Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On the impact of relay-side channel state information on opportunistic relaying

Outage performance of network topology-aware opportunistic relay selection is studied using stochastic geometry techniques with the focus on the impact of different levels of channel state information (CSI) available at relays. Specifically, two scenarios with either (a) exact instantaneous or (b) only statistical CSI are compared with an explicit account for both small-scale Rayleigh fading and path loss due to random node locations. Analytical and simulation results suggest that although similar diversity order can be achieved in both cases, the lack of precise CSI to support relay selection translates into significant increase in the power required to achieve the same level of QoS. In addition, when only statistical CSI is available, achieving high diversity order is possible by employing multiple relays at the cost of performance degradation at low SNR due to splitting of system resources.
Genetic architecture of main effect QTL for heading date in European winter wheat

A genome-wide association study (GWAS) for heading date (HD) was performed with a panel of 358 European winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) varieties and 14 spring wheat varieties through the phenotypic evaluation of HD in field tests in eight environments. Genotyping data consisted of 770 mapped microsatellite loci and 7934 mapped SNP markers derived from the 90K iSelect wheat chip. Best linear unbiased estimations (BLUEs) were calculated across all trials and ranged from 142.5 to 159.6 days after the 1st of January with an average value of 151.4 days. Considering only associations with a −log10 (P-value) ≥ 3.0, a total of 340 SSR and 2983 SNP marker-trait associations (MTAs) were detected. After Bonferroni correction for multiple testing, a total of 72 SSR and 438 SNP marker-trait associations remained significant. Highly significant MTAs were detected for the photoperiodism gene Ppd-D1, which was genotyped in all varieties. Consistent associations were found on all chromosomes with the highest number of MTAs on chromosome 5B. Linear regression showed a clear dependence of the HD score BLUEs on the number of favorable alleles (decreasing HD) and unfavorable alleles (increasing HD) per variety meaning that genotypes with a higher number of favorable or a low number of unfavorable alleles showed lower HD and therefore flowered earlier. For the vernalization gene Vrn-A2 co-locating MTAs on chromosome 5A, as well as for the photoperiodism genes Ppd-A1 and Ppd-B1 on chromosomes 2A and 2B were detected. After the construction of an integrated map of the SSR and SNP markers and by exploiting the synteny to sequenced species, such as rice and Brachypodium distachyon, we were able to demonstrate that a marker locus on wheat chromosome 5BL with homology to the rice photoperiodism gene Hd6 played a significant role in the determination of the heading date in wheat.
Generational versus steady-state evolution for optimizing neural network learning

The use of simulated evolution is now a commonplace technique for optimizing the learning abilities of neural network systems. Neural network details such as architecture, initial weight distributions, gradient descent learning rates, and regularization parameters, have all been successfully evolved to result in improved performance. The author investigates which evolutionary approaches work best in this field. In particular, he compares the traditional generational approach to a more biologically realistic steady-state approach.
Cases as Structured Indexes for Full-Length Documents

Two long, full-length texts are not likely to discuss all, or almost all, of the same subtopics or subpoints. Even if the documents contain many of the same terms, the ways the terms are grouped to form subtopical discussions still might be quite different. A solution is to create a description of a document which lists all of its subtopical discussions as well as its main topics. An index that indicates this structure is an abstract representation of the document, and we can think of this index as a case in the CaseBased Reasoning (CBR) sense. This paper proposes the use of cases to represent the high-level structure of full-length documents for the purpose of information retrieval. The cases are to be used both for assessing document similarity and for helping the user construct viable queries. The case can be transformed in various ways in order to make it more similar to the descriptions of other documents; these transformations include generalizing, substituting, and emphasizing subtopic descriptions. An advantage of this approach is that the cases that represent the document are automatically generable.
Using version information in architectural clustering - a case study

This paper describes a case study that uses clustering to group classes of an existing object-oriented system of significant size into subsystems. The clustering process is based on the structural relations between the classes: associations, generalizations and dependencies. We experiment with different combinations of relationships and different ways to use this information in the clustering process. The results clearly show that dependency relations are vital to achieve good clusterings. The clustering is performed with a third party tool called Bunch. Compared to other clustering methods the results come relatively close to the result of a manual reconstruction. Performance wise the clustering takes a significant amount of time, but not too much to make it unpractical. In our case study, we base the clustering on information from multiple versions and compare the result to that obtained when basing the clustering on a single version. We experiment with several combinations of versions. If the clustering is based on relations that were present in both the reconstructed and the first version this leads to a significantly better clustering result compared to that obtained when using only information from the reconstructed version
Multi‐jawed chaetognaths from the Chengjiang Lagerstätte (Cambrian, Series 2, Stage 3) of Yunnan, China

Chaetognaths (arrow‐worms) are enigmatic in terms of their phylogenetic position, while the existence of Protosagitta spinosa from the Chengjiang Lagerstätte suggests minimal change in their unique bodyplan since at least the early Cambrian. Apart from rare (and sometimes controversial) soft‐bodied remains, the fossil record of chaetognaths is otherwise almost entirely dependent on early Palaeozoic phosphatic microfossils, some of which are placed amongst so‐called protoconodonts. Fused spine clusters are strikingly similar to the cephalic grasping apparatus of extant forms and are assumed to have had a comparable configuration. Here we report a new chaetognath, Ankalodous sericus gen. et sp. nov., coeval with Protosagitta but with a complex feeding apparatus consisting of multiple bundles of recurved spines whose principal function appears to have been grasping. Like all other chaetognaths a predatory mode of life is likely, but its position relative to the sediment–water interface is less certain. Reduction of the feeding apparatus, from the multi‐jawed arrangement of A. sericus to the grasping spines and associated smaller teeth seen in other chaetognaths, was probably a subsequent development and conceivably was linked with a shift to a pelagic mode of life. We also report a new specimen of Protosagitta. This confirms earlier observations but it possesses hitherto unrecognized features, including a cephalic tentacle and fin rays.
Lyssaviruses and rabies: current conundrums, concerns, contradictions and controversies

Lyssaviruses are bullet-shaped, single-stranded, negative-sense RNA viruses and the causative agents of the ancient zoonosis rabies. Africa is the likely home to the ancestors of taxa residing within the Genus Lyssavirus, Family Rhabdoviridae. Diverse lyssaviruses are envisioned as co-evolving with bats, as the ultimate reservoirs, over seemingly millions of years. In terms of relative distribution, overt abundance, and resulting progeny, rabies virus is the most successful lyssavirus species today, but for unknown reasons. All mammals are believed to be susceptible to rabies virus infection. Besides reservoirs among the Chiroptera, meso-carnivores also serve as major historical hosts and are represented among the canids, raccoons, skunks, mongooses, and ferret badgers. Perpetuating as a disease of nature with the mammalian central nervous system as niche, host breadth alone precludes any candidacy for true eradication. Despite having the highest case fatality of any infectious disease and a burden in excess of or comparative to other major zoonoses, rabies remains neglected. Once illness appears, no treatment is proven to prevent death. Paradoxically, vaccines were developed more than a century ago, but the clear majority of human cases are unvaccinated. Tens of millions of people are exposed to suspect rabid animals and tens of thousands succumb annually, primarily children in developing countries, where canine rabies is enzootic. Rather than culling animal populations, one of the most cost-effective strategies to curbing human fatalities is the mass vaccination of dogs. Building on considerable progress to date, several complementary actions are needed in the near future, including a more harmonized approach to viral taxonomy, enhanced de-centralized laboratory-based surveillance, focal pathogen discovery and characterization, applied pathobiological research for therapeutics, improved estimates of canine populations at risk, actual production of required vaccines and related biologics, strategies to maximize prevention but minimize unnecessary human prophylaxis, and a long-term, realistic plan for sustained global program support to achieve success in disease control, prevention, and elimination.
Face verification system architecture using smart cards

A smart card based face verification system is proposed in which the feature extraction and decision making is performed on the card. Such an architecture has many privacy and security benefits. As smart cards are limited computational platforms, the face verification algorithms have to be adapted to limit the facial image representations. This minimises the information needed to send to the card and lessens the computational load of the template matching. Studies performed on the BANCA and XM2VTS databases demonstrate that by limiting these representations, the verification performance of the system is not degraded and that the proposed architecture is a viable one.
Emotional Picture and Word Processing: An fMRI Study on Effects of Stimulus Complexity

Neuroscientific investigations regarding aspects of emotional experiences usually focus on one stimulus modality (e.g., pictorial or verbal). Similarities and differences in the processing between the different modalities have rarely been studied directly. The comparison of verbal and pictorial emotional stimuli often reveals a processing advantage of emotional pictures in terms of larger or more pronounced emotion effects evoked by pictorial stimuli. In this study, we examined whether this picture advantage refers to general processing differences or whether it might partly be attributed to differences in visual complexity between pictures and words. We first developed a new stimulus database comprising valence and arousal ratings for more than 200 concrete objects representable in different modalities including different levels of complexity: words, phrases, pictograms, and photographs. Using fMRI we then studied the neural correlates of the processing of these emotional stimuli in a valence judgment task, in which the stimulus material was controlled for differences in emotional arousal. No superiority for the pictorial stimuli was found in terms of emotional information processing with differences between modalities being revealed mainly in perceptual processing regions. While visual complexity might partly account for previously found differences in emotional stimulus processing, the main existing processing differences are probably due to enhanced processing in modality specific perceptual regions. We would suggest that both pictures and words elicit emotional responses with no general superiority for either stimulus modality, while emotional responses to pictures are modulated by perceptual stimulus features, such as picture complexity.
Data communication in linear wireless sensor networks using unmanned aerial vehicles

The wireless sensor network (WSN) technology have been evolving very quickly in recent years. Sensors are constantly increasing in sensing, processing, storage, and communication capabilities. In many WSNs that are used in environmental, commercial and military applications, the sensors are lined up linearly due to the linear nature of the structure or area that is being monitored making a special class of these networks; We defined these in a previous paper as Linear Sensor Networks (LSNs), and provided a classification of the different types of LSNs. A pure multihop approach to route the data all the way along the linear network (e.g. oil, gas and water pipeline monitoring, border monitoring, road-side monitoring, etc.), which can extend for hundreds or even thousands of kilometers can be very costly from an energy dissipation point of view. In order to significantly reduce the energy consumption used in data transmission and extend the network lifetime, we present a framework for monitoring linear infrastructures using LSNs where data collection and transmission is done using UAVs. The system defines four types of nodes, which include: sensor nodes (SNs), relay nodes (RNs), UAVs, and sinks. The SNs use a classic WSN multihop routing approach to transmit their data to the nearest RN, which acts as a cluster head for its surrounding SNs. A UAV moves back and forth along the linear network and transports the data that is collected by the RNs to the sinks located at both ends of the LSN. We name this network architecture a UAV-based LSN (ULSN). In addition, three different UAV movement approaches are presented, simulated, and analyzed in order to measure the system performance under various network conditions.
Modular integration of CMOS and SOI-MEMS using "plug-up" concept

This paper reports a novel method for monolithic integration of electronics with micromechanical devices. The fabrication sequence differs from those previously described. Even though some of the elements of CMOS and MEMS fabrication are intermixed and make use of each other, they still are modular packages, which can be sequentially fabricated in separate specialized factories if both of the technologies are not available at one site. Standard or tailored SOI wafers can be used for the substrate material. Vacuum cavities are then made at predetermined regions of the buried oxide using a special technique, "Plug-up". We have demonstrated that cavity wafers of this kind can progress through the entire bipolar enhanced CMOS cycle without complications. In the end, MOS and bipolar transistors operate almost identically to reference devices on bulk silicon wafers and MEMS membranes resonate mechanically as anticipated. The proposed modular process sequence is tabulated in Fig. 1.
Fate of MgSiO3 melts at core–mantle boundary conditions

Significance A new technique has been developed to measure in situ the density of amorphous material composed of light elements under extreme conditions of pressure using the X-ray absorption method. At core–mantle boundary (CMB) pressure, the densities of MgSiO3 glass and melts are similar to the one of the crystalline bridgmanite, within uncertainty. Due to the affinity of iron oxide for silicate liquids, melting in the MgSiO3–FeSiO3 system will produce dense melts that could accumulate above the CMB, leading to the formation of a dense basal magma ocean in the early Earth's mantle. One key for understanding the stratification in the deep mantle lies in the determination of the density and structure of matter at high pressures, as well as the density contrast between solid and liquid silicate phases. Indeed, the density contrast is the main control on the entrainment or settlement of matter and is of fundamental importance for understanding the past and present dynamic behavior of the deepest part of the Earth’s mantle. Here, we adapted the X-ray absorption method to the small dimensions of the diamond anvil cell, enabling density measurements of amorphous materials to unprecedented conditions of pressure. Our density data for MgSiO3 glass up to 127 GPa are considerably higher than those previously derived from Brillouin spectroscopy but validate recent ab initio molecular dynamics simulations. A fourth-order Birch–Murnaghan equation of state reproduces our experimental data over the entire pressure regime of the mantle. At the core–mantle boundary (CMB) pressure, the density of MgSiO3 glass is 5.48 ± 0.18 g/cm3, which is only 1.6% lower than that of MgSiO3 bridgmanite at 5.57 g/cm3, i.e., they are the same within the uncertainty. Taking into account the partitioning of iron into the melt, we conclude that melts are denser than the surrounding solid phases in the lowermost mantle and that melts will be trapped above the CMB.
The incidence of deep and lobar intracerebral hemorrhage in whites, blacks, and Hispanics

Background: Black and Hispanic Americans have a greater risk of primary intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) than whites. Deep ICH is most often associated with hypertension, while lobar ICH is associated with cerebral amyloid angiopathy. The authors conducted a population-based incidence study to directly compare the incidence of deep vs lobar ICH in all three race-ethnic groups. Methods: The authors used an active hospital and community surveillance program and autopsy reports to identify incident ICH cases among white, black, and Caribbean Hispanic adults in Northern Manhattan between July 1993 and June 1997. Incidence rates were adjusted for age and sex to the 1990 US Census. CIs for risk ratios (RR) were calculated with Byar’s χ2 approximation of the Poisson distribution. Results: The authors identified 155 cases of ICH for an annual incidence of 30.9/100,000 (26.7 to 35.0). Men had a higher risk of ICH than women (RR 1.5, 95% CI 1.2 to 1.8), driven entirely by the incidence of deep ICH (RR 1.8) rather than lobar ICH (RR 1.0). Compared with whites, RR for blacks was all ICH 3.8 (2.2 to 8.9), deep 4.8 (2.3 to 21.1), lobar 2.8 (1.2 to 14.4); RR for Hispanics was all 2.6 (1.4 to 6.1), deep 3.7 (1.7 to 16.5), lobar 1.4 (0.4 to 7.4). Conclusions: ICH is a heterogeneous disease with deep and lobar subtypes distinguishable on an epidemiologic basis. The different patterns of these two subtypes in our race-ethnically diverse population lend credence to the notion that ICH should no longer be treated as a single entity.
Impact of Psychological Grief Counseling on the Severity of Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms in Mothers after Stillbirths

ABSTRACT Planned support and interventions are necessary in the care and support of women who have experienced stillbirth. The present study was conducted to determine the effect of psychological grief counseling on the symptom severity of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in mothers after stillbirths. This interventional study is semi-experimental. The study was conducted on 100 women who had recently had stillbirths. Eligible samples were selected and randomly divided into the two groups of intervention and control. The data collection tool was the PPQ,1 which was completed as a pre-test and post-test in both groups. The intervention group received four sessions of psychological grief counseling over two weeks, and the control group received only routine postnatal care. PTSD severity was evaluated in both groups at the end of the fourth week after the final session. The results showed that there was a statistically significant difference in the mean score of the severity of the PTSD symptoms in both groups after the intervention (P = 0.0001), which means that psychological grief counseling led to the reduction of PTSD severity in mothers. Given the positive impact of psychological grief counseling on reducing the severity of PTSD, integration of intensive psychological interventions in the maternity care system seems essential for faster transition of grief stages and for the prevention of severe cases of PTSD.
Analysis of Massive MIMO with hardware impairments and different channel models

Massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) is foreseen to be one of the main technology components in next generation cellular communications (5G). In this paper, fundamental limits on the performance of downlink massive MIMO systems are investigated by means of simulations and analytical analysis. Signal-to-noise-and-interference ratio (SINR) and sum rate for a single-cell scenario multi-user MIMO are analyzed for different array sizes, channel models, and precoding schemes. The impact of hardware impairments on performance is also investigated. Simple approximations are derived that show explicitly how the number of antennas, number of served users, transmit power, and magnitude of hardware impairments affect performance.
C-di-GMP Regulates Motile to Sessile Transition by Modulating MshA Pili Biogenesis and Near-Surface Motility Behavior in Vibrio cholerae

In many bacteria, including Vibrio cholerae, cyclic dimeric guanosine monophosphate (c-di-GMP) controls the motile to biofilm life style switch. Yet, little is known about how this occurs. In this study, we report that changes in c-di-GMP concentration impact the biosynthesis of the MshA pili, resulting in altered motility and biofilm phenotypes in V. cholerae. Previously, we reported that cdgJ encodes a c-di-GMP phosphodiesterase and a ΔcdgJ mutant has reduced motility and enhanced biofilm formation. Here we show that loss of the genes required for the mannose-sensitive hemagglutinin (MshA) pilus biogenesis restores motility in the ΔcdgJ mutant. Mutations of the predicted ATPase proteins mshE or pilT, responsible for polymerizing and depolymerizing MshA pili, impair near surface motility behavior and initial surface attachment dynamics. A ΔcdgJ mutant has enhanced surface attachment, while the ΔcdgJmshA mutant phenocopies the high motility and low attachment phenotypes observed in a ΔmshA strain. Elevated concentrations of c-di-GMP enhance surface MshA pilus production. MshE, but not PilT binds c-di-GMP directly, establishing a mechanism for c-di-GMP signaling input in MshA pilus production. Collectively, our results suggest that the dynamic nature of the MshA pilus established by the assembly and disassembly of pilin subunits is essential for transition from the motile to sessile lifestyle and that c-di-GMP affects MshA pilus assembly and function through direct interactions with the MshE ATPase.
Adaptive Information Technology for Service Lifecycle Management

The shift from enterprise computing to service-oriented and cloud computing is happening very rapidly. As the demand for higher value services increases there will be a greater need for service customization, automation for the provisioning and management of services, and the ability to offer services that satisfy non-functional requirements. This paper describes our research on a model-driven approach for packaging high value enterprise software for use as a service and on managing the service lifecycle of service instances in shared virtualized resource pools. Our approach tackles non-functional issues such as availability, security, scalability, flexibility, and performance. These are important for high value enterprise IT services. A study involving an SAP system demonstrates our progress. Our results show that a model-driven approach can be attractive to software providers that aim to support a large number of service instance. External Posting Date: July 21, 2008 [Fulltext] Approved for External Publication Internal Posting Date: July 21, 2008 [Fulltext] © Copyright 2008 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.