes in single antenna and MIMO systems. Simulation results show a noticeable improvement relative to the Selective mapping (SLM) technique with significantly less complexity.
Postoperative analgesia for shoulder surgery: a critical appraisal and review of current techniques

Shoulder surgery is well recognised as having the potential to cause severe postoperative pain. The aim of this review is to assess critically the evidence relating to the effectiveness of regional anaesthesia techniques commonly used for postoperative analgesia following shoulder surgery. Subacromial/intra‐articular local anaesthetic infiltration appears to perform only marginally better than placebo, and because the technique has been associated with catastrophic chondrolysis, it can no longer be recommended. All single injection nerve blocks are limited by a short effective duration. Suprascapular nerve block reduces postoperative pain and opioid consumption following arthroscopic surgery, but provides inferior analgesia compared with single injection interscalene block. Continuous interscalene block incorporating a basal local anaesthetic infusion and patient controlled boluses is the most effective analgesic technique following both major and minor shoulder surgery. However, interscalene nerve block is an invasive procedure with potentially serious complications and should therefore only be performed by practitioners with appropriate experience.
Developmental Profile of the Changing Properties of NMDA Receptors at Cerebellar Mossy Fiber–Granule Cell Synapses

During cerebellar development, granule cells display well characterized changes in the expression of NMDA receptor (NMDAR) NR2 subunits, switching from NR2B to NR2A and NR2C in mature cells. Although various studies, including experiments on mutant mice with one or more NR2 subunit types deleted, suggest that NR2A, NR2B, and NR2C subunits contribute to synaptic NMDARs, changes in the properties of the mossy fiber EPSC during development have not been fully evaluated. In particular, information on NMDAR EPSCs in mature animals is lacking. We have examined pharmacological and kinetic properties of NMDARs at mossy fiber–granule cell synapses from their formation to maturity [postnatal day 7 (P7)–P40 rats]. Significant changes were seen in the relative amplitudes of the non-NMDAR- and NMDAR-mediated components of the evoked EPSC and in the decay kinetics of the latter. The NMDA/non-NMDA ratio was similar at P7, P21, and P40, but showed a clear peak at P12. This change coincided with a speeding of the NMDAR EPSC decay, accompanied by a decrease in sensitivity to ifenprodil (selective NR2B-antagonist). By P21, sensitivity of the NMDAR EPSC to Mg2+ was approximately threefold less than that at P12 (IC50, 76 vs 28 μm), suggesting incorporation of the NR2C subunit. However, the predicted slowing of decay kinetics to a value more characteristic of NR2C deactivation, was not seen until P40. Our data are consistent with the known switch from NR2B to NR2A subunits during the first two postnatal weeks, but suggest a gradual incorporation of the NR2C subunit that modifies Mg2+ sensitivity and only later influences EPSC kinetics.
Multi-stage sampling in genetic epidemiology.

When data are expensive to collect, it can be cost-efficient to sample in two or more stages. In the first stage a simple random sample is drawn and then stratified according to some easily measured attribute. In each subsequent stage a random subset of previously selected units is sampled for more detailed observation, with a unit's sampling probability determined by its attributes as observed in the previous stages. These designs are useful in many medical studies; here we use them in genetic epidemiology. Two genetic studies illustrate the strengths and limitations of the approach. The first study evaluates nuclear and mitochondrial DNA in U.S. blacks. The goal is to estimate the relative contributions of white male genes and white female genes to the gene pool of African-Americans. This example shows that the Horvitz-Thompson estimators proposed for multi-stage designs can be inefficient, particularly when used with unnecessary stratification. The second example is a multi-stage study of familial prostate cancer. The goal is to gather pedigrees, blood samples and archived tissue for segregation and linkage analysis of familial prostate cancer data by first obtaining crude family data from prostate cancer cases and cancer-free controls. This second example shows the gains in efficiency from multi-stage sampling when the individual likelihood or quasilikelihood scores vary substantially across strata.
Cutting Edge: Human B Cell Function Is Regulated by Interaction with Soluble CD14: Opposite Effects on IgG1 and IgE Production1

The mechanism(s) controlling activation of naive B cells, their proliferation, Ag receptor affinity maturation, isotype switching, and their fate as memory or plasma cells is not fully elucidated. Here we show that between 24 and 60% of CD19+ cells in PBMC bind soluble CD14 (sCD14). Tonsillar B cells also bind sCD14, but preferentially the CD38−ve/low cells. Interaction of sCD14 with B cells resulted in higher levels of IgG1 and marked inhibition of IgE production by activated tonsillar B cells and Ag-stimulated PBMC. We found that sCD14 interfered with CD40 signaling in B cells, inhibited IL-6 production by activated B cells, and increased the kinetics and magnitude of CD40 ligand expression on T cells. Together with the previously reported effects on T cells, these findings define sCD14 as a novel soluble regulatory factor capable of modulating cellular and humoral immune responses by interacting directly with T and B cells.
Projections of nitric oxide synthase and vasoactive intestinal polypeptide‐reactive submucosal neurons in the human colon

Background : The submucosal plexus is important in the control of secretomotor and motor function of the intestine. Our aim was to describe the projections of submucosal neurons to the mucosa within the submucosal plexus and to the circular muscle of human colon and to determine whether submucosal neurons that projected to different layers were located at different levels of the submucosa.
Acceptability and feasibility of CyberSenga: an Internet-based HIV-prevention program for adolescents in Mbarara, Uganda

Capitalizing on emerging data suggesting that HIV-preventive behaviors can be positively affected by Internet-based programs, we developed and tested CyberSenga, an Internet-based, comprehensive sexuality education program for adolescents in Mbarara, Uganda. Three hundred and sixty-six secondary school students were randomly assigned to either the five-lesson program (+ booster) or a treatment-as-usual control. At three-month follow-up, intervention participants provided feedback on the program acceptability. Six focus groups with intervention participants were additionally conducted after the final follow-up at 6 months. Data support a hypothesis of feasibility: despite schedule interruptions, 95% of intervention participants completed all the five modules; only 17% deviated from the once-a-week intended delivery schedule. Internet service was uninterrupted during the field period and, in general, the technology performed to specifications. The intervention also appears to be acceptable: 94% of intervention youth somewhat or strongly agreed that they learned a lot and 93% said they were somewhat or very likely to recommend the program. Although more than two in three youth somewhat or strongly agreed that the program talked too much about sex (70%) and condoms (75%), 89% somewhat or strongly disagreed that “I do not think kids like me should do the CyberSenga program. ” Feedback from focus group participants further suggested that the content was generally acceptable and did not contradict local norms in most cases. In fact, despite concerns from some local stakeholders to the contrary, information about condoms did not appear to be confusing or contradictory for youth who were abstinent. Nonetheless, some of the sexual topics seemed to be unfamiliar or uncomfortable for some participants – particularly brief references to oral and anal sex. Together, both qualitative and quantitative data suggest that the program is a feasible and acceptable way of delivering HIV preventive information to both sexually experienced and inexperienced adolescents in Mbarara, Uganda.
Collaborating with Public Housing Residents and Staff to Improve Health: A Mixed-Methods Analysis

ABSTRACT This study described the health behaviors and barriers and facilitators of those behaviors in elderly and/or disabled residents of public housing. A mixed-methods design was used. Residents (N = 88) completed a survey with validated measures of health behaviors. A sub-sample (N = 16) participated in three focus groups. Residents scored worse than population norms on the majority of behaviors measured. Qualitative results framed in an ecological model indicated the majority of facilitators and barriers to health behaviors were perceived as occurring at the intrapersonal and interpersonal levels. Interventions to promote health should consider the unique barriers and facilitators to health behaviors among residents.
Disorders of Extreme Stress (DESNOS) Symptoms Are Associated With Type and Severity of Interpersonal Trauma Exposure in a Sample of Healthy Young Women

Childhood abuse and other developmentally adverse interpersonal traumas may put young adults at risk not only for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but also for impairment in affective, cognitive, biological, and relational self-regulation (“disorders of extreme stress not otherwise specified”; DESNOS). Structured clinical interviews with 345 sophomore college women, most of whom (84%) had experienced at least one traumatic event, indicated that the DESNOS syndrome was rare (1% prevalence), but DESNOS symptoms were reported by a majority of respondents. Controlling for PTSD and other anxiety or affective disorders, DESNOS symptom severity was associated with a history of single-incident interpersonal trauma and with more severe interpersonal trauma in a dose-response manner. Noninterpersonal trauma was associated with elevated prevalence of PTSD and dissociation but not with DESNOS severity. Study findings indicate that persistent posttraumatic problems with self-regulation warrant attention, even in relatively healthy young adult populations.
Diffusion‐weighted Imaging in Evaluating the Response to Neoadjuvant Breast Cancer Treatment

Abstract: The aim of this study was to investigate the role of diffusion imaging in the evaluation of response to neoadjuvant breast cancer treatment by correlating apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) value changes with pathological response. From June 2007 to June 2009, all consecutive patients with histopathologically confirmed breast cancer undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy were enrolled. All patients underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) (including diffusion sequence) before and after neoadjuvant treatment. The ADC values obtained using two different methods of region of interest (ROI) placement before and after treatment were compared with MRI response (assessed using RECIST 1.1 criteria) and pathological response (assessed using Mandard’s classification).
Clustering of Pre-B Cell Integrins Induces Galectin-1-Dependent Pre-B Cell Receptor Relocalization and Activation1

Interactions between B cell progenitors and bone marrow stromal cells are essential for normal B cell differentiation. We have previously shown that an immune developmental synapse is formed between human pre-B and stromal cells in vitro, leading to the initiation of signal transduction from the pre-BCR. This process relies on the direct interaction between the pre-BCR and the stromal cell-derived galectin-1 (GAL1) and is dependent on GAL1 anchoring to cell surface glycosylated counterreceptors, present on stromal and pre-B cells. In this study, we identify α4β1 (VLA-4), α5β1 (VLA-5), and α4β7 integrins as major GAL1-glycosylated counterreceptors involved in synapse formation. Pre-B cell integrins and their stromal cell ligands (ADAM15/fibronectin), together with the pre-BCR and GAL1, form a homogeneous lattice at the contact area between pre-B and stromal cells. Moreover, integrin and pre-BCR relocalizations into the synapse are synchronized and require actin polymerization. Finally, cross-linking of pre-B cell integrins in the presence of GAL1 is sufficient for driving pre-BCR recruitment into the synapse, leading to the initiation of pre-BCR signaling. These results suggest that during pre-B/stromal cell synapse formation, relocalization of pre-B cell integrins mediated by their stromal cell ligands drives pre-BCR clustering and activation, in a GAL1-dependent manner.
Museum Informatics and Collaborative Technologies: The Emerging Socio-Technological Dimension of Information Science in Museum Environments

The museum offers a starting point from which to examine the fundamental nature of collaborative work and interdisciplinary scholarship. This article examines the socio-technological impact of introducing advanced information technology into the Spurlock Museum, a museum of world history and culture at the University of Illinois. It addresses the implementation of such methodologies as computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) and computer-mediated communication (CMC) in the museum environment. Discussions are illustrated with examples and scenarios drawn from the Spurlock Museum and emphasize the intimate relationship between the museum's social structure and information systems. Viewed in a holistic fashion, such studies of collaborative activities within the museum will help shape the future of museum informatics, an emerging sub-discipline of the field of social informatics.
Conceptualization and analysis of mechanistic studies.

Much recent attention has been given to the priority for doing "mechanistic studies" of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) modalities. A preference for such studes has been clearly indicated by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine program of funding for CAM research. It is, however, difficult to find canons by which "mechanistic" studies should be analyzed, and even harder to find a good definition of "mechanism. " Social scientists have well-developed ways of approaching these issues, but their methods suffer from a fatal flaw, the ecologic mechanistic fallacy. Basic scientists fare even worse, often conducting mechanistic studies that may have no plausible mechanistic content, and that also commit the ecologic mechanistic fallacy. More methodological work on the concept of mechanism is needed at a fundamental level.
Measuring External Complexity of Complex Adaptive Systems Using Onicescu’s Informational Energy

During the last decades the complexity theory of complex adaptive systems has captured the attention of a plethora of people, ranging from scientists and to the general public, through its discussions on emergence, behavior, self-organization, computer simulations and so on with a strong emphasis in the globalization context. The intuitively given explanations about produced phenomena are hardly accepted, by regular people, without giving them scientifically proofs with some measurements and figures. Thus we are forced to find new measurements and analysis tools or to adapt the existing ones, for better understand those systems. The social systems and economic systems become more complex and unpredictable and necessitate the use, among other things, of the acquirements of social psychology to better understand and monitor them. Having a large number of mutually internetworked and interdependent parts the complex adaptive systems are hard to model and understand, so that any theory or practice defined/ applied to reduce the area of the analyzed complexity and making analysis, modeling and simulation feasible is welcome and useful. The analysis of both, external complexity and internal complexity of complex adaptive systems, as defined by Juergen Jost, become a starting point. The external complexity addresses the volume of inputs (as information/ energy), from system’s environment, that the system is capable to manipulate or to process, while, the internal complexity is a measure of input representation by the system, in fact, the model complexity. For both categories the existing model uses entropy, or other formulas based on, to measure the system. This paper introduces the usage of Onicescu's Informational Energy theory and measures, based on frequencies used in statistics, to approximate the measurements of external complexity. The aim of the paper is not to use a technology instead another, but a way to simplify and express some measurements in terms of normal frequencies, the general people encounter daily and better understand, and not in terms of probabilities that requires mathematics skills and, maybe, sophisticated computational tools from the normal reader part, for better understanding. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014. v5n22p407
Sensitization with Xenogeneic Tissues Alters the Heavy Chain Repertoire of Human Anti-Gal&agr;1–3Gal Antibodies

Background. Antigen sensitization alters the use of genes encoding the variable and constant regions of immunoglobulin, changing avidity, and function. Alterations in variable region genes induced by carbohydrate antigens have been studied extensively in animals but are incompletely characterized in humans. We asked how sensitization with the carbohydrate Gal&agr;1–3Gal modifies antibody heavy chain use. Methods. To overcome limited access to B cells, we analyzed anti-Gal&agr;1–3Gal antibodies from the serum of naïve and sensitized human subjects with anti-sera specific for VH families. Results. We find that in preimmune subjects, heavy chains of IgM anti-Gal&agr;1–3Gal derived primarily from VH3 family members, whereas the heavy chains of IgG are from diverse VH families. After sensitization, heavy chains of IgM and IgG antibodies both derived from diverse VH families. Conclusions. The preimmune repertoire of IgM antibodies to Gal&agr;1–3Gal is thus more restricted than the antibody repertoire after sensitization, suggesting an antigen-induced shift in the repertoire.
The internal structure and geotectonic setting of the Xade and Tsetseng complexes in the western most part of the Kaapvaal Craton.

The Xade Complex is an unexposed Y-shaped body, approximately 100 km long and 25 km wide, located close to the western margin of the Kaapvaal craton in Botswana. The complex is characterized by large coincident magnetic and gravity anomalies. It is completely covered by varying thicknesses of Kalahari sediments as well as by Karoo strata, which means that detailed analysis of high resolution airborne magnetic data, ground gravity data and limited seismic data are essential in interpreting the internal configuration of the complex. An earlier interpretation of the first airborne magnetic survey of Botswana (Reeves, 1978) coupled with subsequent drilling discovered the Xade Complex and showed that it is made up of mafic and ultramafic rocks. However, the limited amount of drilling did not provide sufficient information to either interpret in detail its internal geology or its regional geotectonic setting (Meixner and Peart, 1984). New 2D and 3D gravity and magnetic field modelling have constrained the geometry of the complex as a syncline defined by folded mafic lavas and high-level sub-volcanic mafic sheets. The Xade Complex lies within a graben that forms the north-south arm of a triple junction with the faulted western margin of the Kaapvaal Craton. The focal point of the triple junction coincides with an inflection of the cratonic margin and is the likely site of the feeder zone to the mafic lavas of the Xade Complex. The Tsetseng Complex is shown to be an internally layered, magnetite-bearing gabbro.
60V Lateral Trench MOSFET in 0.35 μm Technology

A novel Lateral Trench MOSFET was fabricated in a 0.35 μm ModularBCDtrade technology. This device is compact, efficient, rugged, and offers hot-carrier lifetime that is far superior to equivalent LDMOS devices. Breakdown voltages up to 75 V were demonstrated.
Energy efficient cross layer optimization for WPAN

This paper addresses the issue of energy efficiency for error control mechanisms over wireless personal area networks. The study of the trade-off between link layer performance and energy consumption for error control schemes based on ARQ leads to the definition of an optimum value of the SNR to be used by the inner loop power control in MC-SS-based air interface. In the classical implementation of the power control, the value of the SNR depends on performance metrics such as BER/FER. The proposed implementation is an example of explicit physical/link layer cross-layer optimization with top-down approach
INDEPENDENT COMPONENT ANALYSIS , CONTRASTS , AND CONVOLUTIVE MIXTURES

The paper is organized as follows. Section 1 states the problem, assumptions, and notations, and includes a brief partial bibliographical survey. Section 2 is a reminder about whitening operations and cumulants. Section 3 defines a wide class of contrast functionals and gives several examples; some of them are new. Practical algorithms are presented in section 4. The effect of a carrier frequency offset is analyzed in section 5. Eventually, specific tools are proposed in section 6, when transmitted signals are discrete. IMA Conf. Mathematics in Communications II , Lancaster University, UK, 16-18 Dec 2002
Considering the Cycle of Coming Out: Sexual Minority Identity Development

Shainna Ali is a doctoral candidate at the University of Central Florida. Sejal Barden is an Assistant Professor at the University of Central Florida. Correspondence can be addressed to Shainna Ali, The University of Central Florida, 12494 University Blvd., Education Complex Suite 322, Orlando, FL 32816, ShainnaAli@knights.ucf. edu. Shainna Ali, Sejal Barden Considering the Cycle of Coming Out: Sexual Minority Identity Development
Case report of a patient studied by brain SPECT and several neuropsychological tests for assessing correlation between drugs abuse, cognitive impairment and onset of psychotic disorder

Is reported here a case of young patient with prevalent previous diagnosis of personality disorder, submitted to several neuropsychological tests and perfusion brain SPECT, in order to assess the relationship between substance abuse, the results of brain SPECT, done at the onset of symptoms of the psychiatric disorder, and an assessment of cognitive abilities. In particular, tests were used to assess cognitive flexibility, working memory, attention, short and long-term memory. This case shows the presence of a link between cognitive deficits, hypoperfusion in specific areas of the brain revealed by SPECT and the evolution of diagnosis from axis II to axis I, according to DSM IV-TR. Correspondence to: Prof. Lucio Mango, Direttore Servizio di Medicina Nucleare, A.O. “S.Camillo-Forlanini”, Piazza Carlo Forlanini, 1 00151 Roma, Italy, Tel: +390655552541; Fax: +390655552442; E-mail: l.mango@scf.gov. it