Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Average case analysis of sparse recovery with thresholding : New bounds based on average dictionary coherence

This paper analyzes the performance of the simple thresholding algorithm for sparse signal representations. In particular, in order to be more realistic we introduce a new probabilistic signal model which assumes randomness for both the amplitude and also the location of nonzero entries. Based on this model we show that thresholding in average can correctly recover signals for much higher sparsity levels than was previously reported. The bounds we obtain in this paper are based on a new concept of average dictionary coherence and are shown to be much sharper than in former works [1,2].
Two Zebrafish eIF4E Family Members Are Differentially Expressed and Functionally Divergent*

Eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E (eIF4E) is an essential component of the translational machinery that binds m7GTP and mediates the recruitment of capped mRNAs by the small ribosomal subunit. Recently, a number of proteins with homology to eIF4E have been reported in plants, invertebrates, and mammals. Together with the prototypical translation factor, these constitute a new family of structurally related proteins. To distinguish the prototypical translation factor eIF4E from other family members, it has been termed eIF4E-1 (Keiper, B. D., Lamphear, B. J., Deshpande, A. M., Jankowska-Anyszka, M., Aamodt, E. J., Blumenthal, T., and Rhoads, R. E. (2000) J. Biol. Chem. 275, 10590-10596). We describe the characterization of two eIF4E family members in the zebrafish Danio rerio. Based on their relative identities with human eIF4E-1, these zebrafish proteins are termed eIF4E-1A (82%) and eIF4E-1B (66%). eIF4E-1B, originally termed eIF4E(L), has been reported previously as the zebrafish eIF4E-1 counterpart (Fahrenkrug, S. C., Dahlquist, M. O., Clark, K., and Hackett, P. B. (1999) Differentiation 65, 191-201; Fahrenkrug, S. C. , Joshi, B. , Hackett, P. B. , and Jagus, R. (2000) Differentiation 66, 15-22). Sequence comparisons suggest that the two genes probably evolved from a duplication event that occurred during vertebrate evolution. eIF4E-1A is expressed ubiquitously in zebrafish, whereas expression of eIF4E-1B is restricted to early embryonic development and to gonads and muscle of the tissues investigated. The ability of these two zebrafish proteins to bind m7GTP, eIF4G, and 4E-BP, as well as to complement yeast conditionally deficient in functional eIF4E, show that eIF4E-1A is a functional equivalent of human eIF4E-1. Surprisingly, although eIF4E-1B possesses all known residues thought to be required for interaction with the cap structure, eIF4G, and 4E-BPs, it fails to interact with any of these components, suggesting that this protein serves a role other than that assigned to eIF4E.
RIZ, the retinoblastoma protein interacting zinc finger gene, is mutated in genetically unstable cancers of the pancreas, stomach, and colorectum

The retinoblastoma protein interacting zinc finger (RIZ) gene is a candidate tumor suppressor gene on 1p36, a region frequently rearranged in a wide variety of human tumors. As the RIZ gene harbors several microsatellites within its coding region, it is a candidate for an inactivating mutation in microsatellite instability (MSI) mediated carcinogenesis. In this study, we examined mutations of two poly adenine tracts, A8 and A9, within the coding region of the RIZ gene, in MSI‐high (MSI‐H) primary cancers occurring in the pancreas, stomach, and colorectum. Frameshift mutations were found in one (10%) of 10 pancreatic, four (36%) of 11 gastric, and two (25%) of eight colorectal cancers. These results indicate that mutations of the RIZ gene play an important role in the pathogenesis of some MSI‐H cancers. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The role of pain acceptance on function in individuals with disabilities: a longitudinal study

Abstract Having higher levels of pain acceptance has been shown to be associated positively with quality of life in patients with chronic pain, but its role in adjustment to chronic pain among individuals with physical disabilities living in the community is not known. Moreover, issues related to item overlap between measures of pain acceptance and measures of patient function have limited the conclusions that can be drawn from previous research in this area. To better understand the role that pain acceptance plays in patient function, we administered measures of pain acceptance, pain intensity, depressive symptoms, and function to 392 individuals with physical disabilities, and the pain, symptom, and function measures were readministered 3.5 years later. Analyses evaluated the main and interaction effects of initial pain acceptance on subsequent changes in pain and function. Having higher levels of pain acceptance—in particular as reflected by a willingness to engage in activities despite pain—resulted in less increase in pain intensity and more improvements in pain interference, physical function, depressive symptoms, and sleep quality. The findings indicate that previous research supporting the importance of pain acceptance to function in patients from health care settings extends to individuals with chronic pain living in the community. Moreover, they indicate that pain acceptance may have long-lasting (up to 3.5 years) beneficial effects on subsequent pain and function and on the association between change in pain and depression. Research to examine the potential benefits of community-based treatments that increase pain acceptance is warranted.
Fulminant liver failure in association with the emetic toxin of Bacillus cereus.

BACKGROUND A 17-year-old boy and his father had acute gastroenteritis after eating spaghetti and pesto that had been prepared four days earlier. Within two days, fulminant liver failure and rhabdomyolysis developed in the boy and he died. The father had hyperbilirubinemia and rhabdomyolysis but recovered. We investigated the cause of these illnesses. METHODS Bacteria were isolated and characterized by conventional methods, and bacterial toxins were quantified by immunoassays and cell-culture techniques. The effect of the isolated toxin on the rates of oxidation of various substrates was analyzed in rat-liver mitochondria. RESULTS Autopsy of the boy's liver revealed diffuse microvesicular steatosis and midzonal necrosis that suggested impaired beta-oxidation of liver mitochondria due to a mitochondrial toxin. There was no evidence of ingestion of heavy metals, halogenated compounds, hepatotoxic drugs, or staphylococcal enterotoxin. However, high concentrations of Bacillus cereus emetic toxin were found in both the residue from the pan used to reheat the food and the boy's liver and bile. B. cereus was cultured from the intestinal contents and the pan residue. The emetic toxin isolated from the B. cereus cultures was found to be a mitochondrial toxin. CONCLUSIONS Fulminant liver failure developed after the ingestion of food contaminated with the B. cereus emetic toxin. The toxin inhibits hepatic mitochondrial fatty-acid oxidation, indicating that it caused liver failure in this patient.
The complex subband decomposition and its application to the decimation of large adaptive filtering problems

We show that a near perfect reconstruction (NPR) M-channel filterbank with a diagonal system inserted between the analysis and synthesis filterbanks may be used to decompose a finite impulse response (FIR) system of order L into M complex subband components, each of order L/K, where K is the downsampling rate. This decomposition is at the expense of using complex arithmetic for the subband processing. The theory surrounding the proposed filterbank structure leads to a new understanding of subbanded adaptive filtering implementations. It also leads naturally to a delayless subbanded adaptive filter scheme. Using conditions on the analysis and synthesis filters, the formulas for the subband components and their respective properties are developed. Simulation results for an acoustic echo cancellation (AEC) example are given to support the developed theory.
BGP performance analysis for large scale VPN

Large enterprises often have sites that are spread in distant locations. These scattered sites need to interconnect with the same level of security and privacy as in a local area network. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) were used to serve this need. A common VPN topology was composed of Multiprotocol extensions for the Border Gateway Protocol (MP-BGP) and Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS). This technology preserves privacy among multiple VPN via MPLS tunnels traffic isolation, whereas BGP distributes VPN route informations. Despite the wide deployment of BGP MPLS VPNs, the disadvantages of this VPN technology gradually be exposed with the VPN scale expanding.We have a study to the behavior of a large scale VPN. A simple analysis shows that slow routes convergence and slow route table transfer is the main reason. Slow routes convergence makes a increasing time to update exchange update routes between routers, meanwhile, Slow route table transfer leads to a lower utilization of provider backbone.
ActivePaD surface haptic device

We present a new surface haptic interface that combines a variable friction device (the Large Area TPaD) with an impedance controlled planar mechanism. This device configuration is novel because it allows control of the frictional force in the static friction regime, control of the direction of force in the kinetic friction regime, as well as a degree of control over the transition between the two regimes. The range of operating modes combined with a large force capability make the device an appropriate platform for exploring surface haptic control algorithms. The design of the system is explained, two major categories of control algorithm are introduced, and the implementation of a virtual dimple is discussed. Experimental data are used to compare a virtual dimple to its physical analog, and to reveal areas for improvement.
TOOMAS: Interactive Shopping Guide robots in everyday use - final implementation and experiences from long-term field trials

The paper gives a comprehensive overview of our Shopping Guide project, which aims at the development of interactive mobile shopping companion robots for everyday use in challenging operating environments such as home improvement stores. It is spanning an arc from the expectations and requirements of store owners and customers, via the challenges of the shopping scenario and the operating environment, the implemented functionality of the shopping guide robots, up to the results of long-term field trials. The field trials started in April 2008 and still ongoing aim at studying whether and how a group of interactive mobile shopping guide robots can operate completely autonomously in such everyday environments and how they are accepted by uninstructed customers. In these field trials, where nine robotic shopping guides traveled together 2187 kilometers in three different home improvement stores in Germany, more than 8,600 customers were successfully guided to the locations of their products of choice. With the successful development of these shopping guide robots, a further important step towards assistive robotics for daily use has been done.
Meningococcal vaccines : past , present , and future perspectives

Meningococcal disease remains a significant global public health issue and is unique among causes of bacterial meningitis and sepsis where not only does it cause sporadic disease but also outbreaks. The prevention of meningococcal disease also presents a serious challenge . Although polysaccharide vaccines have been available for serogroup A, C, Y, and W135 for many years, serogroup C polysaccharideprotein conjugate vaccine has only recently been licensed in many countries. More recently, a conjugate vaccine for a combination of serogroup A, C, Y, and W135 has been made available. The major hurdle in achieving the goal of eradication is the development of a safe and immunogenic vaccine against serogroup B infections. Outer membrane vesicle vaccines are already used in some countries, and will likely be used more widely in the next few years, but efficacy for endemic disease in children has so far been disappointing. Through the recent availability of the meningococcal genome sequence, many new vaccine candidates are being identified and there is increasing optimism that a solution to the problem can be found. However, none of these has yet been presented as the "universal" protective antigen and work in this field continues to be held back by our limited knowledge concerning the mechanisms of natural protection against serogroup B.
Ocular Surface Alterations and Topical Antiglaucomatous Therapy: A Review

Ocular Surface Disease (OSD) is prevalent among medically treated patients with glaucoma. This is basically related to three key-points: OSD and glaucoma are both prevalent in elderly and are common comorbidities in the same patient; the role of the active ingredient of the medical antiglaucomatous therapy; the role of the preservative agent of this medical therapy. Considering the actual state of literature we can state that the active glaucoma agent have a role in OSD, but the main cause seems to be the preservative agent, in particular referring to benzalkonium chloride, BAK. In the clinical evaluation of dry eye patients there is no actually established gold standard. Since the ocular surface injury not only causes dry eye, red eye, eye itching, photophobia and other discomforts, but also increases the risk of failure of glaucoma surgery in patients, it becomes fundamental a complete and good clinical evaluation of OSD (considering Schirmer’s test, tear breakup time, corneal and conjunctival staining) together with a good evaluation of patients’ quality of life (with validated questionnaires). Development of complex preparations, preservative-free and/or novel preservative preparations for glaucoma therapy could provide a promising approach in the prevention of ocular surface injuries.
The Unique Games Conjecture with Entangled Provers is False

We consider one-round games between a classical verifier and two provers who share entanglement. We show that when the constraints enforced by the verifier are ‘unique’ constraints (i.e., permutations), the value of the game can be well approximated by a semidefinite program. Essentially the only algorithm known previously was for the special case of binary answers, as follows from the work of Tsirelson in 1980. Among other things, our result implies that the variant of the unique games conjecture where we allow the provers to share entanglement is false. Our proof is based on a novel ‘quantum rounding technique’, showing how to take a solution to an SDP and transform it to a strategy for entangled provers.
Combining Molecular Data with Classical Morphology for Uncultured Phagotrophic Euglenids (Excavata): A Single‐Cell Approach

Phagotrophic euglenids are one of the most diverse and important forms of heterotrophic flagellates in sediment systems, and are key to understanding the evolution of photosynthetic euglenids and ‘primary osmotrophs’, yet relatively little is known about their biodiversity and phylogenetic relationships. A wealth of light microscopy‐based information is available, but little progress has been made in associating this with molecular sequence data. We established a protocol to obtain light microscopy data and molecular data from single euglenid cells isolated from environmental samples. Individual cells from freshwater and marine benthic samples were isolated and rinsed by micropipetting, documented using high‐resolution photomicroscopy, then subjected to single‐cell nested PCR using taxon‐specific primers in combination with universal eukaryotic primers, generating > 75% or full‐length SSU rDNA sequences. As a proof‐of‐principle eight individuals were characterised and subjected to phylogenetic analyses. Many of these cells were identified as Anisonema or Dinema, and grouped with existing sequences assigned to these taxa, and with a ‘Peranema sp. ’ sequence that we could now clearly demonstrate was misidentified or misannotated. Another cell is Heteronema c.f. exaratum, the first ‘skidding heteronemid’ for which sequence data are available. This is not closely related to Heteronema scaphurum, and intriguingly, branches as the sister group to primary osmotrophs. A cell similar to Ploeotia vitrea (the type of this genus), shows no particular phylogenetic affinity to Ploeotia costata, the best studied Ploeotia species. Our experimental protocol provides a useful starting point for future analyses on euglenid biodiversity (including environmental sequence surveys), and their evolution and systematics.
Digital Futures for Cultural and Media Studies

An ambitious rendering of the digital future from a pioneer of media and cultural studies, a wise and witty take on a changing field, and our orientation to it Investigates the uses of multimedia by creative and productive citizen-consumers to provide new theories of communication that accommodate social media, participatory action, and user-creativity Leads the way for new interdisciplinary engagement with systems thinking, complexity and evolutionary sciences, and the convergence of cultural and economic values Analyzes the historical uses of multimedia from print, through broadcasting to the internet Combines conceptual innovation with historical erudition to present a high-level synthesis of ideas and detailed analysis of emergent forms and practices Features an international focus and global reach to provide a basis for students and researchers seeking broader perspectives
TimeMerger-Disparate Temporal Data Analysis

In the University of Maryland's Space Systems Laboratory, like many other such laboratories, it is often difficult to analyze the large volume of temporal data of various types created when operating robotic systems. This is due to the sheer amount of data, the differing types of data, and the lack of a collaborative tool for analysts and researchers. TimeMerger extends an existing powerful analytical time series tool with a variety of time line visualizations that are suited for many common disparate data types. They are presented graphically aligned to facilitate comparisons, trend analysis, and error interpretation. There have been tools developed and discussed in research that provide portions of similar analytical time lines of different domain data. TimeMerger is unique in its specific visualizations and its application to complex systems and their interactions, and was developed in close cooperation with domain experts.
Anterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion in Patients With a Previous Discectomy: Minimum 2-Year Follow-Up

Objective: A retrospective review was conducted to determine the availability of anterior lumbar interbody fusion (ALIF) in selected patients who presented with recurrent lumbar disc herniation. Methods: A total of 22 patients who underwent ALIF were studied clinically and radiographically. The patients were 11 men and 11 women, with a mean age of 46 years (range 23-60 years) at the time of ALIF. The mean follow-up duration was 35 months (range 30-42 months). The fused level at which the ALIF was performed was as follows: L3-L4 (1 patient), L4-L5 (14 patients), and L5-S1 (7 patients). Back pain, leg pain, and functional outcomes were measured both before surgery and at the last follow-up visit. Patient satisfaction index was also assessed. Results: Leg pain, back pain, and functional status all demonstrated statistically significant improvements between preoperative and postoperative scores by 86%, 77%, and 82%, respectively (P < 0.001). Nineteen of 22 patients (86.3%) were satisfied with their clinical results. Solid fusion was found in all patients. Conclusions: The authors found ALIF to be an effective procedure with satisfactory clinical results in selected patients with a recurrent disc herniation in the lumbar spine.
Entrepreneurial Action: Conceptual Foundations and Research Challenges

This chapter describes part of the philosophical and psychological context for the study of entrepreneurial action. Unlike some other human behaviors, entrepreneurial action is typically extended through time, bringing it into the realm of personal causality. When intention, motivation, and environmental properties are all considered, one is led to the metatheoretical assumptions that (a) human beings are capable of conscious thought, (b) they are capable of intentional action, and (c) effort exerted in the direction of an intention can lead to an “equifinal” outcome regardless of starting point or obstacles that may appear along the way. Entrepreneurship research should more explicitly take note of these traditions to ensure that the measures selected incorporate the multiple antecedents of entrepreneurial action. This chapter has four primary objectives: to outline the precursors of intentional action of any sort, to touch on the specifics of entrepreneurial intention, to ameliorate a bit of our concern over self-report measures, and to describe methodological alternatives that might have promise for the future.
A Single-Phase Multilevel Inverter With Battery Balancing

In this paper, a single-phase multilevel inverter with battery balancing is proposed. The input of each individual inverter is directly connected to a battery. The combination of batteries can be controlled according to the batteries' voltages to implement the battery-balancing function. The operational principle of the proposed system is first described, and then, the design equation is derived. Experiments show that the battery-balancing discharge function is achieved. Finally, a prototype is designed and implemented to verify the feasibility and excellent performance.
Double Time: Is Health Affected by a Spouse’s Time at Work?

The amount of time families spend at work increased substantially over the course of the 20th century, but the health implications of these shifts remain poorly understood. Using the NLSY79, we examine potential consequences of men’s and women’s work time on the health of their spouse. We also investigate three mechanisms through which spousal hours might affect health: resources from the job, stress, and time for physical activity and exercise. Husbands’ long (50+) hours predict better health for wives, due in part to greater resources. Wives’ moderately long (41–49) hours of work predict worse health for husbands, due in part to husbands’ reduced exercise time. Our gendered findings highlight persistent inequities in work and family life that constrain the family health–promoting benefits of women’s labor.