Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reflective SOA-Based Bidirectional WDM-PON Sharing Optical Source for Up/Downlink Data and Broadcasting Transmission

We proposed and experimentally demonstrated the reflective semiconductor optical amplifier (RSOA)-based wavelength-division-multiplexed passive optical network (WDM-PON) scheme where not only up/downlink data services but also broadcasting service could be provided using a single optical source. In the proposed scheme, the digital signal and subcarrier multiplexing (SCM) signal for downstream were simultaneously modulated by a single distributed feedback laser diode and RSOA in optical network unit remodulated downstream source as an upstream. Without performance deterioration of digital signals both in up- and downstream, the proposed WDM-PON scheme can stably offer the SCM signal for broadcasting service. In the experiment, 1-Gb/s digital signals both for up- and downstream and 20-Mb/s SCM signal at 2.2 GHz for broadcasting were demonstrated in 10-km bidirectional link
Image-Based Modelling for Augmenting Reality

The interaction between real and synthetic geometry is fundamental to Augmented Reality. Portraying such interactions in a manner that is convincing to the user requires 3D models of the shape of the real objects involved. The large-scale application of Augmented Reality technologies will thus require practical methods for generating 3D models of real objects. These methods will need to be fast, flexible, and capable of operating in-situ in order to generate models in unforeseen environments. Image-based modelling offers a means of creating such models by direct analysis of an image set. This paper describes two approaches to image-based modelling for Augmented Reality, and argues that technologies of this type are critical to the future of the domain.
The Nucleotide Analog Cidofovir Suppresses Basic Fibroblast Growth Factor (FGF2) Expression and Signaling and Induces Apoptosis in FGF2-Overexpressing Endothelial Cells

Cidofovir [(S)-1-(3-hydroxy-2-phosphonylmethoxypropyl)cytosine; (S)-HPMPC] is an antiviral drug that has been approved for the treatment of cytomegalovirus retinitis in patients with AIDS. Cidofovir also possesses potent activity against human papillomavirus-induced tumors in animal models and patients. We have recently shown that cidofovir inhibits the development of vascular tumors induced by basic fibroblast growth factor (FGF2)-overexpressing endothelial cells (FGF2-T-MAE) in mice. Here, we demonstrate that the inhibitory activity of cidofovir in FGF2-T-MAE cells may result from the specific induction of apoptosis. Cell cycle analysis revealed that cidofovir induces accumulation of cells in the S phase and, upon prolonged treatment, a significant increase in sub-G1 cells, exhibiting a subdiploid DNA content. Moreover, annexin V binding, an early event in apoptosis induction, was increased in cidofovir-treated FGF2-T-MAE cells. Cidofovir also caused nuclear fragmentation and the activation of caspase-3-like proteases, as evidenced by the cleavage of poly(ADP-ribose)polymerase. In addition, cidofovir treatment of FGF2-T-MAE cells resulted in a pronounced up-regulation of the tumor suppressor protein p53. However, the expression of Bax and Bcl-2 remained unchanged, and cidofovir did not induce the release of cytochrome c from the mitochondria. In addition, cidofovir did not suppress the phosphorylation of protein kinase B/Akt, a transmitter of antiapoptotic survival signals, or its downstream regulator Bad, indicating that the Akt pathway is not affected by cidofovir in FGF2-T-MAE cells. However, the compound inhibited the expression of FGF2 and FGF2 signaling through Erk42/44, as shown by Western blot analysis. Our results indicate that cidofovir inhibits the growth of FGF2-T-MAE cells via inhibition of FGF2 expression and signaling and via the induction of apoptosis. These findings suggest that the clinical use of cidofovir might be expanded to tumors that are not induced by oncogenic viruses.
Stochastic Automata Network for Performance Evaluation of Heterogeneous SoC Communication

To meet ever increasing demand for performance of emerging System-on-Chip (SoC) applications, designer employ techniques for concurrent communication between components. Hence communication architecture becomes complex and major performance bottleneck. An early performance evaluation of communication architecture is the key to reduce design time, time-to-market and consequently cost of the system. Moreover, it helps to optimize system performance by selecting appropriate communication architecture. However, performance model of concurrent communication is complex to describe and hard to solve. In this paper, we propose methodology for performance evaluation of bus based communication architectures, modeling for which is based on modular Stochastic Automata Network (SAN). We employ Generalized Semi Markov Process (GSMP) model for each module of the SAN that emulates dynamic behavior of a Processing Element (PE) of an SoC architecture. The proposed modeling approach provides an early estimation of performance parameters viz. memory bandwidth, average queue length at memory and average waiting time seen by a processing element; while we provide parameters viz. number of processing elements, the mean computation time of processing elements and the first and second moments of connection time between processing elements and memories, as input to the model.
Discovering expansion entities for keyword-based entity search in linked data

There is an inherent rift between the characteristics of Web of documents and the Web of data – the latter is enriched with semantic properties that are not present in the former. This creates a formidable challenge for entity search in the era of Linked Data, requiring a new method that leverages on such features. Query expansion, used in keyword-based search, improves search quality by enhancing a query with terms. Existing query-expansion methods, statistical- and lexical-based approaches, are inadequate for linked data in two ways: (a) term-to-term co-occurrence, used in the statistical-based approach, cannot find satisfactory expansions in internal corpus (SPO triples) or external corpus (Web of documents); and (b) lexical incomparability between ontologies (or thesauri) as reference knowledge and linked data renders tenuous the possibility of creating lexically sound expanded queries. The study introduces a framework to expand keyword queries with expansion entities for keyword-based entity search in linked data. The framework offers two structures, star-shaped and multi-shaped RDF graphs (documents), to model the entities in linked data for indexing and search, and an algorithm called PFC for expansion entities by which to expand a given query. PFC obtains expansion entities by measuring a global importance (PageRank and entity–document Frequency) and a local importance (Centrality) of the candidates extracted from the returned RDF documents of the entity search. Our experiments illustrate that PFC improves search results by approximately 7%. This study also includes suggestions on how to glean important link types for extracting candidate expansion entities, as well as identifying properties of these entities by which to expand the query.
Serotonin 5-Hydroxytryptamine2C Receptor Signaling in Hypothalamic Proopiomelanocortin Neurons: Role in Energy Homeostasis in Females

Hypothalamic proopiomelanocortin (POMC) neurons play a critical role in the regulation of energy balance, and there is a convergence of critical synaptic input including GABA and serotonin on POMC neurons to regulate their output. We found previously that 17β-estradiol (E2) reduced the potency of the GABAB receptor agonist baclofen to activate G protein-coupled inwardly rectifying potassium (GIRK) channels in hypothalamic POMC neurons through a membrane estrogen receptor (mER) via a Gαq phospholipase C (PLC)-protein kinase Cδ-protein kinase A pathway. We hypothesized that the mER and neurotransmitter receptor signaling pathways converge to control energy homeostasis. Because 5-HT2C receptors mediate many of the effects of serotonin in POMC neurons, we elucidated the common signaling pathways of E2 and 5-HT in guinea pigs using single-cell reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), real time RT-PCR, and whole-cell patch recording. Both 5-hydroxytryptamine2C (5-HT2C) and 5-HT2A receptors were coexpressed in POMC neurons. The 5-HT2A/C agonist (±)-1-(2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodophenyl)-2-aminopropane (DOI) desensitized the GABAB response in a dose-dependent manner, which was antagonized by the selective 5-HT2C receptor antagonists 8-[5-(2,4-dimethoxy-5-(4-trifluoromethylphenylsulphonamido) phenyl-5-oxopentyl]1,3,8-triazaspiro[4.5] decane-2,4-dione hydrochloride (RS102221) and 1,2,3, 4,10,14b-hexahydro-2-methyldibenzo [c,f]pyrazino[1,2-a]-azepine hydrochloride (ORG 3363). The 5-HT2C receptor was Gαq-coupled to PLC activation and hydrolysis of plasma membrane phosphatidylinositol bisphosphate to directly inhibit GIRK channel activity. Coapplication of the two agonists at their EC50 concentrations (DOI, 20 μM, and E2, 50 nM) produced additive effects. Although there was a significant gender difference in the effects of E2 on baclofen responses, there was no gender difference in 5-HT2C receptor-mediated effects. Finally, both DOI and estrogen (intracerebroventricular) inhibited feeding in ovariectomized female mice. Therefore, the Gαq signaling pathways of the mER and 5-HT2C receptors may converge to enhance synaptic efficacy in brain circuits that are critical for maintaining homeostatic functions.
Vitamin E TPGS-emulsified poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) nanoparticles for cardiovascular restenosis treatment.

AIMS Paclitaxel is one of the most effective antiproliferative agents and it has been applied in the development of drug-eluting stents. There are difficulties, however, in using paclitaxel in clinical applications owing to its poor solubility and side effects. We have synthesized nanoparticles of biodegradable polymers for the effective and sustainable delivery of paclitaxel and other antiproliferative agents for restenosis treatment. METHODS & RESULTS Paclitaxel-loaded poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanoparticles were prepared by a modified solvent extraction/evaporation method with D-alpha-tocopheryl polyethylene glycol 1000 succinate (TPGS) or polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as an emulsifier. Drug-loaded nanoparticles were characterized for size and size distribution, surface morphology, surface charge, drug-encapsulation efficiency and in vitro drug-release kinetics. Cellular uptake of fluorescent nanoparticles was investigated in vitro in coronary artery smooth muscle cells and in vivo in the carotid arteries of rabbits. The antiproliferative effects of the nanoparticle formulations were assessed in vitro in close comparison with Taxol((R)). Both the PVA- and TPGS-emulsified nanoparticles have similar size and size distribution, surface morphology and dispersion stability and showed great advantages over paclitaxel in in vitro cellular uptake and cytotoxicity than Taxol. The TPGS-emulsified nanoparticle formulation has higher drug-encapsulation efficiency, cellular uptake and cytotoxicity than the PVA-emulsified nanoparticle formulation. IC(50) in 24-h culture with coronary artery smooth muscle cells is 748 ng/ml for paclitaxel, 708 ng/ml for PVA-emulsified nanoparticles and 474 ng/ml for TPGS-emulsified nanoparticles, respectively. CONCLUSION TPGS-emulsified PLGA nanoparticles have great potential for the effective and sustainable delivery of antiproliferative agents and for the development of nanoparticle-coated stents, which may become the third generation of cardiovascular stents.
天涯若比邻 Windows Live Mesh三方同步

长假期间老同学们组织一起去旅游,各人相机中都留下了许多精彩瞬间。 可是旅游归来各奔东西,大家如何将自己相机中的照片快速分享？ 微软Windows Live Essentials2011套件中包含的Windows Live Mesh可以帮我们轻松实现,它能在任意两台电脑及网络存贮之间实现三方同步。 这样无论你身处何方,随时都可以查看那些甜蜜的回忆。
PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF MQAM MODULATION SCHEMES WITH DIVERSITY IN NAKAGAMI FADING CHANNELS

The performance of M-ary Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (MQAM) scheme is analyzed with different diversity schemes over Nakagami fading channels. The performance expressions are derived in closed form for this versatile fading channel model. Our final expressions do not involve numerical integration which is an advantage over the previously reported work. Furthermore, no accuracy is sacrificed.
Detailed Study of Amorphous Silicon Ultraviolet Sensor With Chromium Silicide Window Layer

In this paper, we present a detailed investigation of an amorphous silicon sensor for the detection of ultraviolet (UV) radiation. The device is an n-i-p stacked structure with a grid-patterned top metal contact through which the incident radiation reaches the active layers. The performances of the sensor have been enhanced by using a very thin chromium silicide (CrSi) film formed on top of the p-doped layer. In particular, this film enhances the surface conductivity, reducing the effect of the self-forward bias that occurs in the device due to the high resistivity of the p-doped layer. As a result, the sensitivity and the linearity of the response increase, reaching a responsivity above 60 mAAV at 254.3 nm. Furthermore, the CrSi layer leads to a stable device because it hides the effect of the p-doped layer resistivity variation under UV radiation. The comparison between two sets of devices with different grid geometries, one with and one without the CrSi film, demonstrates the effectiveness of the alloy film.
A monolingual semantic decoder based on word sense disambiguation for mixed language understanding

In this paper, a new method for spoken mixed language understanding is present ed . By mixed language, we mean that t he words included in one sentence may come from different language s , a primary language and a secondary language . In c onventional statistical semantic decoders , the conceptual structure is represent ed as a hidden Markov model , t he decoding of the conceptual content of a sentence is carried out with the Viterbi algorithm. To handle mixed language, an unsupervised word sense disambiguation module is proposed to convert the secondary language words into the primary language. The approach is evaluated in the ATIS domain, where the primary language is English and we assume the secondary language is Chinese. The average accuracy of our extended semantic decoder is 26% higher than the accuracy of the baseline semantic decoder . The advantage s of the extended semantic decoder are (1) it can handle mixed language input, and (2) it need s n either secondary language training data nor mixed language training data. The approach can be used for any main-secondary language pairs.
CONVOLUTIONAL NEURAL NETWORK PRE-TRAINEDWITH PROJECTION MATRICES ON LINEAR DISCRIMINANT ANALYSIS

Recently, the hybrid architecture of a neural network (NN) and a hidden Markov model (HMM) has shown significant improvement on automatic speech recognition (ASR) over the conventional Gaussian mixture model (GMM)-based system. The convolutional neural network (CNN), a successful NN-based system, can represent local spectral variations spanning the time-frequency space. Meanwhile, spectro-temporal features have been widely studied to make ASR more robust. Typically, the spectro-temporal features are extracted from acoustic spectral patterns using a 2D filtering process. Convolutional layers in CNN that have various local windows can also be regarded as an efficient feature extractor to capture 2D spectral variations. In a standard procedure, the local windows in CNN are initialized randomly before the pre-training and are iteratively updated with a back propagation algorithm in the pre-training and fine-tuning steps. In this paper, we explore using projection matrices composed of eigenvectors estimated by linear discriminant analysis (LDA) objective function as initial weights for the first convolutional layer in CNN. From analysis of the local windows trained by the proposed method, we can see the eigenvectors of LDA has desirable properties as initial weights of CNN. The proposed method yielded a 8.1% relative improvement compared to CNN with local weights initialized randomly.
A Machine Learning Approach to Identify Dependencies Among Learning Objects

: Selecting and sequencing a set of Learning Objects (LOs) to build a course may turn out to be quite a challeng-ing task. In this paper we focus on such an aspect, related to the veriﬁcation and respect of the relationships of pedagogical dependence existing between two LOs added to a course (meaning that if a given LO has another one as “pre-requisite”, then any sequencing of the LOs in the course will need to have the latter LO taken by the learners before of the former). In our approach the sequencing of LOs in the course can still be managed by the instructor, basing on her/his taste and preferences, yet s/he can also be helped by a set of suggestions, related to the pre-requisite relationships existing among the LOs selected for the course. Such suggestions (such relationships, in effect) can be computed automatically and provide the instructor with signiﬁcant help and guidance. We show a light-weight formalization of the LO, and how it can be “represented” by a set of WikiPedia Pages (“topics”); then we show how such set of topics, together with a set of relevant hypotheses we previously deﬁned, can help establish the dependence relationship existing between two LOs. In this endeavor we exploit the classiﬁcation in categories available for the WikiPedia topics, and obtain interesting results for our framework, in terms of precision and recall of the dependence relationships.
Initial experience with cultured epithelial autografts in massively burnt patients

Background: Prognosis in patients with severe burns is improved by early debridement and coverage with skin. The limiting factor in these patients is the lack of unburnt skin for harvesting. Cultured epithelial autograft (CEA) sheets provide an alternative means of covering debrided skin. This is a report on an initial experience with using CEA sheets.
Analysis and design of fully differential gain-boosted telescopic cascode opamp

In this paper, a novel fully differential gain-boosted telescopic cascode opamp is analyzed and designed. The main op amp is a fully differential telescopic op amp and has a switched capacitor CMFB circuit. The boosting op amp is a fully differential folded cascode op amp and has a continuous time CMFB circuit. The op amp is designed in SMIC 0.35/spl mu/m mixed-signal CMOS process with 3.3 v power supply and achieved a dc gain of 129dB with a 161MHz unity gain frequency.
Conserved regulation of the lymphocyte-specific expression of lck in the Fugu and mammals

The lck gene encodes a lymphocyte-specific protein-tyrosine kinase that is implicated in T cell maturation and signaling. In mammals, the transcription of the lck gene is regulated by two independent promoters, the proximal promoter, which is active in thymocytes, and the distal promoter, which dominates in mature T cells. In the human and mouse lck gene loci, the two promoter elements are separated by at least 40 kb and 10 kb, respectively. In this study, we have cloned and sequenced 60 kb from the pufferfish (Fugu rubripes) lck locus. The promoter region of the Fugu lck spans only 4.2 kb and contains a proximal and a distal promoter in the 2.3-kb region adjacent to the coding sequence. By generating transgenic mice, we have demonstrated that the compact promoter of the Fugu lck contains regulatory elements that direct expression to lymphoid organs of mice. We were able to localize the regulatory elements to a short region of 830 bp without losing specificity to cultured human T cell line. These results show that the basic mechanisms that mediate lymphocyte-specific expression are conserved between teleosts and mammals. The short promoter of the Fugu lck isolated by us offers a powerful tool for labeling T cells, targeting expression, and manipulating T cell activity in fishes as well as in mammals.
Higher order sliding: Collection of design tools

A number of controllers named sliding algorithms of the orders 2 and 3 have been developed which add new significant possibilities to variable structure system design. The regular relay algorithm is considered as a first order controller. The controllers of the orders 2 and 3 preserve the main positive properties of the regular sliding modes. At the same time they feature bounded continuous control and guarantee precise constraint fulfillment within finite time. With discrete measurements these algorithms provide for sliding precision of their order with respect to the measurement time step. Exact robust differentiator design and aircraft pitch control are demonstrated.
Nonlinearity of Degenerately Doped Bulk-Mode Silicon MEMS Resonators

We present an experimental study of conservative nonlinearities in bulk acoustic mode (bulk-mode) silicon MEMS resonators with degenerate doping. Three types of bulk acoustic mode resonators oriented in (110) and (100) silicon crystalline directions are used to analyze both linear and nonlinear elastic behavior of silicon with p- (N ≅ 4.19e + 18 to 1.63e + 20 cm-3) and n-type (N ≅ 1.58e + 18 to 5.91e + 19 cm-3) doping. For accurate characterization of the amplitude-dependent nonlinear stiffness constant, we employ two methods: amplitude-frequency response and ringdown measurement. Experimental results show that the nonlinear behavior of these resonators is dominated by material-dependent mechanical nonlinearities and strongly depends on the doping type and crystal orientation. These results are useful for understanding the material-induced nonlinear properties of doped silicon and design of MEMS resonators with desired dynamic behavior, and may provide a new avenue for tailoring resonator response characteristics.
Kinetic Studies on Microbial Production of Tannase Using Redgram Husk

Tannase (tannin acyl hydrolase, E.C.3.1.1.20) is an important hydrolysable enzyme with innumerable applications and industrial potential. In the present study, a kinetic model has been developed for the batch fermentation used for the production of tannase by A.flavus MTCC 3783. Maximum tannase activity of 143.30 U/ml was obtained at 96 hours under optimum operating conditions at 35oC, an initial pH of 5.5 and with an inducer tannic acid concentration of 3% (w/v) for a fermentation period of 120 hours. The biomass concentration reaches a maximum of 6.62 g/l at 96 hours and further there was no increase in biomass concentration till the end of the fermentation. Various unstructured kinetic models were analyzed to simulate the experimental values of microbial growth, tannase activity and substrate concentration. The Logistic model for microbial growth , Luedeking - Piret model for production of tannase and Substrate utilization kinetic model for utilization of substrate were capable of predicting the fermentation profile with high coefficient of determination (R2) values of 0.980, 0.942 and 0.983 respectively. The results indicated that the unstructured models were able to describe the fermentation kinetics more effectively.