Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Teleneurolinguistische Therapie

Zusammenfassung In einer prospektiven Studie wird die Effizienz teleneurolinguistischer Therapie mit konventioneller Aphasietherapie bei Schlaganfallpatienten verglichen. Der Vergleich wird mittels einer neuen Therapiemethode und eines spezifisch dafür entwickelten Therapiematerials durchgeführt. Zielgruppe sind schwerst betroffene Patienten mit nichtflüssiger Aphasie. Studienziel ist es, die synchrone Teletherapie als neue Therapieform zu etablieren. Somit könnte Sprachtherapie hochfrequent und intensiv durchgeführt werden. Dadurch ließen sich wiederholte Klinikaufenthalte und langandauernde ambulante Behandlungen einsparen. Vorläufige Ergebnisse der quantitativen Analysen bestätigen, dass die Teletherapie gleiche Wirkeffekte wie konventionelle Sprachtherapie zeigt. Entgegen der Ausgangserwartung zeigen sich sogar bessere Ergebnisse im Teletherapiesetting.
Wideband High-Gain Circularly Polarized Stacked Microstrip Antennas With an Optimized C-Type Feed and a Short Horn

A new technique is developed to increase the axial ratio (AR) bandwidth of circularly polarized stacked microstrip antennas (CPSMAs) to about 15.0% by optimizing the location of the C-type single feed and a few other parameters. The stacked microstrip antenna with a quasi-planar surface-mounted short horn (SMSH) has achieved 13 dBi gain, 15.5% 3 dB AR bandwidth, 0.37 dB minimum AR and 25.0% impedance bandwidth. The measured gain is more than 11.5 dBic over the impedance bandwidth. The proposed technique simplifies the design of wideband circularly polarized antenna for medium to high gain applications.
LSM-Tree Managed Storage for Large-Scale Key-Value Store

Key-value stores are increasingly adopting LSM-trees as their enabling data structure in the backend block storage, and persisting their clustered data through a block manager, usually a file system. In general, a file system is expected to not only provide file/directory abstraction to organize data but also retain the key benefits of LSM-trees, namely, sequential and aggregated I/O patterns on the physical device. Unfortunately, our in-depth experimental analysis reveals that some of these benefits of LSM-trees can be completely negated by the underlying file level indexes from the perspectives of both data layout and I/O processing. As a result, the write performance of LSM-trees is kept at a level far below that promised by the sequential bandwidth offered by the storage devices. In this paper, we address this problem and propose LDS, an LSM-tree Direct Storage system that manages the storage space based on the LSM-tree objects and provides simplified consistency control by leveraging the copy-on-write nature of the LSM-tree structure, to fully reap the benefits of LSM-trees. Running LevelDB, a popular LSM-tree based key-value store, on LDS as a baseline, comparing that to LevelDB running on three representative file systems (ext4, f2fs, btrfs) with HDDs and SSDs, respectively, we evaluate and study the performance potentials of LSM-trees. Evaluation results show that the write throughputs of LevelDB can be improved by from 1.8× to 3× on HDDs, and from 1.3× to 2.5× on SSDs, by employing the LSM-tree friendly data layout of LDS.
Evaluation of the IEEE 802.11p MAC Method for Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communication

In this paper the medium access control (MAC) method of the upcoming vehicular communication standard IEEE 802.11p has been simulated in a highway scenario with periodic broadcast of time-critical packets (so-called heartbeat messages) in a vehicle-to-vehicle situation. The 802.11p MAC method is based on carrier sense multiple access (CSMA) where nodes listen to the wireless channel before sending. If the channel is busy, the node must defer its access and during high utilization periods this could lead to unbounded delays. This well-known property of CSMA is undesirable for time-critical communications. The simulation results reveal that a specific node/vehicle is forced to drop over 80% of its heartbeat messages because no channel access was possible before the next message was generated. To overcome this problem, we propose to use self-organizing time division multiple access (STDMA) for real-time data traffic between vehicles. This MAC method is already successfully applied in commercial surveillance applications for ships (AIS) and airplanes (VDL mode 4). Our initial results indicate that STDMA outperforms CSMA for time-critical traffic safety applications in ad hoc vehicular networks.
Basal Level of Autophagy Is Increased in Aging Human Skin Fibroblasts In Vitro, but Not in Old Skin

Intracellular autophagy (AP) is a stress response that is enhanced under conditions of limitation of amino acids, growth factors and other nutrients, and also when macromolecules become damaged, aggregated and fibrillated. Aging is generally accompanied by an increase in intracellular stress due to all the above factors. Therefore, we have compared the basal levels of AP in serially passaged human facial skin fibroblasts undergoing aging and replicative senescence in vitro, and ex vivo in the skin biopsies from the photo-protected and photo-exposed area of the arms of 20 healthy persons of young and old ages. Immunofluorescence microscopy, employing antibodies against a specific intracellular microtubule-associated protein-1 light chain-3 (LC3) as a well established marker of AP, showed a 5-fold increase in the basal level of LC3 in near senescent human skin fibroblasts. However, no such age-related increase in LC3 fluorescence and AP could be detected in full thickness skin sections from the biopsies obtained from 10 healthy young (age 25 to 30 yr) and 10 old (age 60 to 65 yr) donors. Furthermore, there was no difference in the basal level of LC3 in the skin sections from photo-protected and photo-exposed areas of the arm. Thus, in normal conditions, the aging phenotype of the skin cells in culture and in the body appears to be different in the case of AP.
Light-Induced Carotenogenesis in Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2): Identification of an Extracytoplasmic Function Sigma Factor That Directs Photodependent Transcription of the Carotenoid Biosynthesis Gene Cluster

ABSTRACT Carotenoids are produced by a variety of organisms, but the mechanisms that regulate gene expression leading to carotenoid biosynthesis have been characterized for only a few organisms. In this study, we found that Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2), a gram-positive filamentous bacterium, produces carotenoids under blue light induction. The carotenoid fraction isolated from the cell extract contained multiple compounds, including isorenieratene and β-carotene. The carotenoid biosynthesis gene cluster of S. coelicolor consists of two convergent operons, crtEIBV and crtYTU, as previously shown for Streptomyces griseus. The crtEIBV null mutant completely lost its ability to produce carotenoids. The crt gene cluster is flanked by a regulatory region that consists of two divergent operons, litRQ and litSAB. The lit (light-induced transcription) genes encode a MerR-type transcriptional regulator (LitR), a possible oxidoreductase (LitQ), an extracytoplasmic function sigma factor (σLitS), a putative lipoprotein (LitA), and a putative anti-sigma factor (LitB). S1 protection assay revealed that the promoters preceding crtE (PcrtE), crtY (PcrtY), litR (PlitR), and litS (PlitS) are activated upon illumination. A litS mutant lost both the ability to produce carotenoids and the activities of PcrtE, PcrtY, and PlitS, which suggested that σLitS directs light-induced transcription from these promoters. An RNA polymerase holocomplex containing purified σLitS recombinant protein generated specific PcrtE and PcrtY transcripts in an in vitro runoff transcriptional assay. A litR mutant that had an insertion of the kanamycin resistance gene was defective both in the ability to produce carotenoids and in all of the light-dependent promoter activities. Overexpression of litS resulted in constitutive carotenoid production in both the wild type and the litR mutant. These results indicate that σLitS acts as a light-induced sigma factor that directs transcription of the crt biosynthesis gene cluster, whose activity is controlled by an unknown LitR function. This is the first report to describe light-inducible gene expression in Streptomyces.
Low-Level Exposure to Multiple Chemicals: Reason for Human Health Concerns?

Background A key question in the risk assessment of exposures to multiple chemicals is whether mixture effects may occur when chemicals are combined at low doses which individually do not induce observable effects. However, a systematic evaluation of experimental studies addressing this issue is missing. Objectives With this contribution, we wish to bridge this gap by providing a systematic assessment of published studies against well-defined quality criteria. Results On reviewing the low-dose mixture literature, we found good evidence demonstrating significant mixture effects with combinations of chemicals well below their individual no observable adverse effect levels (NOAELs), both with mixtures composed of similarly and dissimilarly acting agents. Conclusions The widely held view that mixtures of dissimilarly acting chemicals are “safe” at levels below NOAELs is not supported by empirical evidence. We show that this view is also based on the erroneous assumption that NOAELs can be equated with zero-effect levels. Thus, on the basis of published evidence, it is difficult to rule out the possibility of mixture effects from low-dose multiple exposures.
"We've bin watching you": designing for reflection and social persuasion to promote sustainable lifestyles

BinCam is a social persuasive system to motivate reflection and behavioral change in the food waste and recycling habits of young adults. The system replaces an existing kitchen refuse bin and automatically logs disposed of items through digital images captured by a smart phone installed on the underside of the bin lid. Captured images are uploaded to a BinCam application on Facebook where they can be explored by all users of the BinCam system. Engagement with BinCam is designed to fit into the existing structure of users' everyday life, with the intention that reflection on waste and recycling becomes a playful and shared group activity. Results of a user study reveal an increase in both users' awareness of, and reflection about, their waste management and their motivation to improve their waste-related skills. With BinCam, we also explore informational and normative social influences as a source of change (e.g., socially evoked feelings of 'guilt' for non-recycling or food disposal), which has to date been underexplored in persuasive HCI. Design implications for reflection and social persuasion are proposed.
Data structures for picture processing

A variety of algorithms have been invented for use in picture processing. An important aspect of the algorithms are the data structures employed. A data structure may be chosen to represent a particular structural relationship, to save space, or to allow for fast access to data. This paper surveys four major classes of data structures used in current picture processing research and gives several examples of the use of each type of structure in particular algorithms or systems. The structures surveyed are linear lists, hierarchic structures, graph structures, and recursive structures.
Anti-inflammatory effect of Fumaria parviflora leaves based on TNF-α, IL-1, IL-6 and antioxidant potential

Objective: In this study, we evaluated anti-inflammatory activity of leaves of Fumaria parviflora (F. parviflora) and underlying mechanisms by using in vivo models of inflammation. Material and Methods: Albino Wistar rats of either sex weighing 150 - 200 g were used. Soxhlet ethanol and aqueous extracts of leaves of F. parviflora (EFP and AFP) were prepared. The anti-inflammatory activity was studied using carrageenan-induced paw edema method and cotton pellet granuloma method. Levels of cytokines such as TNF-α, IL-6 and IL-1 and activity of antioxidant enzymes including catalase (CAT) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) were estimated. Results: Leaves of F. parviflora demonstrated significant (p<0.001) decrease in paw edema in carrageenan-induced paw edema method. It diminished the serum tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), IL-6 and IL-1 levels and also significantly attenuated the malondialdehyde (MDA) levels. The activity of CAT and GPx was increased in paw tissue. It also demonstrated significant decrease in granuloma formation in cotton pellet-induced granuloma method. Conclusion: Leaves of F. parviflora possess anti-inflammatory activity as they inhibit various cytokines and have antioxidant effects and free radical scavenging activity.
A stochastic geometry approach to energy efficiency in relay-assisted cellular networks

Though cooperative relaying is believed to be a promising technology to improve the energy efficiency of cellular networks, the relays' static power consumption might worsen the energy efficiency therefore can not be neglected. In this paper, we focus on whether and how the energy efficiency of cellular networks can be improved via relays. Based on the spatial Poisson point process, an analytical model is proposed to evaluate the energy efficiency of relay-assisted cellular networks. With the aid of the technical tools of stochastic geometry, we derive the distributions of signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratios (SINRs) and mean achievable rates of both non-cooperative users and cooperative users. The energy efficiency measured by “bps/Hz/W” is expressed subsequently. These established expressions are amenable to numerical evaluation and corroborated by simulation results.
Hepatitis C virus NS4B targets lipid droplets through hydrophobic residues in the amphipathic helices[S]

Lipid droplets (LD) are dynamic storage organelles that are involved in lipid homeostasis. Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is closely associated with LDs. HCV Core and nonstructural (NS) proteins colocalize with LDs and presumably are involved in virion formation at that site. We demonstrated that HCV NS4B, an integral membrane protein in endoplasmic reticulum (ER), strongly targeted LDs. Confocal imaging studies showed that NS4B localized at the margins of LDs. Biochemical fractionation of HCV-replicating cells suggested that NS4B existed in membranes associated with LDs rather than on the LD surface membrane itself. The N- and C-terminal cytosolic domains of NS4B showed targeting of LDs, with the former being much stronger. In both domains, activity was present in the region containing an amphipathic α-helix, in which 10 hydrophobic residues were identified as putative determinants for targeting LDs. JFH1 mutants with alanine substitutions for the hydrophobic residues were defective for virus replication. W43A mutant with a single alanine substitution showed loss of association of NS4B with LDs and severely reduced release of infectious virions compared with wild-type JFH1. NS4B plays a crucial role in virus replication at the site of virion formation, namely, the microenvironment associated with LDs.
Bone stiffness and failure load are related with clinical parameters in men with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Osteoporosis is frequently seen in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Because research on bone structure and bone strength in COPD patients is limited, the objectives of this pilot study were as follows: (1) to compare bone structure, stiffness, and failure load, measured at the peripheral skeleton, between men with and without COPD after stratification for areal bone mineral density (aBMD); and (2) to relate clinical parameters with bone stiffness and failure load in men with COPD. We included 30 men with COPD (normal aBMD, n = 18; osteoporosis, n = 12) and 17 men without COPD (normal aBMD, n = 9; osteoporosis, n = 8). We assessed pack‐years of smoking, body mass index (BMI), fat free mass index (FFMI), pulmonary function (forced expiratory volume in 1 second [FEV1], FEV1/forced vital capacity [FVC], diffusion capacity for carbon monoxide [DLCO], and transfer coefficient for carbon monoxide [KCO]), and extent of emphysema. Bone structure of the distal radius and tibia was assessed by high‐resolution peripheral quantitative computed tomography (HR‐pQCT), and bone stiffness and failure load of the distal radius and tibia were estimated from micro finite element analysis (µFEA). After stratification for aBMD and COPD, men with osteoporosis showed abnormal bone structure (p < 0.01), lower bone stiffness (p < 0.01), and lower failure load (p < 0.01) compared with men with normal aBMD, and men with COPD had comparable bone structure, stiffness, and failure load compared with men without COPD. In men with COPD, lower FFMI was related with lower bone stiffness, and failure load of the radius and tibia and lower DLCO and KCO were related with lower bone stiffness and failure load of the tibia after normalization with respect to femoral neck aBMD. Thus, this pilot study could not detect differences in bone structure, stiffness, and failure load between men with and without COPD after stratification for aBMD. FFMI and gas transfer capacity of the lung were significantly related with bone stiffness and failure load in men with COPD after normalization with respect to femoral neck aBMD. © 2013 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.
Model-based oscillometric blood pressure estimation

Oscillometry is the most common measurement method used in automated electronic blood pressure (BP) monitors. A variety of oscillometric BP algorithms exist in the literature. However, most of these algorithms are without physiological and theoretical foundation. Moreover, most of the existing oscillometric algorithms estimate the BP from the envelope of the oscillometric pulses and ignore the wealth of information that the oscillometric pulses contain. More information could be obtained from the amplitude and time characteristics of the oscillometric pulses at different cuff pressures if an accurate mathematical model is developed. This paper reviews three novel model-based oscillometric BP estimation methods developed by our research group. These methods include (i) mathematical modeling of the oscillometric waveform envelope and BP estimation using neural networks, (ii) mathematical modeling of the oscillometric waveform and parameter estimation using extended Kalman filter, and (iii) mathematical modeling of the pulse transit time (PTT) and estimation of BP based on PTT-cuff pressure dependency. The performance of the proposed methods was evaluated on simulated and actual data in terms of mean error, mean absolute error, and standard deviation of error.
Shadow casting for soft and engaging immersion in augmented virtuality artworks

Two immersive art installations that involve virtual shadows for better engagement of the viewers are presented. One installation is a stereo film enhanced with a 3D reconstructed mesh for shadow projection, and the other one is a virtual 3D model with texture compositing and transparency. The hardware and software components are chosen for an economical but efficient rendering with standard computer and video equipments.
The Nature, Social Organization and Promotion of Management Research: Towards Policy

This paper argues for the distinctiveness of management research and develops a perspective concerning management research policy. It argues that the key defining characteristic of management research is its applied nature, and that its central concern should be ‘the general (engineering) problem of design’. Because a key goal of management research is to improve the relationship between theory and practice, a fundamental concern lies with its diverse nature and the consequential difficulty of integration of sub-disciplines, as well as with the issue of the relevance and the application of findings. As a policy paper, it aims to introduce a limited number of analytical frameworks in order to develop a policy position, thus helping frame the debate concerning the role of management research. Specifically, it achieves this, first by exploring the ontology of management research, examining its form, features, peculiarities and idiosyncrasies using Becher's conceptual schema for exploring the nature of disciplines; second by identifying a requisite form of social organization to support management research activity using the Gibbons et al. taxonomy of knowledge production systems; and finally, by identifying some conclusions, research policy implications, and suggesting a set of policy propositions concerning the conduct of management research.
Modern plastic millimeter-wave array antennas

Two types of millimeter-wave waveguide-type array antennas were presented using low-loss engineering plastics. The mass production and cost reduction of millimeter-wave antennas are enabled to realize by using these technologies. The fabricated array antennas have shown the technologies suits for low-cost millimeter-wave applications. This research is results of “Research and Development of the Millimeter-wave Antennas for a Broadband Communication System in 60GHz band” and “Research and Development on the Millimeter-wavelength High Speed Mobile Communication System”, which are sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
Spectrum of Kaposi's Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus, or Human Herpesvirus 8, Diseases

SUMMARY Human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8), also known as Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV), discovered in 1994, is a human rhadinovirus (gamma-2 herpesvirus). Unlike other human herpesviruses (herpes simplex virus, Epstein-Barr virus, varicella-zoster virus, cytomegalovirus, HHV-6, and HHV-7), it is not widespread in the general population and has many unique proteins. HHV-8 is strongly associated with all subtypes of Kaposi's sarcoma (KS), multicentric Castleman's disease, and a rare form of B-cell lymphoma, primary effusion lymphoma. In addition, HHV-8 DNA sequences have been found in association with other diseases, but the role of the virus in these diseases is largely unconfirmed and remains controversial. The seroprevalence of HHV-8, based on detection of latent and lytic proteins, is 2 to 5% in healthy donors except in certain geographic areas where the virus is endemic, 80 to 95% in classic KS patients, and 40 to 50% in HIV-1 patients without KS. This virus can be transmitted both sexually and through body fluids (e.g., saliva and blood). HHV-8 is a transforming virus, as evidenced by its presence in human malignancies, by the in vitro transforming properties of several of its viral genes, and by its ability to transform some primary cells in culture. It is not, however, sufficient for transformation, and other cofactors such as immunosuppressive cytokines are involved in the development of HHV-8-associated malignancies. In this article, we review the biology, molecular virology, epidemiology, transmission, detection methods, pathogenesis, and antiviral therapy of this newly discovered human herpesvirus.