Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pipelined CORDIC-based state-space orthogonal recursive digital filters using matrix look-ahead

Orthogonal recursive or infinite impulse response (IIR) digital filters can achieve a sharp transition band, have good finite word-length behavior, and are used in many modern digital signal processing (DSP) applications such as mobile communications. However, Givens rotation or coordinate rotation digital computer (CORDIC)-based fine-grain pipelined true orthogonal recursive digital filters have yet to be developed. In this paper, a state-space approach-based novel algorithm for designing fine-grain pipelined true orthogonal recursive digital filters is proposed using the matrix look-ahead technique. The algorithm is developed for designing general multi-input/multi-output (MIMO) digital filters, whereas the single-input/single-output (SISO) filters are treated as special cases. The filter synthesis procedure contains five major steps and only involves applying orthogonal transformations that are known to be numerically very reliable and, therefore, is ideal for very large scale integration (VLSI) implementations. The proposed filter architectures are pipelined at fine-grain level and, thus, can be operated at arbitrarily high sample rates. The total complexity is MN(m+p)+(m+N)p+p(p-1)/2 Givens rotations for MIMO filters, where N, m, p, and M are the filter order, number of inputs, number of outputs, and pipelining level, respectively. For the SISO case, the complexity reduces to (2M+1)N+1 Givens rotations, which is linear with respect to the filter order and pipelining level. Furthermore, the filter realizations consist of only Givens rotations, which can be mapped onto CORDIC arithmetic-based processors. Different filter design and realization approaches are explored, and the resulting topologies are compared. As an application, a pipelined intermediate frequency filter for an American mobile telephone system is designed using the proposed approach. Finally, finite word-length simulations are carried out for various orthogonal topologies. It is shown both theoretically and numerically how the proposed orthogonal filter realizations achieve low sensitivity due to finite word-length truncations.
Putative proteins related to group II intron reverse transcriptase/maturases are encoded by nuclear genes in higher plants.

The Arabidopsis thaliana nuclear genome sequence revealed several open reading frames encoding proteins related to group II intron-encoded reverse transcriptase/maturases. Here, we show via sequence alignments that at least four such open reading frames are conserved in the nuclear genomes of A.thaliana and Oryza sativa (rice) and that they encode putative proteins belonging to two different classes (nMat-1 and nMat-2), neither of which is associated with a group II intron RNA structure. The two nMat-1 proteins have reverse transcriptase, maturase and DNA endonuclease domains characteristic of canonical group II intron-encoded proteins, while the two nMat-2 proteins have reverse transcriptase and maturase domains linked to a novel C-terminal domain. Although some nMat proteins have mutations expected to inactivate intron mobility functions, all could potentially retain the RNA splicing function. These nuclear maturase-like proteins may be imported into organelles to function in group II intron splicing and/or they may have assumed other cellular functions. Nuclear-encoded maturases could regulate organellar gene expression and may reflect a step in the evolution of mobile group II introns into spliceosomal introns.
Cold acclimation in Peromyscus: individual variation and sex effects in maximum and daily metabolism, organ mass and body composition

SUMMARY We studied metabolic and organ mass responses to thermal acclimation (7 weeks at 5°C or 23°C) in deer mice, Peromyscus maniculatus. Cold acclimation resulted in significantly higher maximal oxygen consumption in thermogenesis (V̇O2max) and daily mean oxygen consumption (V̇O2mean), an increase in the mass of most visceral organs, a lower absolute body fat and a marginally significant increase in hematocrit. The mass of digestive organs and body fat content differed significantly between sexes. Acclimation effects on fat content were more pronounced in females. Variation in heart and lung mass was positively correlated with V̇O2max and V̇O2mean, while body fat content was negatively correlated with both traits. Nonetheless, a large fraction of the metabolic difference between cold- and warm-acclimated groups remained unexplained. Associations between traits at lower levels of biological organization measured here and whole-organism energetics remained consistent across acclimation temperatures, except for the correlation between kidney mass and V̇O2mean, which was positive and significant in cold acclimation and negligible following warm acclimation. We conclude that: (1) V̇O2max and V̇O2mean share a common physiological basis that remains overall the same across acclimation regimes; (2) changes in these traits are associated primarily with changes in heart mass; and (3) male and female deer mice respond differently to thermal acclimation, possibly due to differences in reproductive allocation.
A parallel segmentation of brain tumor from magnetic resonance images

Medical image segmentation is nowadays at the core of medical image analysis and supports computer-aided diagnosis, surgical planning, intra-operative guidance or postoperative assessment. Large amounts of research efforts have been made in developing effective brain MR (magnetic resonance) image tumor segmentation methods in the past years. However algorithms proposed so far are time consuming because it involves lot of mathematical computations. Also serial segmentation of multiple MRI slices (usually required for 3D visualization) takes exponential time. This results in need for improvement in performance as far as the time complexity is concerned. This paper proposes a methodology that incorporates the K-means clustering and morphological operation for parallel segmentation of multiple MRI slices corresponding to single patient. Segmentation of multiple MRI slices for tumor extraction plays major role in 3D (Three Dimensional) visualization and serves as an input for the same. The proposed framework follows SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) model and since the segmentation of individual slice is independent of each other and can be performed in parallel and multithreading definitely speeds up the entire process. Also the framework does not involve any kind of inter-process communication thus the time is saved here as well.
Spatio-temporal patterns in CNNs for classification: the winnerless competition principle

Researches in neurophysiology have shown that neurons belonging to olfactory system in the insect brain as well as in vertebrate nervous system respond to external stimuli with complex spike sequences. These can be regarded as the result of a transformation of spatial inputs into spatio-temporal patterns. From this biological evidence, dynamical systems able to represent this dynamics in term of stimulus-dependent closed orbits have been studied. Under consideration, in particular, there have been neural networks called "winnerless competition" networks: the trajectories of such systems pass near heteroclinic orbits connecting saddle points or limit cycles. The sequence of saddles which forms the trajectory varies, as a function either of the connection strength between the neurons or of some additive terms which represent the stimuli. In this way the system has an intrinsic capability of distinguish among different stimuli and can be used as a classifier. In this work we investigate how a winnerless competition network can be created by using a single layer CNN and how the trajectory is modified by the incoming stimuli. Then we propose a compact rule to code the different trajectories in order to extract from the spatio-temporal patterns a simple code which labels the class associated with the current stimulus
EU immigration and asylum law : text and commentary

Since entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam on 1 May 1999, the EU has considered, and in many cases adopted, many proposals for legislation or measures implementing legislation in the area of immigration and asylum law. These measures run the gamut from highly technical operational matters to broad measures covering basic aspects of immigration and asylum law. Between them, the proposed or adopted measures cover virtually every possible issue in relation to immigration or asylum. This book contains the text of and commentary upon a large number of these measures proposed or adopted up until 1 January 2006, including all of the most important ones. It also includes the text of the key measures concerning asylum, legal migration and irregular migration. A full list of the measures with references to their legislative history is provided. The authors of each commentary are experts in the field of EU immgration and asylum law, and the areas covered include visa and border controls, asylum, legal migration and integration, and irregular migration.
1 . 1 FFAGs for Muon Acceleration

Muons present unique challenges for acceleration. First of all, muons decay: this means that any acceleration must be rapid. A practical minimum is around 1 MV/m. This rules out traditional synchrotron designs, which contain a relatively small amount of RF per turn. One could have more RF per turn in a synchrotron, but then one runs into the challenge of ramping the magnetic fields sufficiently rapidly [1]. One could accelerate very rapidly in a linac, but that becomes very expensive: one would like to pass through the accelerating structures many times to reduce RF costs. To be able to pass through the same linac many times without having to ramp magnets, previous studies have used a multiple-arc recirculating accelerator [2—3]. These too have their challenges. One must design a switchyard that puts the beam into a different arc corresponding to the beam's energy on that pass. The number of passes through the switchyard is limited by the fact that the highest energy in the beam from one pass must not exceed the lowest energy in the beam at the next pass. With the relatively large energy spreads in our beam, this is a nontrivial restriction. The finite transverse beam size and the necessity of extra space for the magnet coils, cryostats, and other hardware makes this even more restrictive. Furthermore, one has some emittance growth at each matching section from a linac to an arc. Finally, at some point the system cost begins to increase as one makes more turns, because the cost of additional arcs exceeds the cost reduction due to the reduced RF requirement. An FFAG (Fixed Field Alternating Gradient) accelerator is one way to try to address some of these concerns. The idea behind an FFAG is to create a strong-focusing arc lattice with an extremely large energy acceptance (a factor of 2 to 3 in this article). If one can accomplish this, then one avoids the difficulties of the multiple-arc recirculating accelerator. There is no need for a switchyard, so energy overlap from one turn to the next is irrelevant. The matching problem can be avoided if the RF is distributed around the ring, and thus the beam sees an adiabatically changing lattice. Reducing the RF by going to more turns does not require than an additional arc be built. One can therefore hope that an FFAG can provide a cost-effective alternative for accelerating muons. This …
Reciprocal Fairness and Noncompensating Wage Differentials

In this paper we report the results of a series of competitive market experiments in which, according to competitive theory, noncompensating wage differentials should not occur. Contrary to this prediction the evidence shows a stable pattern of noncompensating wage differentials: The higher the profits of a firm from the employment of a worker, the higher are its wage offers. Moreover, the higher the wage paid, the higher is workers' effort level. Due to workers' reciprocal behaviour, firms at all profitability levels pay significantly positive job rents. (JEL: J 41, J 64, C91,C92)
Prognostic effect of preoperative sequential transcatheter arterial chemoembolization and portal vein embolization for right hepatectomy in patients with solitary hepatocellular carcinoma

Backgrounds/Aims Both preoperative transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) alone and portal vein embolization (PVE) alone have a detrimental prognostic effect on the post-resection outcomes in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The main objective of this study was to assess the prognostic impact of preoperative TACE on the long-term survival outcomes in patients undergoing preoperative PVE and right liver resection for solitary HCC. Methods Patients who underwent macroscopic curative right liver resection of solitary HCC that lied between 3.0 and 7.0 cm (n=113) with or without preoperative TACE and PVE were selected for the study, making these subjects were divided into three groups; the TACE-PVE group (n=27), the PVE-alone group (n=13), and the control group (n=73). The subjects in the three groups were followed up for ≥36 months or until death. Results The 1-, 3-, 5-, and 10-year overall patient survival rates of all 113 patients were 96.5%, 88.2%, 81.3% and 65.0%, respectively. The 1-, 3-, 5-, and 10-year overall patient survival rates were 96.3%, 83.4%, 83.4% and 47.6% respectively in the TACE-PVE group; 84.6%, 76.9%, 57.7% and 19.2% respectively in the PVE-alone group; and 98.6%, 91.7%, 85.1% and 81.7% respectively in the control group (p=0.047). Patients were also sub-grouped according to tumor size, and those with a tumor of up to cutoff at 5 cm showed no prognostic difference (p=0.774), but tumor size >5 cm was associated with inferior patient survival only in the TACE-PVE group (p=0.018). Conclusions Preoperative sequential TACE and PVE appear to be compliant to the conventional oncological concept in addition to induction of the future remnant liver regeneration. Therefore, we suggest that preoperative TACE should be come first whenever preoperative PVE for major hepatectomy is planned, especially in patients with hypervascular HCC tumors.
Involvement of CTGF in TGF-beta1-stimulation of myofibroblast differentiation and collagen matrix contraction in the presence of mechanical stress.

PURPOSE This study was undertaken to investigate the role of connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) in fibroblast-to-myofibroblast differentiation and fibroblast-mediated collagen matrix contraction in the presence of mechanical stress. METHODS An in vitro three-dimensional contraction model of human corneal-fibroblast-seeded collagen lattices (FSCLs) in the presence of mechanical stress generated by attaching the lattices to the culture well was used to measure FSCL contraction. FSCLs were treated with CTGF; TGF-beta1; serum-free (SF) control medium; or TGF-beta1 plus antisense oligodeoxynucleotides to CTGF; TGF-beta1 plus scrambled-sequence oligodeoxynucleotide to CTGF; or TGF-beta antibody. Expression of alpha-smooth muscle actin (alpha-SMA) by fibroblasts in FSCLs was detected by immunostaining and confocal microscopy, whereas ELISA was used for the fibroblasts cultured on plastic. The conditioned media were analyzed by ELISA for CTGF production. RESULTS Exogenous CTGF stimulated significantly less collagen matrix contraction and myofibroblast differentiation than TGF-beta1, but similar to that stimulated by SF. TGF-beta1 stimulated fibroblasts to express CTGF. CTGF antisense oligodeoxynucleotide inhibited TGF-beta1-stimulated myofibroblast differentiation and FSCL contraction. Exogenous CTGF circumvented the inhibitory effects of CTGF antisense on FSCL contraction. TGF-beta antibody significantly inhibited FSCL contraction and myofibroblast differentiation under mechanical stress and SF control conditions. CONCLUSIONS In the presence of mechanical stress, CTGF is necessary for TGF-beta1-stimulation of myofibroblast differentiation and subsequent collagen matrix contraction, but CTGF alone is not sufficient to induce myofibroblast differentiation and collagen matrix contraction. Thus, TGF-beta1 appears to regulate multiple genes that are essential for fibroblast-mediated contraction of stressed matrix, one of which is CTGF.
AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO THE TRIANGULATION OF SPOT IMAGERY

Satellite line scanner imagery such as that of SPOT and MOMS-02 is usually analysed via a collinearity equation approach based on projective transformation. This paper discusses the application of an alternative approach to the triangulation of satellite line scanner imagery, namely affine projection. The approach involves an initial transformation of the original perspective line image into an affine projection, which is then followed by a linear transformation from image to object space for stereo geometries (cross-track and along-track). The triangulation phase for the affine image data is in turn in two stages. In the first a preliminary adjustment is performed to determine initial values of the six affine transformation parameters for the selected ‘orientation image lines’. The interval of orientation images is about 2,000 lines and the behaviour of the transformation parameters between adjacent orientation images is assumed to be linear. This phase of the process utilises ground control points only. A bundle type triangulation adjustment then follows, in which affine transformation parameters are refined along with the object point triangulation. Initially, the paper reviews features of the affine projection model with special reference being given to the perspective-toaffine conversion for each image line. The method for acquiring initial values for the bundle adjustment is also discussed, along with ground control considerations. Application of the affine orientation model to a SPOT scene covering the Kobe/Osaka area of Japan is then reported, for both Level-1 and Level-2 cross-track imagery. The results of the triangulation indicate that ground check point accuracies at the level of 6m in planimetry and 7.5m in height can be obtained, for both Level-1 and Level-2 imagery, for ground control configurations of 6 or more well distributed points. The results obtained are very encouraging, especially for the geometrically corrected Level-2 imagery. They illustrate that, in spite of some minor theoretical shortcomings with the formulation of the affine projection model, ground point triangulation accuracies equivalent to and in cases better than alternative approaches based on perspective transformation models can be achieved.
Using AOP to build complex data centric component frameworks

This paper describes our experiences with building a component framework for a family of complex data processing applications. The framework architecture consists of a number of processing components operating on a central data structure. In building such a framework two important issues arise. The first issue concerns the complexity of the central data structure. The second problem arises when correct component compositions need to be made. The complex nature of the natural language processing application domain results in a core data structure, consisting of information common to the entire domain, plus a number of additional data types for each branch in the application framework. Due to the complexity and diversity of this information, these data types can easily cut across each other. We solved this problem by creating an aspect for each data type that may or may not cut across the core data structure. Secondly the component composition issue revealed the problem of hidden dependencies between components. These hidden dependencies complicate the creation of correct compositions with respect to component execution order. The dependencies boil down to the availability of componentspecific data. In our approach, we make the data availability requirement explicit by defining a number of dependency relations between processing components and aspects implementing the branch specific data types. These dependencies specify the types of data a component needs to be able to execute and the types of data that result from its execution. With this information we can create correctly ordered component compositions in a more validating way. In our component framework, aspects thus serve a dual role: On the one hand they solve the problem of cross cutting data structures, on the other hand they are used as a entities to validate component compositions.
An Application of ICA to DS-CDMA Detection

This paper presents the application of the theory and algorithms of independent component analysis (ICA) to solve the symbol estimation problem of the multi users in a direct-sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) communication system. The main focus is on blind separation of convolved CDMA mixture and the improvement of the downlink symbol estimation. A combined scheme of ICA-SUD (single user detection) detector has been simulated. The simulation demonstrated that ICA-SUD gave the lower error rate comparing to the conventional SUD receiver and pure ICA detector with training sequences.
Sparse dynamical models for thermodynamic identification of buildings

Wireless networks can easily provide temperature, humidity and solar radiation measurements from tens to hundreds of sensors, thus potentially providing a fine-grained spatial-temporal resolution. However such a wealth of data may render model identification rather difficult for state of the art methods, which may require enormous amount of data (i.e. measurements taken in a long time window) in order to provide sensible results. In addition using a small number of sensors to perform monitoring and control would be desirable; unfortunately selecting the minimal number of sensors and their location may be a critical issue. As such we investigate the potential of new “sparsity-favoring” techniques in order to jointly perform sensor selection and identification and compare the results with state-of-the-art PEM methods. The results are based on experimental data collected using wireless sensor nodes in a 40m2 residential building over an 8 days period.
Effects of robotic therapy on motor impairment and recovery in chronic stroke.

OBJECTIVE To examine whether robotic therapy can reduce motor impairment and enhance recovery of the hemiparetic arm in persons with chronic stroke. DESIGN Pre-posttest design. SETTING Rehabilitation hospital, outpatient care. PARTICIPANTS Volunteer sample of 20 persons diagnosed with a single, unilateral stroke within the past 1 to 5 years, with persistent hemiparesis. INTERVENTIONS Robotic therapy was provided 3 times weekly for 6 weeks. Subjects able to reach robot targets were randomly assigned to sensorimotor or progressive-resistive robotic therapy groups. Robotic therapy consisted of goal-directed, planar reaching tasks to exercise the hemiparetic shoulder and elbow. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES The Modified Ashworth Scale, Fugl-Meyer test of upper-extremity function, Motor Status Scale (MSS) score, and Medical Research Council motor power score. RESULTS Evaluations by a single blinded therapist revealed statistically significant gains from admission to discharge (P<.05) on the Fugl-Meyer test, MSS score, and motor power score. Secondary analyses revealed group differences: the progressive-resistive therapy group experienced nonspecific improvements on wrist and hand MSS scores that were not observed in the sensorimotor group. CONCLUSIONS Robotic therapy may complement other treatment approaches by reducing motor impairment in persons with moderate to severe chronic impairments.