Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Autoregressive Linear Thermal Model of a Residential Forced-Air Heating System with Backpropagation Parameter Estimation Algorithm

Model predictive control (MPC) strategies show great potential for improving the performance and energy efficiency of building heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems. A challenge in the deployment of such predictive thermostatic control systems is the need to learn accurate models for the thermal characteristics of individual buildings. This necessitates the development of online and data-driven methods for system identification. In this paper, we propose an autoregressive with exogenous terms (ARX) model of a building. To learn the model, we present a backpropagation approach for recursively estimating the parameters. Finally, we fit the linear model to data collected from a residential building with a forced-air heating and ventilation system and validate the accuracy of the trained model.
RNA Interference Suggests a Primary Role for Monoacylglycerol Lipase in the Degradation of the Endocannabinoid 2-Arachidonoylglycerol

The endogenous cannabinoid 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG) is produced by neurons and other cells in a stimulus-dependent manner and undergoes rapid biological inactivation through transport into cells and catalytic hydrolysis. The enzymatic pathways responsible for 2-AG degradation are only partially understood. We have shown previously that overexpression of monoacylglycerol lipase (MGL), a cytosolic serine hydrolase that cleaves 1- and 2-monoacylglycerols to fatty acid and glycerol, reduces stimulus-dependent 2-AG accumulation in primary cultures of rat brain neurons. We report here that RNA interference-mediated silencing of MGL expression greatly enhances 2-AG accumulation in HeLa cells. After stimulation with the calcium ionophore ionomycin, 2-AG levels in MGL-silenced cells were comparable with those found in cells in which 2-AG degradation had been blocked using methyl arachidonyl fluorophosphonate, a nonselective inhibitor of 2-AG hydrolysis. The results indicate that MGL plays an important role in the degradation of endogenous 2-AG in intact HeLa cells. Furthermore, immunodepletion experiments show that MGL accounts for at least 50% of the total 2-AG–hydrolyzing activity in soluble fractions of rat brain, suggesting that this enzyme also contributes to 2-AG deactivation in the central nervous system.
Dynamic spectrum sharing for two-layer cellular networks

Deploying femtocells faces a major challenge of causing downlink interference to the existing macrocell. This paper proposes an intelligent spectrum sharing mechanism for a two-layer cellular network, which comprises macrocells and femtocells. Because users are scheduled to access the spectrum in time-domain according to their channel conditions, the usage of spectrum is predictable by tracing the channel conditions. Therefore, the femtocell can be managed, in time-domain, to reconfigure the antenna radiation pattern in order to suppress the interference to closely-located macrocell users who are expecting to access the spectrum. Simulation results show that user throughput at the macrocell edge can be boosted by 83%, compared to deploying femtocells with fixed omni-directional antennas.
Running head: THE EGGLINK BRAIN-COMPUTER INTERFACE 1 The EggLink Brain-Computer Interface: Engineering and Performance Evaluation

Brain-computer interfaces, systems that operate electronic or mechanical systems using imaged brain events as operational input commands, have gained much ground in the research world over the last two decades, as they potentially provide rehabilitative and restorative functionality to a several clinical populations. The EggLink is an electroencephalography-based brain-computer interface that is being developed to operate common household computers based on machine learning classifications of fine motor signals generated in the brain. At this stage, the project involves designing and building the prototype system that will classify fine motor activity (the flicking of each of 10 fingers) to as high a degree of accuracy as possible. Future stages will involve classifying eye movements for computer cursor control, real-time processing, and other functional additions to the overall system design. THE EGGLINK BRAIN-COMPUTER INTERFACE 3 The EggLink Brain-Computer Interface: Engineering and Performance Evaluation
AVERAGE DERIVATIVE ESTIMATION UNDER MEASUREMENT ERROR

In this paper, we derive the asymptotic properties of the density-weighted average derivative estimator when a regressor is contaminated with classical measurement error and the density of this error must be estimated. Average derivatives of conditional mean functions are used extensively in economics and statistics, most notably in semiparametric index models. As well as ordinary smooth measurement error, we provide results for supersmooth error distributions. This is a particularly important class of error distribution as it includes the Gaussian density. We show that under either type of measurement error, despite using nonparametric deconvolution techniques and an estimated error characteristic function, we are able to achieve a $\sqrt {n}$ -rate of convergence for the average derivative estimator. Interestingly, if the measurement error density is symmetric, the asymptotic variance of the average derivative estimator is the same irrespective of whether the error density is estimated or not. The promising finite sample performance of the estimator is shown through a Monte Carlo simulation.
PVC flooring is related to human uptake of phthalates in infants.

UNLABELLED Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) flooring material contains phthalates, and it has been shown that such materials are important sources for phthalates in indoor dust. Phthalates are suspected endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs). Consecutive infants between 2 and 6 months old and their mothers were invited. A questionnaire about indoor environmental factors and family lifestyle was used. Urinary metabolites of the phthalates diethyl phthalate (DEP), dibutyl phthalate (DBP), butylbenzyl phthalate (BBzP), and dietylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) were measured in the urine of the children. Of 209 invited children, 110 (52%) participated. Urine samples were obtained from 83 of these. Urine levels of the BBzP metabolite monobenzyl phthalate (MBzP) was significantly higher in infants with PVC flooring in their bedrooms (P < 0.007) and related to the body area of the infant. Levels of the DEHP metabolites MEHHP (P < 0.01) and MEOHP (P < 0.04) were higher in the 2-month-old infants who were not exclusively breast-fed when compared with breast-fed children. The findings indicate that the use of soft PVC as flooring material may increase the human uptake of phthalates in infants. Urinary levels of phthalate metabolites during early life are associated with the use of PVC flooring in the bedroom, body area, and the use of infant formula. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS This study shows that the uptake of phthalates is not only related to oral uptake from, for example, food but also to environmental factors such as building materials. This new information should be considered when designing indoor environment, especially for children.
Microbial Community Response on Wastewater Discharge in Boreal Lake Sediments

Despite high performance, municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) still discharge significant amounts of organic material and nitrogen and even microbes into the receiving water bodies, altering physico-chemical conditions and microbial functions. In this study, we examined how nitrified wastewater affects the microbiology of boreal lake sediments. Microbial community compositions were assessed with next generation sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene, and a more detailed view on nitrogen transformation processes was gained with qPCR targeting on functional genes (nirS, nirK, nosZI, nosZII, amoAarchaea, and amoAbacteria). In both of the two studied lake sites, the microbial community composition differed significantly between control point and wastewater discharge point, and a gradual shift toward natural community composition was seen downstream following the wastewater gradient. SourceTracker analysis predicted that ∼2% of sediment microbes were of WWTP-origin on the study site where wastewater was freely mixed with the lake water, while when wastewater was specially discharged to the sediment surface, ∼6% of microbes originated from WWTP, but the wastewater-influenced area was more limited. In nitrogen transformation processes, the ratio between nitrifying archaea (AOA) and bacteria (AOB) was affected by wastewater effluent, as the AOA abundance decreased from the control point (AOA:AOB 28:1 in Keuruu, 11:1 in Petäjävesi) to the wastewater-influenced sampling points, where AOB dominated (AOA:AOB 1:2–1:15 in Keuruu, 1:3–1:19 in Petäjävesi). The study showed that wastewater can affect sediment microbial community through importing nutrients and organic material and altering habitat characteristics, but also through bringing wastewater-originated microbes to the sediment, and may thus have significant impact on the freshwater biogeochemistry, especially in the nutrient-poor boreal ecosystems.
An Official Journal of the American Heart Association Actions of Adenosine and Isoproterenol on Isolated Mammalian Ventricular Myocytes

We investigated the effects of adenosine and isoproterenol on enzymatically dispersed ventricular myocytes from bovine and guinea pig hearts. Inrracellular stimulation of relaxed myocytes with regular srriation patterns and normal resting potential resulted in action potentials with full plateaus accompanied by contractions. Adenosine in concentrations up to 0.2 HIM had no significant effect on any of the action potential parameters or on the basal contractility. In contrast, in the same cells, adenosine effectively antagonized the stimulatory effect of isoproterenol. Isoproterenol (1-10 nM) prolonged the action potentials by 34-41%, displaced the plateau to more positive potentials, and caused a 3-fold increase in the extent of myocyte sarcomere shortening. In the presence of adenosine (5-50 HM), isoproterenol increased the action potential duration by only 8-9%, the shift of the plateau was nearly abolished, and the increase in the extent of myocyte sarcomere shortening was less than 10%. In some of the myocytes, isoproterenol (1-10 nM) induced depolarizing afterpotentials accompanied by aftercontractions. The afterdepolarizations occasionally reached threshold resulting in triggered sustained rhythmic activity. Adenosine (20-50 HM) not only reduced the amplitude of the afterdepolarizarions and aftercontractions, but also abolished the sustained rhythmic activity. We conclude, first, that isolated ventricular myocytes respond to isoproterenol and adenosine; second, that adenosine has no direct effect, but effectively antagonizes the stimulatory actions of isoproterenol; third, that findings are consistent with the ones reported for multicellular ventricular preparations; fourth, that adenosine concentrations required to attenuate the actions of isoproterenol are in the range of adenosine concentrations released by cardiac cells when oxygen availability is limited and/or demand is increased; and fifth, that endogenously released adenosine may modulate the electrophysiological and contractile effects of catecholamines. (Circ Res 53: 287-297, 1983)
Communities of practice and knowledge management systems: effects on knowledge management activities and innovation performance

ABSTRACT We empirically analyze the effects of a company’s community of practice and knowledge management system on knowledge management activities and management performance. We gather data by administering surveys to large- and mid-sized companies in Seoul, Gyeonggi, and other regions of Korea. The company samples collected are statistically analyzed using methods: hierarchical analysis and structural equation modeling. First, the community of practice has a positive effect on the knowledge management system. Second, both community of practice and knowledge management system positively affect knowledge management activities, of which the latter has a greater effect. Third, both factors also positively impact innovation performance, of which community of practice has a greater effect. The knowledge management system is not statistically significant in the structural equation model. Fourth, knowledge management activities positively affect innovation performance. The findings highlight the importance of refining and developing knowledge-based processes to lead an entire organization to higher innovation performance.
ATP-DEPENDENT TRANSPORT OF ROSUVASTATIN IN MEMBRANE VESICLES EXPRESSING BREAST CANCER RESISTANCE PROTEIN

MDR1/ABCB1, MRP2/ABCC2, and breast cancer resistance protein (BCRP)/ABCG2 are expressed in the liver and intestine and contribute to the disposition of many drugs. Rosuvastatin, a 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA reductase inhibitor for the treatment of patients with dyslipidemia, is primarily excreted via bile as unchanged drug. The present study was designed to determine whether rosuvastatin is transported by MDR1, MRP2, and BCRP. The apparent permeability value for rosuvastatin across MDR1-Madin-Darby canine kidney cells was low (∼8 nm/s), and no directional transport was observed. Rosuvastatin uptake into control Sf9 membranes and membranes expressing MRP2 was similar in the presence or absence of GSH. In contrast, ATP dramatically stimulated rosuvastatin uptake into membranes expressing BCRP, but not control membranes. Rosuvastatin transport occurred into an osmotically sensitive space and was saturable. An Eadie-Hofstee analysis suggested that there were two transport sites in BCRP, with an apparent Km of 10.8 μM for the high affinity site and 307 μM for the low affinity site. These data demonstrate that rosuvastatin is transported efficiently by BCRP and suggest that BCRP plays a significant role in the disposition of rosuvastatin.
Minimizing the communication cost for continuous skyline maintenance

Existing work in the skyline literature focuses on optimizing the processing cost. This paper aims at minimization of the communication overhead in client-server architectures, where a server continuously maintains the skyline of dynamic objects. Our first contribution is a Filter method that avoids transmission of updates from objects that cannot influence the skyline. Specifically, each object is assigned a filter so that it needs to issue an update only if it violates its filter. Filter achieves significant savings over the naive approach of transmitting all updates. Going one step further, we introduce the concept of frequent skyline query over a sliding window(FSQW). The motivation is that snapshot skylines are not very useful in streaming environments because they keep changing over time. Instead, FSQW reports the objects that appear in the skylines of at least θ ⋅ s of the s most recent timestamps (0 < θ ≤ 1). Filter can be easily adapted to FSQW processing, however, with potentially high overhead for large and frequently updated datasets. To further reduce the communication cost, we propose a Sampling method, which returns approximate FSQW results without computing each snapshot skyline. Finally, we integrate Filter and Sampling in a Hybrid approach that combines their individual advantages.
A low jitter arbitrary-input pulsewidth control loop with wide duty cycle adjustment

An arbitrary-input pulsewidth control loop (AIPWCL) based on a delay-locked loop with duty cycle corrector is presented. The duty cycles of the clock signals can be adjusted from 10% to 90% in 10% steps. The proposed AIPWCL is designed and simulated by using tsmc 0. 13µm CMOS process. The operation frequency range is from 770MHz to 1.05GHz. The locking time of AIPWCL is less than 40ns within the operation frequency band. The power dissipation is 4.38mW at 1.2V voltage supply. The peak-to-peak jitter is less than 1ps at an input clock frequency of 1GHz while adjusting various duty cycles.
Functional Characterization of Duplicated SUPPRESSOR OF OVEREXPRESSION OF CONSTANS 1-Like Genes in Petunia

Flowering time is strictly controlled by a combination of internal and external signals that match seed set with favorable environmental conditions. In the model plant species Arabidopsis thaliana (Brassicaceae), many of the genes underlying development and evolution of flowering have been discovered. However, much remains unknown about how conserved the flowering gene networks are in plants with different growth habits, gene duplication histories, and distributions. Here we functionally characterize three homologs of the flowering gene SUPPRESSOR OF OVEREXPRESSION OF CONSTANS 1 (SOC1) in the short-lived perennial Petunia hybrida (petunia, Solanaceae). Similar to A. thaliana soc1 mutants, co-silencing of duplicated petunia SOC1-like genes results in late flowering. This phenotype is most severe when all three SOC1-like genes are silenced. Furthermore, expression levels of the SOC1-like genes UNSHAVEN (UNS) and FLORAL BINDING PROTEIN 21 (FBP21), but not FBP28, are positively correlated with developmental age. In contrast to A. thaliana, petunia SOC1-like gene expression did not increase with longer photoperiods, and FBP28 transcripts were actually more abundant under short days. Despite evidence of functional redundancy, differential spatio-temporal expression data suggest that SOC1-like genes might fine-tune petunia flowering in response to photoperiod and developmental stage. This likely resulted from modification of SOC1-like gene regulatory elements following recent duplication, and is a possible mechanism to ensure flowering under both inductive and non-inductive photoperiods.
Lumbar Stabilization: Core Concepts and Current Literature, Part 1

Barr KP, Griggs M, Cadby T: Lumbar stabilization: Core concepts and current literature, part 1. Am J Phys Med Rehabil 2005;84:473-480. The factors that affect lumbar stability have been an area of extensive research. The clinical application of this research in the form of lumbar stabilization exercise programs has become a common treatment of low back pain and is also increasingly used by athletes to improve performance and by the general public for health and the prevention of injury. This article includes a review of the key concepts behind lumbar stabilization. The literature regarding how those with low back pain differ in their ability to stabilize the spine from those without low back pain is discussed, and an overview of current research that assesses the benefits of a lumbar stabilization program to treat low back pain is provided.
Property-Directed Inference of Universal Invariants or Proving Their Absence

We present Universal Property Directed Reachability (PDR∀), a property-directed semi-algorithm for automatic inference of invariants in a universal fragment of first-order logic. PDR∀ is an extension of Bradley’s PDR/IC3 algorithm for inference of propositional invariants. PDR∀ terminates when it discovers a concrete counterexample, infers an inductive universal invariant strong enough to establish the desired safety property, or finds a proof that such an invariant does not exist. PDR∀ is not guaranteed to terminate. However, we prove that under certain conditions, for example, when reasoning about programs manipulating singly linked lists, it does. We implemented an analyzer based on PDR∀ and applied it to a collection of list-manipulating programs. Our analyzer was able to automatically infer universal invariants strong enough to establish memory safety and certain functional correctness properties, show the absence of such invariants for certain natural programs and specifications, and detect bugs. All this without the need for user-supplied abstraction predicates.
Updated recommendations from the Canadian National Consensus Meeting on HER2/neu testing in breast cancer

Testing for her2/neu in breast cancer at the time of primary diagnosis is now the standard of care. Accurate and standardized testing methods are of prime importance to ensure the proper classification of the patient’s her2/neu status. A meeting of pathologists from across Canada was convened to update the Canadian her2/neu testing guidelines. This National her2/neu Testing Committee reviewed the recently published American Society of Clinical Oncology/ College of American Pathologists (asco/cap) guidelines for her2/neu testing in breast cancer. The updated Canadian her2/neu testing guidelines are based primarily on the asco/cap guidelines, with some modifications. It is anticipated that widespread adoption of these guidelines will further improve the accuracy of her2/neu testing in Canada.
Comparison of lipid profile parameters and oxidized low-density lipoprotein between normal and preeclamptic pregnancies in a tertiary care hospital in Nepal

Introduction Preeclampsia is a pregnancy-specific complication that significantly contributes to maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality worldwide, even more so in developing countries such as Nepal. The potential contribution of dyslipidemia and elevated levels of oxidized low-density lipoprotein (oxLDL) in the pathogenesis of preeclamptic pregnancies has been observed in several studies. The aim of this study was to compare the maternal lipid profile parameters and particularly oxLDL between preeclamptic and healthy pregnancies and also correlate oxLDL with other lipid profile parameters. Patients and methods A total of 54 preeclamptic women were selected as cases for this cross-sectional study. Age and gestational week-matched 60 pregnant women were enrolled as controls. Preeclampsia was defined as per Australasian Society Consensus Statement research definition. The serum lipid parameters were measured using automated enzymatic systems and a competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was used to determine oxLDL concentrations in the serum. Student’s t-test was used to compare oxLDL levels between preeclamptic and healthy pregnancies, and Pearson’s correlation analysis was carried out to assess the relation between oxLDL and other variables. Results The mean values of serum total cholesterol, triglyceride, non-high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (non-HDL-c) and oxLDL were significantly higher in the preeclamptic cases (P<0.01). However, the levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-c and HDL-c) did not significantly differ between the two groups. oxLDL had a significant positive correlation (P<0.01) with total cholesterol, triglyceride, LDL-c and non-HDL-c, and a negative correlation with HDL-c. Conclusion The atherogenic type of dyslipidemia and high oxLDL levels are associated with preeclamptic pregnancies. The lipid parameters, however, seem to be poor markers of the severity of preeclampsia. Further prospective studies are needed to see if the observed dyslipidemia has a causal role in preeclampsia and imparts a long-term cardiovascular risk.
Two-phase Pattern Matching for Regular Expressions in Intrusion Detection Systems

Regular expressions are used to describe security threats' signatures in network intrusion detection (NID) systems. To identify suspicious packets using regular expression matching, many NID systems use memory-based deterministic finite-state automata (DFA) with one-pass-scanning model, which is fast and allows dynamic updates. However, a number of practical signature patterns commonly found in a variety of NID systems, e.g., ". * A. {N}B", can cause a state-explosion problem in such a model. In this paper, we propose a two-phase pattern matching engine (TPME) to solve this problem. In our proposed approach, the state storage cost is reduced to linearly dependent on the number of repetitions N in the patterns. With the new approach, we are now able to handle those practical patterns that would have caused the state-explosion problem in memory-based DFA. We report our implementation of TPME on a field programmable gate array (FPGA). With our prototype implementation, we can achieve a throughput of more than 1.86 gigabits per second for pattern matching in a practical NID system.