Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A 30-GHz Wideband Low-Power CMOS Injection-Locked Frequency Divider for 60-GHz Wireless-LAN

A 30-GHz wide locking-range (25%) injection-locked frequency divider (ILFD) with small power consumption (1.86 mW) is presented. The locking range of the ILFD is extended by reducing the quality factor of resonant tank. Besides, the output power level of second harmonic is lower than that of fundamental component by 37 dBc due to the new output buffer where the second harmonic can be cancelled. The proposed wideband ILFD is implemented in 0.13-mum standard CMOS process. It achieves a wide locking-range of 6.2 GHz (25 %) without any frequency tuning mechanism under the small power consumption of 1.86 mW and the highest figure-of-merit of 12.4 (%/mW) among all reported state-of-the-art CMOS ILFD.
In vitro culture of large bone substitutes in a new bioreactor: importance of the flow direction

New biomaterials combined with osteogenic cells are now being developed as an alternative to autogeneous bone grafts when the skeletal defect reaches a critical size. Yet, the size issue appears to be a key obstacle in the development of bone tissue engineering. Bioreactors are needed to allow the in vitro expansion of cells inside large bulk materials under appropriate conditions. However, no bioreactor has yet been designed for large-scale 3D structures and custom-made scaffolds. In this study, we evaluate the efficiency of a new bioreactor for the in vitro development of large bone substitutes, ensuring the perfusion of large ceramic scaffolds by the nutritive medium. The survival and proliferation of cells inside the scaffolds after 7 and 28 days in this dynamic culture system and the impact of the direction of the flow circulation are evaluated. The follow-up of glucose consumption, DNA quantification and microscopic evaluation all confirmed cell survival and proliferation for a sample under dynamic culture conditions, whereas static culture leads to the death of cells inside the scaffolds. Two directions of flow perfusion were assayed; the convergent direction leads to enhanced results compared to divergent flow.
Harmonization of Pulsed-Field Gel Electrophoresis Protocols for Epidemiological Typing of Strains of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus: a Single Approach Developed by Consensus in 10 European Laboratories and Its Application for Tracing the Spread of Related Strains

ABSTRACT Pulsed-fieldgel electrophoresis (PFGE) is the most common genotypic method used in reference and clinical laboratories for typing methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Many different protocols have been developed in laboratories that have extensive experience with the technique and have established national databases. However, the comparabilities of the different European PFGE protocols for MRSA and of the various national MRSA clones themselves had not been addressed until now. This multinational European Union (EU) project has established for the first time a European database of representative epidemic MRSA (EMRSA) strains and has compared them by using a new “harmonized” PFGE protocol developed by a consensus approach that has demonstrated sufficient reproducibility to allow the successful comparison of pulsed-field gels between laboratories and the tracking of strains around the EU. In-house protocols from 10 laboratories in eight European countries were compared by each center with a “gold standard” or initial harmonized protocol in which many of the parameters had been standardized. The group found that it was not important to standardize some elements of the protocol, such as the type of agarose, DNA block preparation, and plug digestion. Other elements were shown to be critical, namely, a standard gel volume and concentration of agarose, the DNA concentration in the plug, the ionic strength and volume of running buffer used, the running temperature, the voltage, and the switching times of electrophoresis. A new harmonized protocol was agreed on, further modified in a pilot study in two laboratories, and finally tested by all others. Seven laboratories' gels were found to be of sufficiently good quality to allow comparison of the strains by using a computer software program, while two gels could not be analyzed because of inadequate destaining and DNA overloading. Good-quality gels and inclusion of an internal quality control strain are essential before attempting intercenter PFGE comparisons. A number of clonally related strains have been shown to be present in multiple countries throughout Europe. The well-known Iberian clone has been demonstrated in Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, and Spain (and from the wider HARMONY collection in Portugal, Slovenia, and Sweden). Strains from the United Kingdom (EMRSA-15 and -16) have been identified in several othercountries, and other clonally related strains have also been identified. This highlights the need for closer international collaboration to monitor the spread of current epidemic strains as well as the emergence of new ones.
Joint uplink and downlink optimization of pilot assignment for massive MIMO with power control

In this paper, we investigate the effects of pilot assignment (PA) in multicell massive multiple‐input–multiple‐output systems. When deploying linear detection/precoding algorithms and a large number of antennas at base station (BS), it is well‐known that system performance in both uplink (UL) and downlink (DL) is mainly restricted by pilot contamination. Such interference is proper of each pilot sequence, and thus, system performance can be improved by suitably assigning the pilots to the users within a given cell, according to a certain desired metric. We show in this paper that UL and DL performances constitute conflicting metrics, since it is not possible to achieve the best performance in UL and DL concomitantly. Thus, we propose an alternative metric, namely, total capacity, aiming to simultaneously achieve a suitable performance in both directions, ie, UL and DL. Since the PA problem is combinatorial, and the search space grows with the number of pilots in a factorial fashion, we also propose a low‐complexity suboptimal algorithm that achieves promising capacity performance avoiding the exhaustive search. In addition, to fully benefit from the large excess of BS antennas, we combine our proposed PA schemes with an efficient power control algorithm, unveiling the great potential of the proposed schemes to provide improved performance for more users, even with a not‐so‐large number of BS antennas. In a limit condition, for example, our numerical results demonstrate that with 64 BS antennas serving 10 users, our proposed method can assure a 95% likely rate of 4.2 Mbps for both DL and UL, and a symmetric 95% likely rate of 1.4 Mbps when serving 32 users. If a higher number of antennas is allowed at BS, the guaranteed rates can be significantly higher.
Diagnosing Kawasaki syndrome.

1. Cimaz R, Casadei A, Rose C, Bartunkova J, Sediva A. Primary Sjögren syndrome in the paediatric age: a multicentre survey. Eur J Pediatr 2003;162:661–5. 2. Anya J, Ogawa N, Talan N. Sjögren’s syndrome in childhood. J Rheumatol 1995;22:1152–8. 3. Nikitakis NG, Rivera H, Lariccia C, Papadimitriou J, Sauk JJ. Primary Sjögren syndrome in childhood: report of a case and review of the literature. Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol Oral Radiol Endod 2003;96:42–7. 4. Kobayashi I, Kawamura N, Okano M, et al. Anti-alpha-fodrin autoantibody is an early diagnostic marker for childhood primary Sjögren’s syndrome. J Rheumatology 2001;28:363–5. 5. Salaffi F, Argalia G, Carotti M, Giannini FB, Palombi C. Salivary gland ultrasonography in the evaluation of primary Sjögren’s syndrome. Comparison with minor salivary gland biopsy. J Rheumatol 2000;27:1229–36.
Gender Differences in Intended Escalatory Tendencies Among Marital Partners

This study addresses the intended escalatory tendency in eight hypothetical situations in which the provocator’s identity (partner or stranger, male or female) and the provocation form (verbal or physical aggression) were manipulated. The research question is “how does the identity of the provocator and the form of his or her provocation affect the participant’s intended escalation level, and does the gender of the participant affect differences in intended escalation level? ” The research sample consisted of 208 Israeli couples. The main finding is that women’s intended response to their male partner is more escalatory than men’s intended response to their female partner. Results also show that women’s escalation is the most severe to partner provocation and the least severe to male strangers’ provocation. Men’s escalation is the most severe to provocation by male strangers and the least severe to their partner’s provocation. Findings indicate that men’s intention to escalate decreases as their partner’s provocation becomes more severe. The severity of provocation has little effect on women’s inten–tion to escalate. Such results are consistent with social role theory and sexual selection theory that maintain that status enhancement is more important for men than for women, and is more important for men than risk reduction is, whereas the opposite is true for women.
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Phylogeny: toward Consensus

Since the identiﬁcation of a new coronavirus (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus [SARS-CoV]) as the caus-ative agent of the SARS epidemic in the winter of 2002-2003, the origin of the novel agent has remained a hotly debated topic. Which virus was the immediate ancestor of SARS-CoV, and what are the relationships between SARS-CoV and other previously described coronaviruses? Correct answers to these two questions are vital, as substantiated below, for designing strategies to detect, contain, and combat new outbreaks and for dissecting the fundamentals of the SARS-CoV life cycle. Major efforts have been invested in a thus far unsuccessful search for a natural SARS-CoV reservoir. In the meantime, and more outside the spotlight, SARS-CoV genome sequences have been used to deﬁne the phylogenetic position of SARS-CoV among coronaviruses. These studies have resulted in a lot of controversy whose intricacies may not be very clear to out-siders. Our purpose is to clarify the situation from an insider’s point of view. Originally, coronaviruses were classiﬁed the basis of antigenic cross-reactivity, and in this manner three antigenic groups (1 to 3) were recognized When coronavirus genome sequences began to accumulate, groups were evident from of structural proteins, N, M, and S and of different regions of the giant replicase Group
An Evaluation of Starburst's Memory Resident Storage Component

As part of the Starburst extensible database project, the authors have designed and implemented a memory resident storage component that can coexist along side traditional disk-oriented storage components. The memory resident storage component shares the code of Starburst's common services, such as query optimization, plan generation, query evaluation, record manipulation, and transaction management. The design of Starburst's memory resident storage component is discussed, contrasted with Starburst's default disk-oriented storage component, and compared to the performance of the two storage components using the Wisconsin Benchmarks. The results show that a memory resident storage component can perform significantly better than a disk-oriented storage component, even when the disk-oriented storage component has all of its data cached in memory. The benchmark results show that, by using memory resident techniques, overall query execution can be improved by up to a factor of four. >
A Three‐Dimensional Smooth Surface Analysis of Untreated Crouzon's Syndrome in the Adult

This study compares the three-dimensional smooth surface shape of five adult patients with Crouzon's disease with nine normal skulls. A new analysis method is described which is based on smooth surface curvature. Surface samples are subdivided by a common ridge curve structure. Three-dimensional images of an average normal and an average Crouzon skull are illustrated. Comparisons between groups are performed on landmarks, as well as ridge curve and surface patch midpoints. There was as much discriminant information in the ridge curves and surface patches between landmarks as there was at the landmarks themselves. When compared with normal samples, the Crouzon's syndrome sample exhibits the following major characteristics: The mid-face is concave and wide, with the piriform aperture in the center more recessed than the perifery of the mid-face. The forehead is recessed above a frontal sinus bulge. The orbits are shallow, wide, concave, and tilted interiorly with a mild hypertelorism. These data suggest that advancement of large, one-piece osteotomy segments will not produce a normal face, and a multisegment approach should be considered.
Parasite-Mediated Upregulation of NK Cell-Derived Gamma Interferon Protects against Severe Highly Pathogenic H5N1 Influenza Virus Infection

ABSTRACT Outbreaks of influenza A viruses are associated with significant human morbidity worldwide. Given the increasing resistance to the available influenza drugs, new therapies for the treatment of influenza virus infection are needed. An alternative approach is to identify products that enhance a protective immune response. In these studies, we demonstrate that infecting mice with the Th1-inducing parasite Toxoplasma gondii prior to highly pathogenic avian H5N1 influenza virus infection led to decreased lung viral titers and enhanced survival. A noninfectious fraction of T. gondii soluble antigens (STAg) elicited an immune response similar to that elicited by live parasites, and administration of STAg 2 days after H5N1 influenza virus infection enhanced survival, lowered viral titers, and reduced clinical disease. STAg administration protected H5N1 virus-infected mice lacking lymphocytes, suggesting that while the adaptive immune response was not required for enhanced survival, it was necessary for STAg-mediated viral clearance. Mechanistically, we found that administration of STAg led to increased production of gamma interferon (IFN-γ) from natural killer (NK) cells, which were both necessary and sufficient for survival. Further, administration of exogenous IFN-γ alone enhanced survival from H5N1 influenza virus infection, although not to the same level as STAg treatment. These studies demonstrate that a noninfectious T. gondii extract enhances the protective immune response against severe H5N1 influenza virus infections even when a single dose is administered 2 days postinfection.
Story Telling for Presentation in Volume Visualization

In this paper we present a novel approach to volume visualization for presentation purposes that improves both the comprehensibility and credibility of the intended visualization message. Therefore, we combine selected aspects from storytelling as well as from interactive volume visualization to create a guided but at the same time interactive visualization presentation approach. To ease the observer's access to a presented visualization result we not only communicate the result itself, but also deliver its creational process in the form of an annotated visualization animation, which we call a visualization story. Additionally, we enable variable means of interactivity during story playback. The story observers may just watch the presentation passively, but they are also allowed to reinvestigate the visualization independently from story guidance, offering the ability to verify, confirm, or even disapprove the presented visualization message. For demonstration purposes, we developed a prototype application that provides tools to author, edit, and watch visualization stories. We demonstrate the potential of our approach on the basis of medical visualization examples.
The simulation of the multi-band triangle fractal nesting printed monopole antenna

Based on the triangle fractal antenna, is proposed in this paper. This antenna consists of four nesting triangles with different vertex angle and height. The simulation of the antenna is performed by using CST MICROWAVE STUDIO® and the result shows that the center frequency of the pass band and the bandwidth can be controlled by modulating the height and angle of the nesting triangles and the nesting number. A multi-band with four bands (2.4GHz, 3.5GHz, 5.2GHz and 5.8GHz) has been designed, through simulation. The nesting fractal antenna is a multi-bands antenna with controllable frequency bands. And it also has a broad application prospects.
3-D In-Bi-Sn Electrodes for Lab-on-PCB Cell Sorting

We present a microfluidic lab-on-printed circuit board (PCB) device containing alloy vertical electrodes for sorting microparticles using dielectrophoresis. The device consists of a hydrodynamic prefocuser and an electronic sorting region. Lining the two sidewalls of the electronic sorting region are regularly spaced rectangular metal electrodes reaching from the floor to the ceiling of the flow channel that bridge electric field lines laterally across the channel. The size and distribution of these vertical electrodes are arranged asymmetrically such that the resultant electric field forms sharp electric field gradients across the channel; specific geometries were optimized using finite element methods. Particles entering the device are initially focused on a single stream as they pass through the prefocuser. Subsequently, they are exposed to the lateral electric field gradient and separate into streams based on their size and dielectric properties. Validation was performed by dielectrophoretically separating live cells from dead cells. Importantly, the system presented can be readily integrated with various external sensors and actuators using commercially available components owing to the device's integration into a PCB.
Decreasing Internal Focus of Attention Improves Postural Control During Quiet Standing in Young Healthy Adults

This experiment was designed to investigate whether and how decreasing the amount of attentional focus invested in postural control could affect bipedal postural control. Twelve participants were asked to stand upright as immobile as possible on a force platform in one control condition and one cognitive condition. In the latter condition, they performed a short-term digit-span memory task. Decreased center-of-gravity displacements and decreased center-of-foot-pressure displacements minus center-of-gravity displacements were observed in the cognitive condition relative to the control condition. These results suggest that shifting the attentional focus away from postural control by executing a concurrent attention-demanding task could increase postural performance and postural efficiency.
Estreitamento dos Diferenciais de Salários e Aumento do Grau de Discriminação: Limitações da Mensuração Padrão?

O objetivo deste artigo e estimar a incidencia e a evolucao recente da discriminacao racial e por genero nos mercados de trabalho formal e informal no Brasil entre 2002 e 2006. Assim, mensuramos os diferenciais de rendimentos por meio da decomposicao de Oaxaca-Blinder, com base nos microdados da Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicilios (PNAD), do Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica (IBGE), e confirmamos a pratica discriminatoria. Os resultados indicam a reducao do hiato salarial dos grupos discriminados entre 2002 e 2006, exceto para mulheres brancas; contudo, o componente da discriminacao aumenta em igual periodo para elas. A despeito das limitacoes do metodo de Oaxaca-Blinder, destacamos a maior resistencia ao fechamento do hiato salarial entre homens brancos e mulheres brancas e a estabilidade da diferenca entre o salario observado e o a ser pago na ausencia de discriminacao, exceto entre homens brancos e mulheres negras. O componente de discriminacao entre os homens brancos e os demais grupos e maior no mercado de trabalho formal do que no informal, indicando as dificuldades de se quebrar preconceitos e privilegios nos postos de trabalho de melhor qualidade.
Software Fault Location Analysis Technology Based on Tarantula

Software errors usually result from the interaction of related codes which need the analyzers to analyze a great number of codes to find out the causes. Based on dynamic slicing method, this paper focused on the dependence relationship of the execution code and taint analysis method to help to locate the fault code. We also made improvements on the open-source analyzer Tarantula and proposed another two parameters to describe the relationship between the related branch codes and the software errors. Experiments show that this method can help to locate fault codes more precisely.
Kinematics of a robotized operation microscope

We present the methods for calculating the forward and inverse kinematics of a fully motorized operation microscope. With these procedures the handling of the microscope in the surgical theatre can be facilitated. Computer-controlled positioning simplifies the pivotation around a defined focus point, improves its accuracy and makes the handling intuitive. The kinematics calculations enable new functions, such as automatic alignment of the microscope at the desired position or following a trajectory of previously chosen points.
Comparing outcome predictability of markers of malnutrition-inflammation complex syndrome in haemodialysis patients.

BACKGROUND Markers of malnutrition-inflammation complex syndrome (MICS) are reported to predict mortality and hospitalization in maintenance haemodialysis (MHD) patients. However, it is not clear which one is a more sensitive and stronger predictor of outcome. METHODS We examined the utility of 10 markers of MICS as predictors of prospective mortality and hospitalization, which included malnutrition-inflammation score (MIS), a fully quantitative score adopted from subjective global assessment, and serum levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), albumin, pre-albumin, total iron binding capacity, creatinine, total cholesterol and normalized protein nitrogen appearance. A cohort of 378 MHD patients, who were randomly selected from eight DaVita dialysis facilities in the South Bay Los Angeles area, was studied. RESULTS Patients, aged 54.5+/-14.7 years, included 53% men, 47% Hispanics, 30% African-Americans and 55% diabetics, who had undergone MHD for 37+/-34 months. Over a 12-month follow-up, 39 patients died and 208 were hospitalized at least once. Multivariate Cox and Poisson models that included 11 covariates [gender, age, race, ethnicity, diabetes, dialysis vintage, Charlson co-morbidity index (CCI), insurance status, Kt/V, body mass index and history of cardiovascular disease] were explored for the highest quartiles of inflammatory markers or the lowest quartiles of nutritional markers. The magnitude of relative risk of death and hospitalization was greatest for MIS, CRP and IL-6. In extended multivariate models that included all 10 MICS markers and 11 additional covariates simultaneously, CRP, MIS and CCI were the only consistent predictors of mortality and hospitalization, and their outcome predictabilities were superior to serum albumin. CONCLUSIONS The MIS appears to be a useful, short-term tool to risk-stratify MHD patients and may circumvent the need for measuring inflammatory markers such as CRP or IL-6.