Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Scalable Capacity Bounding Models for Wireless Networks

The framework of network equivalence theory developed by Koetter et al. introduces a notion of channel emulation to construct noiseless networks as upper (respectively, lower) bounding models, which can be used to calculate the outer (respectively, inner) bounds for the capacity region of the original noisy network. Based on the network equivalence framework, this paper presents scalable upper and lower bounding models for wireless networks with potentially many nodes. A channel decoupling method is proposed to decompose wireless networks into decoupled multiple-access channels and broadcast channels. The upper bounding model, consisting of only point-to-point bit pipes, is constructed by first extending the one-shot upper bounding models developed by Calmon et al. and then integrating them with network equivalence tools. The lower bounding model, consisting of both point-to-point and point-to-points bit pipes, is constructed based on a two-step update of the lower bounding models to incorporate the broadcast nature of wireless transmission. The main advantages of the proposed methods are their simplicity and the fact that they can be extended easily to large networks with a complexity that grows linearly with the number of nodes. It is demonstrated that the resulting upper and lower bounds can approach the capacity in some setups.
Association between mode of delivery and pelvic floor dysfunction.

BACKGROUND Normal vaginal delivery can cause significant strain on the pelvic floor. We present a review of the current knowledge on vaginal delivery as a risk factor for urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse compared to caesarean section. MATERIAL AND METHOD We conducted a literature search in PubMed with an emphasis on systematic review articles and meta-analyses. The search was completed in January 2014. We also included articles from our own literature archives. RESULTS Compared to vaginal delivery, caesarean section appears to protect against urinary incontinence, but the effect decreases after patients reach their fifties. The risk of pelvic organ prolapse increases (dose-response effect) with the number of vaginal deliveries compared to caesarean sections. There are few reliable studies on the association between mode of delivery and anal incontinence, but meta-analyses may indicate that caesarean section does not offer protection after the postpartum period. Women with previous anal sphincter rupture during vaginal delivery are a sub-group with an elevated risk of anal incontinence. The degree of severity of pelvic floor dysfunction is frequently unreported in the literature. INTERPRETATION The prevalence of urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse is lower in women who have only delivered by caesarean section than in those who have delivered vaginally. For urinary incontinence this difference appears to level out with increasing age. There is no basis for identifying sub-groups with a high risk of pelvic floor injury, with the exception of women who have previously had an anal sphincter rupture. Caesarean section will have a limited primary preventive effect on pelvic floor dysfunction at a population level.
Cleaning uncertain data for top-k queries

The information managed in emerging applications, such as sensor networks, location-based services, and data integration, is inherently imprecise. To handle data uncertainty, probabilistic databases have been recently developed. In this paper, we study how to quantify the ambiguity of answers returned by a probabilistic top-k query. We develop efficient algorithms to compute the quality of this query under the possible world semantics. We further address the cleaning of a probabilistic database, in order to improve top-k query quality. Cleaning involves the reduction of ambiguity associated with the database entities. For example, the uncertainty of a temperature value acquired from a sensor can be reduced, or cleaned, by requesting its newest value from the sensor. While this “cleaning operation” may produce a better query result, it may involve a cost and fail. We investigate the problem of selecting entities to be cleaned under a limited budget. Particularly, we propose an optimal solution and several heuristics. Experiments show that the greedy algorithm is efficient and close to optimal.
Recursion diagrams: ideas for a geometry of formal methods

This paper describes work leading towards the concept of a Geometry of Formal Methods[Mac96],[HM97], which explores the relationship between various formal description techniques and aspects of modern abstract algebraic theories with a strong geometric interpretation, in particular such concepts as fibre-bundles, sheaves and related ideas in topology and category theory. Inspired by ideas and notions of seeking a geometry of computing and of formal methods, and with the category theoretic concepts of topos in mind, we explore how such a geometry might be expressed in concrete diagrams, and explore their ability to lay clear some of the concepts behind tail recursion optimisation. We also indicate how this approach can be used in an exposition of various published program transformation rules in this area. We also show the use of category theoretic notions to help explain the similarity of two apparently quite different diagrams. All of this points towards a future foundation for our geometry, both in diagrammatic and algebraic form, in the area of category theory.
Enhancing the Trajectory Generation of a Stair-Climbing Mobility System

Recent advances in mobile robotic technologies have enabled significant progress to be made in the development of Stair-Climbing Mobility Systems (SCMSs) for people with mobility impairments and limitations. These devices are mainly characterized by their ability to negotiate those architectural barriers associated with climbing stairs (curbs, ramps, etc.). The development of advanced trajectory generators with which to surpass such architectural barriers is one of the most important aspects of SCMSs that has not yet been appropriately exploited. These advanced trajectory generators have a considerable influence on the time invested in the stair climbing process and on passenger comfort and, consequently, provide people with physical disabilities with greater independence and a higher quality of life. In this paper, we propose a new nonlinear trajectory generator for an SCMS. This generator balances the stair-climbing time and the user’s comfort and includes the most important constraints inherent to the system behavior: the geometry of the architectural barrier, the reconfigurable nature of the SCMS (discontinuous states), SCMS state-transition diagrams, comfort restrictions and physical limitations as regards the actuators, speed and acceleration. The SCMS was tested on a real two-step staircase using different time-comfort combinations and different climbing strategies to verify the effectiveness and the robustness of the proposed approach.
Repair of defined single base-pair mismatches in Escherichia coli.

Heteroduplexes with single base-pair mismatches of known sequence were prepared by annealing separated strands of bacteriophage lambda DNA and used to transfect Escherichia coli. Each of the eight possible single base-pair mismatches was constructed. Genetic analysis of the progeny phages obtained from transfected bacteria indicates that the E. coli mismatch repair system does not recognize (or does not repair) all single base-pair mismatches with equal efficiency. In particular, the A.G, C.T, and C.C mismatches appear to be less repaired than any others. The mutator character of mismatch repair-deficient mutants suggests that such unrepaired mismatches should occur infrequently during E. coli DNA replication.
Dimensionally continued black holes.

Static, spherically symmetric solutions of the field equations for a particular dimensional continuation of general relativity with negative cosmological constant are studied. The action is, in odd dimensions, the Chern-Simons form for the anti-de Sitter group and, in even dimensions, the Euler density constructed with the Lorentz part of the anti-de Sitter curvature tensor. Both actions are special cases of the Lovelock action, and they reduce to the Hilbert action (with negative cosmological constant) in the lower dimensional cases $\mbox{$\cal D$}=3$ and $\mbox{$\cal D$}=4$. Exact black hole solutions characterized by mass ($M$) and electric charge ($Q$) are found. In odd dimensions a negative cosmological constant is necessary to obtain a black hole, while in even dimensions, both asymptotically flat and asymptotically anti-de Sitter black holes exist. The causal structure is analyzed and the Penrose diagrams are exhibited.
Lipopolysaccharide induces intestinal glucocorticoid synthesis in a TNFα‐dependent manner

Stringent control of immune responses in the intestinal mucosa is critical for the maintenance of immune homeostasis and prevention of tissue damage, such as observed during inflammatory bowel disease. Intestinal epithelial cells, primarily thought to form a simple physical barrier, critically regulate intestinal immune cell functions by producing immunoregu‐latory glucocorticoids on T‐cell activation. In this study we investigated whether stimulation of cells of the innate immune system results in the induction of intestinal glucocorticoids synthesis and what role TNF‐α plays in this process. Stimulation of the innate immune system with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) led to an up‐regulation of colonic steroidogenic enzymes and the induction of intestinal glucocorticoid synthesis. The observed induction was dependent on macrophage effector functions, as depletion of macrophages using clodronate‐containing liposomes, but not absence of T and B cells, inhibited intestinal glucocorticoid synthesis. LPS‐induced glucocorticoid synthesis was critically dependent on TNF‐α as it was significantly decreased in TNF‐α‐deficient animals. Both TNF receptor‐1 and ‐2 were found to be equally involved in LPS‐ and T‐cell‐induced intestinal GC synthesis. These results describe a novel and critical role of TNF‐α in immune cell‐induced intestinal glucocorticoid synthesis. —Noti, M. , Corazza, N. , Tuffin, G. , Schoonjans, K. , Brunner, T. Lipopolysaccharide induces intestinal glucocorticoid synthesis in a TNFα‐dependent manner. FASEB J. 24, 1340–1346 (2010). www.fasebj. org
Sufficient and necessary conditions for the stability of second-order switched linear systems under arbitrary switching

Many practical systems can be modelled as switched systems, whose stability problem is challenging even for linear subsystems. In this article, the stability problem of second-order switched linear systems with a finite number of subsystems under arbitrary switching is investigated. Sufficient and necessary stability conditions are derived based on the worst-case analysis approach in polar coordinates. The key idea of this article is to partition the whole state space into several regions and reduce the stability analysis of all the subsystems to analysing one or two worst subsystems in each region. This article is an extension of the work for stability analysis of second-order switched linear systems with two subsystems under arbitrary switching.
Imitators of Epilepsy

Abstract Epilepsy is common, but conditions that imitate epilepsy are even more common. In order to make a correct diagnosis of epilepsy, the clinician must carefully elicit a detailed history of the seizure episode. Realizing the overlap that exists between seizures that define epilepsy and those of other psychiatric conditions can also help in differentiating between epilepsy and an imitator of epilepsy. Deciphering the features of a seizure episode is also key to correct diagnosis. In this article, the physiological and psychological imitators of epilepsy are described, as well as the features of a seizure episode that should be considered in making a diagnosis. Seizure presentations are also explained followed by a description of common diagnostic pitfalls to avoid.
Analytical solution of the off-equilibrium dynamics of a long-range spin-glass model.

We study the nonequilibrium relaxation of the spherical spin-glass model with p-spin interactions in the N\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty} limit. We analytically solve the asymptotics of the magnetization and the correlation and response functions for long but finite times. Even in the thermodynamic limit the system exhibits ``weak'' (as well as ``true'') ergodicity breaking and aging effects. We determine a functional Parisi-like order parameter ${\mathit{P}}_{\mathit{d}}$(q) which plays a similar role for the dynamics to that played by the usual function for the statics.
An investigation of microtubule organization and functions in living Drosophila embryos by injection of a fluorescently labeled antibody against tyrosinated alpha-tubulin

Rhodamine-labeled monoclonal antibodies, which react with tyrosinated alpha-tubulin (clone YL 1/2; Kilmartin, J. V., B. Wright, and C. Milstein, 1982, J. Cell Biol., 93:576-582) and label microtubules in vivo (Wehland, J., M. C. Willingham, and I. Sandoval, 1983, J. Cell Biol., 97:1467-1475) were microinjected into syncytial stage Drosophila embryos. At 1 mg/ml antibody concentration, the microtubule arrays of the surface caps became labeled by YL 1/2 but normal development was found to continue. The results are compared with the data from fixed material particularly with regard to interphase microtubules, centrosome separation, and spindle and midbody formation. At 5 mg/ml antibody concentration the microtubules took up larger quantities of antibodies and clumped around the nuclei. Nuclei with clumped microtubules lost their position in the surface layer and moved into the interior. As a result, the F-actin cap meshwork associated with such nuclei either failed to form or subsided. It is concluded that microtubule activity is required to maintain the nuclei in the surface layer and organize the F-actin meshwork of the caps.
Cell-Autonomous and Non-Cell-Autonomous Regulation of a Feeding State-Dependent Chemoreceptor Gene via MEF-2 and bHLH Transcription Factors

Food and feeding-state dependent changes in chemoreceptor gene expression may allow Caenorhabditis elegans to modify their chemosensory behavior, but the mechanisms essential for these expression changes remain poorly characterized. We had previously shown that expression of a feeding state-dependent chemoreceptor gene, srh-234, in the ADL sensory neuron of C. elegans is regulated via the MEF-2 transcription factor. Here, we show that MEF-2 acts together with basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factors to regulate srh-234 expression as a function of feeding state. We identify a cis-regulatory MEF2 binding site that is necessary and sufficient for the starvation-induced down regulation of srh-234 expression, while an E-box site known to bind bHLH factors is required to drive srh-234 expression in ADL. We show that HLH-2 (E/Daughterless), HLH-3 and HLH-4 (Achaete-scute homologs) act in ADL neurons to regulate srh-234 expression. We further demonstrate that the expression levels of srh-234 in ADL neurons are regulated remotely by MXL-3 (Max-like 3 homolog) and HLH-30 (TFEB ortholog) acting in the intestine, which is dependent on insulin signaling functioning specifically in ADL neurons. We also show that this intestine-to-neuron feeding-state regulation of srh-234 involves a subset of insulin-like peptides. These results combined suggest that chemoreceptor gene expression is regulated by both cell-autonomous and non-cell-autonomous transcriptional mechanisms mediated by MEF2 and bHLH factors, which may allow animals to fine-tune their chemosensory responses in response to changes in their feeding state.
Imagination Imagery of Children and the Production of Analogy

a pilot study on the facilitatory effects of LSD on creative problem solving (Harman, McKim, Morgan, Fadiman and Stolaroff, 1966), I have found little research on imagination imagery as such. My own interest in imagination imagery and verbal originality has been growing these past few years and has found some expression in a recent paper on the production of original verbal images by adult men and women identified as high originals (Khatena, 1972a).
Applying the calibration comparison technique for verification of transmission line standards on silicon up to 110 GHz

This paper will present the results of extracting the electrical characteristics of planar lines using the calibration comparison method for standards realized in IBM's advanced 0.13 µm CMOS process. For the first time, this method is applied to characterizing the customized standards on silicon up to 110 GHz. Additionally, this paper considers the influences of the reference benchmark calibration standards, included with GaAs reference material RM8130, on the characterization accuracy of silicon wafer-embedded lines at mm-wave frequencies.
PROMO: continuous localized and profiled multimedia content distribution

This paper presents an architectural solution for multimedia delivering over heterogeneous smart phones tailored to the needs of individual users. The system is based on the collection of Wi-Fi fingerprints in an environment, and sends multimedia data to the users' smart phones based on their interests, their location and their movement. This solution belongs to a more global solution for a straightforward and cost-effective proximity marketing (PROMO) system that is highly customizable and works also in indoor environments. This work is supported by the Swiss Innovation Promotion Agency (CTI-No 11556.1).
Reorganization of an intersubunit bridge induced by disparate 16S ribosomal ambiguity mutations mimics an EF-Tu-bound state

After four decades of research aimed at understanding tRNA selection on the ribosome, the mechanism by which ribosomal ambiguity (ram) mutations promote miscoding remains unclear. Here, we present two X-ray crystal structures of the Thermus thermophilus 70S ribosome containing 16S rRNA ram mutations, G347U and G299A. Each of these mutations causes miscoding in vivo and stimulates elongation factor thermo unstable (EF-Tu)-dependent GTP hydrolysis in vitro. Mutation G299A is located near the interface of ribosomal proteins S4 and S5 on the solvent side of the subunit, whereas G347U is located 77 Å distant, at intersubunit bridge B8, close to where EF-Tu engages the ribosome. Despite these disparate locations, both mutations induce almost identical structural rearrangements that disrupt the B8 bridge—namely, the interaction of h8/h14 with L14 and L19. This conformation most closely resembles that seen upon EF-Tu⋅GTP⋅aminoacyl-tRNA binding to the 70S ribosome. These data provide evidence that disruption and/or distortion of B8 is an important aspect of GTPase activation. We propose that, by destabilizing B8, G299A and G347U reduce the energetic cost of attaining the GTPase-activated state and thereby decrease the stringency of decoding. This previously unappreciated role for B8 in controlling the decoding process may hold relevance for many other ribosomal mutations known to influence translational fidelity.
Model Transfer for Markov Decision Tasks via Parameter Matching

Model transfer refers to the process of transferring information from a model that was previously identified for one task (source) to a new task (target). For decision tasks in unknown Markov environments, we profit through model transfer by using information from related tasks, e.g. transition knowledge and solution (policy) knowledge, to quickly determine an appropriate model of the new task environment. A difficulty with such transfer is typically the non-linear and indirect relationship between the available source knowledge and the target’s working prior model of the unknown environment, provided through a complex multidimensional transfer function. In this paper, we take a Bayesian view and present a probability perturbation method that conditions the target’s model parameters to a variety of source knowledge types. The method relies on pre-posterior distributions, which specifies the distribution of the target’s parameter set given each individual knowledge types. The pre-posteriors are then combined to obtain a posterior distribution for the parameter set that matches all the available knowledge. The method is illustrated with an example.
Preparation and Evaluation of Mucin-Gelatin Mucoadhesive Microspheres for Rectal Delivery of Ceftriaxone Sodium

ABSTRACT Soluble mucin (S-mucin) processed from the small intestines (ileal region) of freshly slaughtered pigs via homogenization, dialysis, centrifugation and lyophilization and its admixtures with type A gelatin were dispersed in an aqueous medium and used to formulate ceftriaxone sodium-loaded mucoadhesive microspheres by the emulsification cross-linking method using arachis oil as the continuous phase. The release profile of ceftriaxone sodium from the microspheres was evaluated in both simulated gastric fluid (SGF) without pepsin (pH 1.2) and simulated intestinal fluid (SIF) without pancreatin (pH 7.4). The microspheres were further evaluated as possible novel delivery system for rectal delivery of ceftriaxone sodium in rats. Release of ceftriaxone sodium from the microspheres in both release media was found to occur predominantly by diffusion following non-Fickian transport mechanism and was higher and more rapid in SIF than in SGF. The results obtained from this study may indicate that ceftriaxone sodium could be successfully delivered rectally when embedded in microspheres formulated with either type A gelatin alone or its admixtures with porcine mucin; hence providing a therapeutically viable alternative route for the delivery of this acid-labile third generation cephalosporin.
Infinity-Norm Permutation Covering Codes From Cyclic Groups

We study covering codes of permutations with the $\ell _\infty $ -metric. We provide a general code construction, which combines short building-block codes into a single long code. We focus on cyclic transitive groups as building blocks, determining their exact covering radius, and showing a linear-time algorithm for finding a covering codeword. When used in the general construction, we show that the resulting covering code asymptotically out-performs the best known code while maintaining linear-time decoding. We also bound the covering radius of relabeled cyclic transitive groups under conjugation, showing that the covering radius is quite robust. While relabeling cannot reduce the covering radius by much, the downside is that we prove the covering radius cannot be increased by more than 1 when using relabeling.
Compressed Sampling for pulse Doppler radar

This paper presents a study of how the Analogue to Digital Converter (ADC) sampling rate in a digital radar can be reduced-without reduction in waveform bandwidth-through the use of Compressed Sampling (CS). Real radar data is used to show that through use of chirp or Gabor dictionaries and Basis Pursuit (BP) the ADC sampling frequency can be reduced by a factor of 128, to under 1 mega sample per second, while the waveform bandwidth remains 40 MHz. The error on the reconstructed fast-time samples is small enough that accurate range-profiles and range-frequency surfaces can be produced.
Peripheral Diversity and Redistribution

This paper investigates the effect of ethnolinguistic conflict on redistribution. The analysis focuses on the conflict arising between "peripheral" minority groups and a dominant "center". We propose an index of linguistic conflict that (i) encompasses both diversity and polarization, and (ii) accounts for the distance between lanuguages. Our results suggest that linguistic diversity is a better predictor of redistribution than linguistic polarization. We also find that incorporating linguistic distances leads to better predictions.