Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optical Orbital Angular Momentum Amplifier Based on an Air-Hole Erbium-Doped Fiber

We present for the first time broadband operation of an optical orbital angular momentum (OAM) erbium-doped fiber amplifier for lower order OAM modes based on an air-hole erbium-doped fiber designed and fabricated to provide significant mode splitting between the OAM │<italic>l</italic>│ = 1 modes and the adjacent vector modes. Up to 15.7 dB gain is obtained using a cladding pumped amplifier configuration for OAM modes with topological charge │<italic>l</italic>│ = 1 in the operational wavelength range 1545–1600 nm
Age and gender classification using EEG paralinguistic features

The effects of age and gender on EEG signal have been investigated in clinical psychophysiology. However extracting age and gender information from EEG data has not been addressed. This information is useful in building automatic systems that can classify a person in to gender or age groups based on EEG characteristics of that person, index EEG data for searching, identify or verify a person, and improve brain-computer interface systems. We propose in this paper a framework of automatic age and gender classification system using EEG data. We also propose a speech-based method to extract paralinguistic features in EEG signal that contain rich age and gender information and apply these features to improve performance of our age and gender classification system. Experimental results for system evaluation and comparison are also presented.
The potential of nanofibers in tissue engineering and stem cell therapy

Electrospinning is a technique in which materials in solution are shaped into continuous nano- and micro-sized fibers. Combining stem cells with biomaterial scaffolds and nanofibers affords a favorable approach for bone tissue engineering, stem cell growth and transfer, ocular surface reconstruction, and treatment of congenital corneal diseases. This review seeks to describe the current examples of the use of scaffolds in stem cell therapy. Stem cells are classified as adult or embryonic stem (ES) cells, and the advantages and drawbacks of each group are detailed. The nanofibers and scaffolds are further classified in Tables I and II, which describe specific examples from the literature. Finally, the current applications of biomaterial scaffolds containing stem cells for tissue engineering applications are presented. Overall, this review seeks to give an overview of the biomaterials available for use in combination with stem cells, and the application of nanofibers in stem cell therapy.
What We Found

A starting point is study participants’ suggestions to piggy-back on community-based and other out-of-school initiatives and to initiate partnerships with ministries of youth, gender, social development , amongst others, rather than working solely with ministries of education. 250 Lessons may also be drawn from CSE programmes implemented in educational facilities (like the private schools in Sri Lanka, cited below) that are not government-sponsored.
Curve Fitting by a Sum of Gaussians

Gaussians are useful in multiscale representation of video data. An algorithm is presented which approximates a sequence of uniformly spaced single-valued data by a sum of Gaussians with a prescribed accuracy. The scale-space image [6] of the data is used to estimate the number of Gaussians and their initial parameters. The Marquardt algorithm (J. SIAM 11(2), 1963, 431-441) is then used to optimize the parameters.
Three-dimensional computation of reduction in Radar cross section using plasma shielding

We have performed three-dimensional (3-D) finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations for calculating microwave scattering from metallic objects shielded by a plasma shroud. Such simulations are of interest for plasma-based stealth technology. The simulations yield a reasonable match with experimental measurements. A physical interpretation has also been provided for these results, in terms of the flow of electromagnetic power. Such an analysis is only possible using the detailed spatio-temporal evolution of electromagnetic fields that is provided by the FDTD method. We find that apart from absorption, the bending of waves toward regions of lower plasma density plays an important role in determining the extent of backscatter. This has major implications for plasma stealth applications, which have heretofore assumed that plasma absorption is the main mechanism. Also, bending could actually enhance radar scattering in directions oblique to the incident direction. We have also identified situations where 3-D simulations become necessary, and other situations where a composite one-dimensional simulation may be enough. This has practical relevance since it could help reduce the demand for computational resources while modeling large objects like aircraft.
Performance of a modified supervised cluster algorithm for extracting reference region input functions from (R)-[11C]PK11195 brain PET studies

(R)-[11C]PK11195 is widely used as radiotracer for imaging activated microglia in the brain using positron emission tomography (PET). Recently, for quantification of specific binding, a supervised cluster analysis (SVCA) approach to extract the reference tissue input function has been reported. This method uses a database of six predefined kinetic classes (SVCA6). In the present study SVCA was modified to enhance performance of the algorithm. The modified SVCA first applies an anatomical mask to include brain tissue only. In this manner a smaller number of kinetic classes can be used (n = 4, SVCA4), potentially improving accuracy and precision. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the performance of SVCA4. To this end 60 min dynamic (R)-[11C]PK11195 studies of 9 AD subjects and 9 healthy controls were acquired, including continuous arterial blood sampling. A reference tissue time activity curve (TAC) was extracted from these scans using SVCA6, SVCA4 and a cerebellar region of interest (ROI). All reference TACs were fitted to a 2 tissue compartment plasma input model, including blood volume fraction, with volume of distribution (VT ) as outcome parameter. VT obtained using SVCA4 and cerebellum showed better (i.e. less) intersubject and intergroup variability than when using SVCA6. Moreover, reference tissue input based quantification of (R)-[11C]PK11195 binding in a target region (thalamus) showed better correlation with plasma input kinetic analysis when using SVCA4 rather than SVCA6 or cerebellum. However, use of SVCA4 results in a blood volume related upward bias in combination with SRTM. The latter may be resolved by using a reference tissue model with blood volume fraction corrections. It is concluded that SVCA4 is more accurate and precise than SVCA6. Use of cerebellar ROI may still be used in combination with SRTM, but provides a more conservative measure of binding.
Weighted Sentiment Score Formulation Using Sentence Level Sentiment Density for Opinion Analysis

This paper focuses on one of the classical research domain in natural language processing: Sentiment analysis that is, identifying the view or opinion in textual data. The paper explores the Sentiment analysis problem of movie review categorization into positive or negative review using Lexicon and Machine learning based approaches. Sentiment of the document is decided via the formulated sentiment score using these approaches. The lexicon based approach uses SentiWordNet dictionary as a lexical resource to get the polarity score of the word. The machine learning approach uses Naïve Bayes classification algorithm applied to tokenized sentences from movie review at sentence level rather than document level. A notion of sentiment density is introduced as a weighing mechanism to model the contribution of a classified sentence in formulating overall sentiment score of the document. The best case accuracy achieved is 88% for classifying negative reviews using this modified version of machine learning approach.
MIDA1 is a sequence specific DNA binding protein with novel DNA binding properties

Id proteins not only regulate cell differentiation negatively, but they also promote growth and apoptosis. To know the mechanism of how Id regulates cell fate, we previously isolated an Id‐associating protein, MIDA1, which positively regulates cell growth. Its predicted amino acid sequence contains tryptophan‐mediated repeats (Tryp‐med repeats) similar to the DNA binding region of the c‐Myb oncoprotein. We determined whether MIDA1 can bind to DNA in a sequence specific manner by PCR‐assisted binding site selection.
Unsupervised learning of multiword expressions

Multiword expressions are expressions consisting of two or more words that correspond to some conventional way of saying things (Manning & Schutze 1999). Due to the idiomatic nature of many of them and their high frequency of occurence in all sorts of text, they cause problems in many Natural Language Processing (NLP) applications and are frequently responsible for their shortcomings. Efficiently recognising multiword expressions and deciding the degree of their idiomaticity would be useful to all applications that require some degree of semantic processing, such as question-answering, summarisation, parsing, language modelling and language generation. In this thesis we investigate the issues of recognising multiword expressions, domainspecific or not, and of deciding whether they are idiomatic. Moreover, we inspect the extent to which multiword expressions can contribute to a basic NLP task such as shallow parsing and ways that the basic property of multiword expressions, idiomaticity, can be employed to define a novel task for Compositional Distributional Semantics (CDS). The results show that it is possible to recognise multiword expressions and decide their compositionality in an unsupervised manner, based on cooccurrence statistics and distributional semantics. Further, multiword expressions are beneficial for other fundamental applications of Natural Language Processing either by direct integration or as an evaluation tool. In particular, termhood-based methods, which are based on nestedness information, are shown to outperform unithood-based methods, which measure the strength of association among the constituents of a multi-word candidate term. A simple heuristic was proved to perform better than more sophisticated methods. A new graph-based algorithm employing sense induction is proposed to address multiword expression compositionality and is shown to perform better than a standard vector space model. Its parameters were estimated by an unsupervised scheme based on graph connectivity. Multiword expressions are shown to contribute to shallow parsing. Moreover, they are used to define a new evaluation task for distributional semantic composition models.
Anatomy of the laryngeal apparatus of the pygmy right whale, Caperea marginata (Gray 1846).

The laryngeal apparatus of Caperea marginata is described for the first time and proves to be significantly different from that of any mysticete previously described. This difference is especially noticeable in the position of the laryngeal sac, which is separate from the tracheal rings and lies to the right of the animal. Massive ontogenetic development of the sac in adult males is demonstrated, far greater than that seen in most other mysticetes. Histological analysis of the laryngeal sac shows the walls to be very muscular, abundantly innervated, and vascularized, indicating an active organ. Coiled blood vessels and nerves support the hypothesis that the sac undergoes extensive expansion and contraction. A possible association with the unique thoracic development of the species is suggested. The roles of the laryngeal sac and arytenoid cartilages in mysticete sound production are also discussed.
Susceptibility of human herpesvirus 6 to antiviral compounds by flow cytometry analysis.

BACKGROUND The emergence of human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) as a human pathogen led to the possibility of specific therapy against HHV-6 and the development of standardized susceptibility assays of HHV-6 to antivirals. METHODS We have developed a flow cytometry method to analyze the multiplication of the HST strain of human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) variant B in vitro using monoclonal antibodies specific to virus proteins. This method was subsequently used to determine the sensitivity of HST multiplication in MT4 cells to four antiviral compounds of three different classes: acyclovir (ACV) and ganciclovir (GCV), two acyclic guanosine analogs; cedofovir (CDV), an acyclic nucleoside phosphonate; and phosphonoformic acid (PFA), a pyrophosphate analog. RESULTS The 50% inhibitory concentrations (IC(50)) of ACV, GCV, CDV, and PFA determined by flow cytometry assay were 25.3, 6.4, 0.95, and 6.0 microM, respectively (5.7, 1.6, 0.3, and 1.8 microg/ml, respectively). These data together with the results of cytotoxicity assays confirmed the high efficiency and selectivity of CDV and PFA against HHV-6 B in vitro, suggested by previous results. CONCLUSIONS Our flow cytometric assay appeared as a reproducible specific method to characterize HHV-6 susceptibility to antiviral compounds. It can be considered as a convenient alternative to the other immunologic and DNA hybridization assays used for that purpose.
Conditioned media from cell lines: A complementary model to clinical specimens for the discovery of disease‐specific biomarkers

In the strictest sense, the cell secretome (conditioned media) refers to the collection of proteins that contain a signal peptide and are processed via the endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi apparatus through the classical secretion pathway. More generally, the secretome also encompasses proteins shed from the cell surface and intracellular proteins released through non‐classical secretion pathway or exosomes. These secreted proteins include numerous enzymes, growth factors, cytokines and hormones or other soluble mediators. They are fundamental in the processes of cell growth, differentiation, invasion and angiogenesis by regulating cell‐to‐cell and cell‐to‐extracellular matrix interactions. The main aim of this review is to provide a synopsis of findings from the analysis of the secretome taking diabetes, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases as examples. We will also discuss the preparation of conditioned media and on the main proteomic‐based methodological approaches that have been developed for the study of secreted/shed proteins.
Social Desirability and Willingness to Participate in a Group Discussion

Recent research has focused on the self-protective behavior of Ss obtaining high scores on the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability (M-C S D ) Scale; these Ss presumably anticipate social rejection and choose cautious modes of behavior to avoid threats to self-esteem (1 , 2, 3, 4 ) . When faced with a choice between taking a salient role involving greater evaluative threat or a less prominent role offering little opporrnnity for approbation, these Ss should choose the "safer" role. The present study investigated this hypothesis. Fifty-three male undergraduate students, fulfilling a requirement for an introductory psychology course, participated in groups of 5 to 7. They had taken the M-C SD scale at an earlier date and were unaware of its connection with the present procedure. W h e n each group arrived, the following instructions were read to them: "We are interested in how much one can learn about individuals through observing them participate in a group discussion. Psychologists have found that people can get to know a good deal about how an individual relates to ochers by watching him in this kind of activity. For this experiment, we'd like three of you to participate in a discussion on a topic I think you'll find interesting, and I'd like the other three of you to serve as observers. Can I get three volunteers? " S was classified as "willing to parricipate" ( W ) if he volunteered spontaneously at this point in the procedure. All other Ss were classified as nonvolunteers ( N ) , even though some of them participated in the discussion at E's urging if too few individuals had initiallv volunteered (17 Ss were classified as W and 36 were classified as N). T o Dreserve the effectiveness of rhe cover story, each group actually held a discussion and ratings of the members were made. However, these data are not of interest in the current context and will nor be presented here. This experimental sirnation provided Ss with the opportunity to choose between two roles, both of which were appropriate to the sirnation but which differed in degree of social risk. A point-biserial correlation between M-C SD scores and volunteering was significant ( r = -.39, p < .01, N = 5 3 ) . The mean M-C SD score for the W group was 8.94 (SD = 3.54) while the N group had a mean M-C SD score of 12.53 ( S D = 4.06) . As hypothesized, Ss with higher M-C SD scale scores were more reluctant to volunteer for the prominent role. This finding strengthens the evidence that the M-C SD scale identifies individuals whose self-esteem is vulnerable and who tend to engage in ego-defensive behavior. While early research with the scale focused on the need of high-scoring Ss to win approval, the more recent work emphasizes the need of these Ss to avoid disapproval.
Experimental verification of cascadability of WDM optical interfaces for DWDM millimeter-wave fiber-radio base station

We demonstrate the functionality of the cascaded wavelength division multiplexed optical interfaces for dense-WDM millimeter-wave fiber-radio systems with the capability of adding and dropping wavelength interleaved fiber-radio channels with a channel spacing of 25 GHz. It also enables wavelength re-use in the uplink path eliminating the need for light source in the base station. The experimental results show that the proposed interface can be used in cascade with the additional power penalty observed below 1 dB.
Illness Worry and Disability in Fibromyalgia Syndrome

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a common syndrome of functional somatic symptoms. This article examines whether an amplifying somatic style (increased body awareness and illness worry) might explain the distress and disability expressed by FM patients. Twenty FM patients were compared to twenty-three rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients on measures of depressive and somatic symptomatology, pain, disability, and amplifying somatic style. FM patients reported greater somatic symptomatology, equivalent levels of pain, and less physical disability than did RA patients. No differences were observed between groups on body awareness or illness worry. Illness worry correlated highly with symptomatology for both groups but with physical disability only among FM patients. Results suggest that disability in functional somatic syndromes may be determined by patients' worry about having a serious disease. Feelings of vulnerability and apprehension about having an illness of unknown origin may contribute to FM sufferers' activity limitations, inability to sustain a work effort, and varied somatic distress.
Dynamic Spectrum Management with minimizing user's budget

This paper deals with one algorithm used to manage Dynamic Spectrum (Dynamic Spectrum Management, DSM) called nonlinear programming. Now a day, DSM problem is an open problem that many scientists and researchers try to develop such a algorithm to manage the frequency ranging from 3 Khz to 300 Ghz called Radio Spectrum. Radio Spectrum is quite an important range of frequencies as this range may be used for wireless communication. In this paper, the problem is proposed as minimizing user's budget since a user's budget is quite important in the competitive market. Problem is set as a nonlinear programming with example to demonstrate the algorithm as well.
An Algorithm for Path Connections and Its Applications

The algorithm described in this paper is the outcome of an endeavor to answer the following question: Is it possible to find procedures which would enable a computer to solve efficiently path-connection problems inherent in logical drawing, wiring diagramming, and optimal route finding? The results are highly encouraging. Within our framework, we are able to solve the following types of problems: 1) To find a path between two points so that it crosses the least number of existing paths. 2) To find a path between two points so that it avoids as much as possible preset obstacles such as edges. 3) To find a path between two points so that the path is optimal with respect to several properties; for example, a path which is not only one of those which cross the fewest number of existing paths, but, among these, is also one of the shortest. The minimal-distance solution has been programmed on an IBM 704 computer, and a number of illustrations are presented. The class of problems solvable by our algorithm is given in a theorem in Section III. A byproduct of this algorithm is a somewhat remote, but unexpected, relation to physical optics. This is discussed in Section VI.
A novel appetite peptide, nesfatin-1 in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

Abstract Background and aims. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one of the most common liver pathology worldwide and is strongly associated with obesity and insulin-resistance and food intake. Nesfatin-1 is a new peptide that controls appetite and food intake. The objective of this research was to examine the serum concentrations of nesfatin-1 in NAFLD. Material and methods. Thirty NAFLD patients who had elevated liver enzymes and 40 age- and sex-matched healthy subjects were included in this study. NAFLD was diagnosed and graded with the findings of liver ultrasound scan. Nesfatin-1 concentrations were measured using an ELISA method and the relationship between nesfatin-1 and metabolic parameters were investigated. The subjects were divided into two groups according to their body mass index (≥ 30 and < 30) and nesfatin-1 concentrations were examined between both groups. Results. Serum nesfatin-1 concentrations in NAFLD patients were lower than healthy controls (0.26 ± 0.14 ng/ml, 0.38 ± 0.18 ng/ml, respectively, and p = 0.008). We found a negative correlation between nesfatin-1 and fasting glucose and body mass index. In obese subjects, serum nesfatin-1 concentrations were significantly lower when compared with non-obese subjects (0.26 ± 0.12 ng/ml, 0.37 ± 0.19 ng/ml, respectively; p = 0.014). In addition, we showed that nesfatin-1 concentrations in subjects with insulin resistance were significantly lower in comparison with insulin-sensitive ones (0.27 ± 0.17 ng/ml, 0.38 ± 0.17 ng/ml, respectively; p = 0.015). Conclusion. Our study has shown that nesfatin-1 concentrations were reduced in NAFLD. The results of this study indicate that nesfatin-1 may have a significant role in NAFLD.
The AtRAD 51 C Gene Is Required for Normal Meiotic Chromosome Synapsis and Double-Stranded Break Repair in Arabidopsis 1

Department of Biology and the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences (W.L., Z.L., L.T., R.X., H.M.) and Intercollege Graduate Program in Plant Physiology (W.L., R.X., H.M.), the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802; Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056 (X.Y., C.A.M.); and Department of Gene Technology, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn 12618, Estonia (L.T.)
Resource-Aware Application Execution Exploiting the BarbequeRTRM

Energy efficiency and thermal management have become major concerns in both embedded and HPC systems. The progress of silicon technology and the subsequent growth of the dark silicon phenomena are negatively affecting the reliability of computing systems. As a result, in the next future we expect run-time variability to increase in terms of both performance and computing resources availability. To address these issues, systems and applications must be able to adapt to such scenarios. This work provides a brief overview of the Barbeque Run-Time Resource Manager (BarbequeRTRM ) and the application execution model that it exploits, in order to deal with run-time performance and available resources variability.