Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analysis and Design of an E-Band Transformer-Coupled Low-Noise Quadrature VCO in 28-nm CMOS

This paper presents an E-band quadrature voltage-controlled oscillator implemented in 28-nm CMOS. Two fundamental oscillators are coupled by means of gate-to-drain transformers to realize accurate quadrature phases and switched coupled inductors are added for tuning extension. Closed-form expressions of the oscillation frequency and the tuning extension design parameters are derived. The time-variant nature of the circuit noise to phase noise (PN) of the presented topology is investigated, resulting in simple design guidelines for optimal design. Based on the proposed techniques, the realized prototype is tunable over two bands of almost 5 GHz each separated in frequency, while occupying only 0.031 mm2. The peak measured PN at 10-MHz offset is -117.7 dBc/Hz from a 72.7-GHz carrier and -110 dBc/Hz from a 88.2-GHz carrier and varies less than 3.5 dB within each band.
Generating Robust Digital Signature for Image/Video Authentication

Image/video authentication techniques protect the recipients against malicious forgery. In this paper, we describe an image authentication technique that verifies the originality of the received images. The authentication signature can distinguish content-changing manipulations (such as pixel replacing) from content-preserving manipulations (such as JPEG compression). We also propose a video authentication method that generates robust signatures for compressed video. The signatures can survive some of the transcoding process of MPEG.
The effects of phase noise in COFDM

It is shown that the amounts of these effects can be deduced from the spectrum of the phase noise using a pair of weighting functions. Use of these weighting functions simplifies the process of computation; it also makes it easier to visualize the consequences of any modifications to the phase-noise spectrum. Some illustrations are given of the two phase-noise effects on the constellation of a DVB-T digital television signal, along with some practical observations on receiver implementation.
STATCOM model in EMTP RV using hysteresis current controlled voltage source converter (VSC)

In this paper, a static compensator (STATCOM) model in EMTP RV of a voltage source converter (VSC) is presented. The STATCOM is connected to the end of a transmission line. The DC/AC conversion is obtained by using pulse width modulation (PWM) based on a current hysteresis controller. By regulating the reference current, an adjustable current can be injected into the transmission line. The synchronous rotating reference frame is used for model construction and a phase-lock loop (PLL) is used for controller synchronization. Different small-signal disturbances are introduced to validate the model
CrystalChat: Visualizing Personal Chat History

As more people take part in online conversations, awareness of the varying conversational styles and social mores afforded by different software is growing. However, this awareness is largely built on personal impressions as varying styles of social interactions are hard to discover in text-based presentations. Through visualization we explore social and temporal interactions in instant messaging. CrystalChat visualizes personal chat history. Rather than showing online social networks that indicate merely who talks to who, CrystalChat reveals the patterns in an individual’s communications with those people who are part of their personal chat history. The patterns revealed come from instant messaging data that includes information about temporal clustering, conversation initiation, conversation termination, length of conversations, length of postings, patterns of repetitive or alternating postings, and emotional tone as represented by emoticons.
VEGF Induces Tie2 Shedding via a Phosphoinositide 3-Kinase/Akt–Dependent Pathway to Modulate Tie2 Signaling

Objective—Tie2 and its ligands, the angiopoietins (Ang), are required for embryonic and postnatal angiogenesis. Previous studies have demonstrated that Tie2 is proteolytically cleaved, resulting in the production of a 75-kDa soluble receptor fragment (sTie2). We investigated mechanisms responsible for Tie2 shedding and its effects on Tie2 signaling and endothelial cellular responses. Methods and Results—sTie2 bound both Ang1 and Ang2 and inhibited angiopoietin-mediated Tie2 phosphorylation and antiapoptosis. In human umbilical vein endothelial cells, Tie2 shedding was both constitutive and induced by treatment with PMA or vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Constitutive and VEGF-inducible Tie2 shedding were mediated by PI3K/Akt and p38 MAPK. Tie2 shedding was blocked by pharmacological inhibitors of either PI3K or Akt as well as by overexpression of the lipid phosphatase PTEN. In contrast, sTie2 shedding was enhanced by overexpression of either dominant negative PTEN, which increased Akt phosphorylation, or constitutively active, myristoylated Akt. Conclusions—These findings demonstrate that VEGF regulates angiopoietin-Tie2 signaling by inducing proteolytic cleavage and shedding of Tie2 via a novel PI3K/Akt-dependent pathway. These results suggest a previously unrecognized mechanism by which VEGF may inhibit vascular stabilization to promote angiogenesis and vascular remodeling.
User experiences with augmented reality aided navigation on phones

We investigate user experiences when using augmented reality (AR) as a new aid to navigation. We integrate AR with other more common interfaces into a handheld navigation system, and we conduct an exploratory study to see where and how people exploit AR. Based on previous work on augmented photographs, we hypothesize that AR is used more to support wayfinding at static locations when users approach a road intersection. In partial contrast to this hypothesis, our results from a user evaluation hint that users will expect to use the system while walking. Further, our results also show that AR is usually exploited shortly before and after road intersections, suggesting that tracking support will be mostly needed in proximity of road intersections.
Pollen-Associated Microbiome Correlates with Pollution Parameters and the Allergenicity of Pollen

Pollen allergies have been rapidly increasing over the last decades. Many allergenic proteins and non-allergenic adjuvant compounds of pollen are involved in the plant defense against environmental or microbial stress. The first aim of this study was to analyze and compare the colonizing microbes on allergenic pollen. The second aim was to investigate detectable correlations between pollen microbiota and parameters of air pollution or pollen allergenicity. To reach these aims, bacterial and fungal DNA was isolated from pollen samples of timothy grass (Phleum pratense, n = 20) and birch trees (Betula pendula, n = 55). With this isolated DNA, a terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis was performed. One result was that the microbial diversity on birch tree and timothy grass pollen samples (Shannon/Simpson diversity indices) was partly significantly correlated to allergenicity parameters (Bet v 1/Phl p 5, pollen-associated lipid mediators). Furthermore, the microbial diversity on birch pollen samples was correlated to on-site air pollution (nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ammonia (NH3), and ozone (O3)). What is more, a significant negative correlation was observed between the microbial diversity on birch pollen and the measured NO2 concentrations on the corresponding trees. Our results showed that the microbial composition of pollen was correlated to environmental exposure parameters alongside with a differential expression of allergen and pollen-associated lipid mediators. This might translate into altered allergenicity of pollen due to environmental and microbial stress.
0 Improved Dirac quantization of a free particle

In the framework of Dirac quantization with second class constraints, a free particle moving on the surface of a (d − 1)−dimensional sphere has an ambiguity in the energy spectrum due to the arbitrary shift of canonical momenta. We explicitly show that this spectrum obtained by the Dirac method can be consistent with the result of the Batalin-Fradkin-Tyutin formalism, which is an improved Dirac method, at the level of the first-class constraint by fixing the ambiguity, and discuss its physical consequences. PACS: 12.39. Dc, 11.10. Ef, 14.20. -c
J an 2 00 7 A New Solution Method for Singular Stochastic Control Problems ∗ †

We consider a singular stochastic control problem, which is called the Monotone Follower Stochastic Control Problem and give sufficient conditions for the existence and uniqueness of a local-time type optimal control. To establish this result we use a methodology that has not been e mployed to solve singular control problems. We first confine ourselves to local time strategies. Then we appl y a transformation to the value (i.e. the total reward accrued by reflecting the diffusion at a given boundary) corr esponding to a particular local time strategy and show that it is linear in its continuation region. Now, the pr oblem of finding the optimal boundary becomes a nonlinear optimization problem: The slope of the linear functi on and an obstacle function need to be simultaneously maximized. The necessary conditions of optimality come fro m first order derivative conditions. We show that under some weak assumptions these conditions become suffici ent. We also show that the local time strategies are optimal in the class of all monotone increasing controls. As a byproduct of our analysis, we give sufficient conditions for the value function to be C on all its domain. We solve two dividend payment problems to show that our suffic ient conditions are satisfied by the examples considered in the mainstream literature. We show that our as sumptions are satisfied not only when capital of a company is modeled by a Brownian motion with drift but also wh en we change the modeling assumptions and use a square root process to model the capital. We also sketch how our approach can be generalized to Bounded Variation Follower Stochastic Control Problem and give the c aracterization of the optimal boundaries. We solve two inventory management problems. In the first problem the c ontents of the inventory fluctuate as a Brownian motion with drift and in the second one the contents fluctuate as an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process.
Rousseau’s Whale Hunt?

In spite of its common use as a tool for examining cooperation, the prisoner’s dilemma game does not conform to the reality of many socio‐ecological contexts. Situations in which people engage in joint activities and maintain agreement in their preferences for outcomes are called “coordination games” by game theorists and “mutualism” by biologists. Coordination games are common, but cooperative outcomes are not always as easy to achieve as is generally believed. Data are presented from the village of Lamalera, Indonesia, where the economy revolves around traditional subsistence sperm‐whale hunting, that indicate a situation consistent with a coordination game. Return rates from cooperative whale hunting are greater per capita than those from solitary fishing. Coordination is maintained through complex norms that reduce transaction costs and provide assurances of satisfactory payoffs to participants. We speculate that cultural transmission of norms provides the “pregame” communication shown to be crucial for actors whose preference is to cooperate and achieve the synergistic payoffs common to coordination games such as big‐game hunting.
Economic Impacts of New Unionization on Private Sector Employers: 1984–2001

Economic impacts of unionization on employers are difficult to estimate in the absence of large, representative data on establishments with union status information. Estimates are also confounded by selection bias, because unions could organize at highly profitable enterprises that are more likely to grow and pay higher wages. Using multiple establishment-level data sets that represent establishments that faced organizing drives in the U.S. during 1984-1999, this paper uses a regression discontinuity design to estimate the impact of unionization on business survival, employment, output, productivity, and wages. Essentially, outcomes for employers where unions barely won the election (e.g. by one vote) are compared to those where the unions barely lost. The analysis finds small impacts on all outcomes that we examine; estimates for wages are close to zero. The evidence suggests that at least in recent decades the legal mandate that requires the employer to bargain with a certified union has had little economic impact on employers, because unions have been somewhat unsuccessful at securing significant wage gains.
Experimental evolution and phenotypic plasticity of hindlimb bones in high‐activity house mice

Studies of rodents have shown that both forced and voluntary chronic exercise cause increased hindlimb bone diameter, mass, and strength. Among species of mammals, “cursoriality” is generally associated with longer limbs as well as relative lengthening of distal limb segments, resulting in an increased metatarsal/femur (MT/F) ratio. Indeed, we show that phylogenetic analyses of previously published data indicate a positive correlation between body mass‐corrected home range area and both hindlimb length and MT/F in a sample of 19 species of Carnivora, although only the former is statistically significant in a multiple regression. Therefore, we used an experimental evolution approach to test for possible adaptive changes (in response to selective breeding and/or chronic exercise) in hindlimb bones of four replicate lines of house mice bred for high voluntary wheel running (S lines) for 21 generations and in four nonselected control (C) lines. We examined femur, tibiafibula, and longest metatarsal of males housed either with or without wheel access for 2 months beginning at 25–28 days of age. As expected from previous studies, mice from S lines ran more than C (primarily because the former ran faster) and were smaller in body size (both mass and length). Wheel access reduced body mass (but not length) of both S and C mice. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) revealed that body mass was a statistically significant predictor of all bone measures except MT/F ratio; therefore, all results reported are from ANCOVAs. Bone lengths were not significantly affected by either linetype (S vs. C) or wheel access. However, with body mass as a covariate, S mice had significantly thicker femora and tibiafibulae, and wheel access also significantly increased diameters. Mice from S lines also had heavier feet than C, and wheel access increased both foot and tibiafibula mass. Thus, the directions of evolutionary and phenotypic adaptation are generally consistent. Additionally, S‐line individuals with the mini‐muscle phenotype (homozygous for a Mendelian recessive allele that halves hindlimb muscle mass [Garland et al., 2002, Evolution 56:1267–1275]) exhibited significantly longer and thinner femora and tibiafibulae, with no difference in bone masses. Two results were considered surprising. First, no differences were found in the MT/F ratio (the classic indicator of cursoriality). Second, we did not find a significant interaction between linetype and wheel access for any trait, despite the higher running rate of S mice. J. Morphol. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Maximizing Autonomy in the Shadow of Great Powers: The Political Economy of Sovereign Wealth Funds

Sovereign wealth funds (“SWFs”) have received a great deal of attention since they appeared as critical investors during the global financial crisis. Reactions have ranged from fears of state intervention and mercantilism to hopes that SWFs will emerge as model long-term investors that will take on risky investments in green technology and infrastructure that few private investors are willing to touch. In this paper we argue that both of these reactions overlook the fact that SWFs are deeply embedded in the political economy of their respective sovereign sponsors. This pa-per focuses on four political entities that sponsor some of the largest SWFs worldwide: Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Singapore and China. Each of them has been governed for decades by elites whose grip on power has been tied to the economic fortune of their respective economies and their ability to pacify, or at least balance against, foreign powers. We argue that for these four political entities, both the motives for establishing SWFs and the strategies they employ can best be explained by an “autonomy-maximization” theory.In a world where uncertainty — both economic and political — looms larger as a concern in the wake of the global financial crisis and political upheavals, such as the revolutions in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, elites use an increasingly diverse array of tools to protect their autonomy within the global system and hedge against unexpected turmoil. SWFs serve ruling elites by concentrating substantial resources, which can be used to pay off domestic adversaries, to insure the economy against major downturns and thereby mitigate public discontent, to signal cooperation to major foreign powers and to increase legitimacy in the global arena by presenting governance structures familiar to the West. We employ a comparative case study analysis to highlight the critical importance of these political economy dynamics in the establishment of SWFs, their governance structures and their behavior in both normal times and during times of crisis.
Should addictive disorders include non-substance-related conditions?

AIMS In anticipation of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), to consider whether addictive disorders should include non-substance use disorders. METHODS The author reviewed data and provided perspective to explore whether disorders such as pathological gambling (PG) should be grouped together with substance dependence, given that they share many features. RESULTS PG and substance dependence currently reside in the DSM, fourth edition, text revision (DSM-IV-TR) within separate categories, with PG classified as an impulse control disorder (ICD) and substance dependence as a substance use disorder (SUD). Arguments can be forwarded to support each categorization, as well as to justify their inclusion together as addictions. CONCLUSIONS The current state of knowledge suggests that there exist substantial similarities between PG and SUDs. Further research is indicated prior to categorizing PG and other ICDs together with SUDs.
Embedding a concurrent autonomous agent in a microcontrollers network

In this paper, a microcontroller heterogeneous network is proposed to embed a concurrent autonomous agent. The network was designed to fit the concurrency requirements of the cognitive model of the aforementioned agent. The architecture of the agent comprises three levels, namely, the reactive level, instinctive level and the cognitive level, which runs concurrently. The reactive level is embedded in a PSoC 5LP, consisting of behaviours created over a embedded kinematic controller. The instinctive level runs in a mbed NXP LPC1768, which receives perceptions from and sends the active behaviour to the reactive level through a CAN bus. And The cognitive level runs on a DNP/2486 which, in turn, receives symbolic information from and sends new local goals to instinctive level through an Ethernet network. Finally, the architecture used in the experiments is presented, followed by the results.
Conceptualizing the Decision Making Process of International Students in Higher Education

Due to the intensification of globalization, crossing borders has become easier for all people in all walks of life. It is predicted that the number of international students will reach a total of 7.2 million by the year 2025 (Knight, 2005). This has made the competition to attract international students among hosting countries more intense as years go by. This study aims to identify the influential factors of international students in choosing private institutions in Malaysia for undergraduate. Therefore, there is a need to develop a model to explain international students’ choice and decision-making process that is built on existing choice model and theory on factors that influence the students’ choice at the undergraduate level. This study builds its foundation on previous choice model, more specifically from Hossler and Gallagher (1987) research that was previously used to discuss college and university choice among tertiary students.
The World Cup of Economics Journals: A Ranking by a Tournament Method

A ranking of journals is manipulable if a particular journal's position can be improved by making additional citations to other journals. We introduce a simple ranking method that is not not manipulable and is invariant to citation intensities, journal scaling and article-splitting. The ranking of economics journals is presented and is compared to rankings by alternative methods in the recent years.
Sox2 plays a role in the induction of amacrine and Müller glial cells in mouse retinal progenitor cells.

PURPOSE The transcription factor Sox2 plays important roles in both human and mouse retinal development. Although loss-of-function mutations in Sox2 have been studied in mice, gain-of-function experiments in the neural retina have been lacking. METHODS The detailed expression pattern of Sox2 in the developing mouse retina was examined by immunohistochemistry. Then, Sox2 was expressed in a retinal explant culture prepared from E17 mouse embryos by retrovirus-mediated gene transfer to examine its role in retinal development. In addition, shRNA was used to suppress Sox2 in a retinal explant using a retrovirus-mediated system. RESULTS Sox2 was expressed throughout the neuroblastic layer in the embryonic retina, but only in the inner nuclear layer in the mature retina. Double immunostaining revealed that Sox2 was expressed in Müller glial cells and in a subset of amacrine cells. Forced expression of Sox2 in a mouse retinal explant culture resulted in the dramatic accumulation of amacrine cells in the inner nuclear layer; in addition, cells expressing amacrine cell markers were also found on the innermost side of the outer nuclear layer. The expression of Pax6, which plays an important role in amacrine cell differentiation, was observed in the Sox2-expressing cells, and Sox2 activated the Pax6 promoter to drive luciferase expression in Y79 cells. A decrease in retinal progenitor cell proliferation accompanied these effects. The suppression of Sox2 expression by shRNA resulted in a decreased number of cells in the inner nuclear layer. CONCLUSIONS Therefore, ectopic Sox2 expression can induce amacrine cells in the mouse retina from stage E17 onward, possibly by facilitating cell cycle exit.