Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A 0.5V fully differential OTA with local common feedback

This paper presents a fully differential OTA with a supply of 0.5V in a 0.18mum CMOS process that has threshold voltages of 0.5V under zero body-source biasing. Unlike a recent two-stage 0.5V OTA architecture, this OTA employs two common mode feedback loops for obtaining a stable operating condition and thus a robust performance against process variations. Body terminals of the input differential pairs of each stage are used for common mode control. Simulation results indicate that this OTA has an open-loop gain of greater than 61dB, a unity gain-bandwidth of 41MHz with a load of 10pF. The power consumption is 510muW
Thinking Deeply and Feeling Depressed: The Affective Costs of Elaborating on Too Much Choice

We examine how the size of an option set and the mode in which the options are processed interact to influence the experience of making a choice. Two studies show that elaborative processing enhances positive affect when consumers choose from limited options but depletes positive affect when consumers choose from extensive options. In addition, although elaboration increases outcome confidence, choosing from extensive options decreases outcome confidence. Taken together, these results suggest a catch-22 for consumers facing extensive choice: While elaborating on their options will diminish their positive mood, failing to elaborate will diminish their confidence in the outcomes they choose.
Correlation of different circulating endothelial progenitor cells to stages of diabetic retinopathy: first in vivo data.

PURPOSE To investigate vasculogenic circulating progenitor cells (CPCs), endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs), and mature EPCs in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) with or without diabetic retinopathy (DR). METHODS A case-control study comparing 90 patients with T1DM with and without DR was performed. Patients were studied and staged for retinopathy according to the Early Treatment of Diabetic Retinopathy Study (ETDRS) classification. Ninety patients were included: 30 without DR (control [CO]), 30 with mild nonproliferative DR (mNPDR), 10 with moderate-severe NPDR (msNPDR), 10 with mild-moderate proliferative diabetic retinopathy (mmPDR), and 10 with high-risk PDR (hrPDR). CPCs (CD34/CD133), EPCs (CD34/CD133/CD309), and mature EPCs (CD34/CD133/CD309/CD31) were enumerated by flow cytometry. RESULTS EPCs were reduced in mNPDR (114 +/- 66; P < 0.001) and msNPDR (77 +/- 40; P = 0.042) compared with CO (244 +/- 115). In contrast, EPCs were unchanged in mmPDR (248 +/- 155) compared with CO. Strikingly, EPCs were augmented in hrPDR (389 +/- 124) compared with all other stages. Numbers of undifferentiated progenitor cells (CPCs) did not differ among CO, mmPDR, and hrPDR. Augmentation (3x) of mature EPCs in hrPDR (325 +/- 118; P < 0.001) compared with CO (100 +/- 49) but against all other stages of DR was observed. The percentage of mature EPCs/EPCs was augmented in an ETDRS classification-dependent manner. CONCLUSIONS In patients with T1DM with DR, EPCs undergo stage-related regulation. In nonproliferative retinopathy, a reduction of EPCs was observed, and in proliferative retinopathy, a dramatic increase of mature EPCs was observed.
Powerful methods for detecting introgressed regions from population genomic data

Understanding the types and functions of genes that are able to cross species boundaries—and those that are not—is an important step in understanding the forces maintaining species as largely independent lineages across the remainder of the genome. With large next‐generation sequencing data sets we are now able to ask whether introgression has occurred across the genome, and multiple methods have been proposed to detect the signature of such events. Here, we introduce a new summary statistic that can be used to test for introgression, RNDmin, that makes use of the minimum pairwise sequence distance between two population samples relative to divergence to an outgroup. We find that our method offers a modest increase in power over other, related tests, but that all such tests have high power to detect introgressed loci when migration is recent and strong. RNDmin is robust to variation in the mutation rate, and remains reliable even when estimates of the divergence time between sister species are inaccurate. We apply RNDmin to population genomic data from the African mosquitoes Anopheles quadriannulatus and A. arabiensis, identifying three novel candidate regions for introgression. Interestingly, one of the introgressed loci is on the X chromosome, but outside of an inversion separating these two species. Our results suggest that significant, but rare, sharing of alleles is occurring between species that diverged more than 1 million years ago, and that application of these methods to additional systems are likely to reveal similar results.
3D orbital tracking microscopy: from cells to organisms

Single-particle tracking methods are able to localize individual particles with millior even microsecond temporal and nanometer spatial resolution. The knowledge about the spatiotemporal position of a particle offers the ability to monitor particle transport and to investigate parameters such as velocity, direction and processivity. In addition, the interaction of the tracked particle with the environment allows the construction of models, which can explain the underlying transport mechanisms. In this work, I will first describe the hardand software design for the combination of a feedback based single-particle tracking method, called 3D orbital tracking and a wide-field microscope. 3D orbital tracking performs particle localization by rotating the laser focus along a circular path around the particle of interest. The recorded fluorescent intensity signal during one full rotation of the focus allows to calculate the particle position relative to the center of the orbit. After each rotation, the orbit center is repositioned and thus, the laser focus is able to follow a single particle throughout the specimen. The additional wide-field microscope allows the simultaneous recording of environmental information. This allows one to put the acquired three dimensional tracking data into the context of cellular structures and other cargos. Due to the high acquisition rates of up to 200 Hz, the 3D orbital tracking method produces long high-resolution trajectories, which are analyzed using a novel correlation based method. The method is able to discriminate three dimensional trajectory data into phases of active transport and phases of passive motion. The first application in this thesis is the investigation of lysosomal transport at microtubule intersections inside BSC-1 monkey kidney cells. Apart from the ability to localize lysosomes inside the cell, the orbital tracking method can be used to resolve the cytoskeleton structure with nanometer precision and millisecond temporal resolution, which is not possible using
Inter-American Development Bank Office of the Chief Economist Working Paper #351 Reform and Growth in Latin America: All Pain, No Gain?

The paper addresses the adequacy of post-reform growth in Latin America in the 1990s on the basis of international comparison and other relevant standards, analytically exploring and empirically testing a number of hypotheses to explain the perceived dissatisfaction with growth performance. It also estimates the long-run growth payoff of macroeconomic reforms, the additional gains that can be achieved by deepening this first generation of reforms, and the potential payoff from broadening the scope of reform into a second generation of reform s encompassing deeper structural and institutional areas.
Green Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles via Various Plant Extracts for Anti-Cancer Applications

Figure 1: Different approaches of synthesis of metal nanoparticles. Nanotechnology is the capability to examine, see and manipulate the things on atomic or molecular scale usually under 100nm. At this scale many effects are arises such as large surface to volume ratio, minimizing effects of gravity, quantum effects etc. Metal nanoparticles have fascinated researchers due to their impending applications in various fields like biomedical applications and sensitive diagnostic assays, radiotherapy enhancement, and thermal ablation, gene delivery, as non toxic carriers for gene and drug-delivery applications, optical imaging and labelling of biological systems [1-3]. These tiny particles are known as nanoparticles, which are synthesized by generally two methods top down and bottom up (Figure 1). The top down suggest the nanoparticles preparation by lithographic techniques, ball milling, etching, sputtering, etc. The most effective approach for synthesis of nanoparticles is the bottom up methods, in which nanoparticles are grown from simpler molecules and size or shape of nanoparticles can be controlled
Biomechanics and Mechanotransduction in Cells and Tissues High-frequency , low-magnitude vibrations suppress the number of blood vessels per muscle fiber in mouse soleus muscle

Murfee, Walter L. , Laura A. Hammett, Caroline Evans, Liqin Xie, Maria Squire, Clinton Rubin, Stefan Judex, and Thomas C. Skalak. High-frequency, low-magnitude vibrations suppress the number of blood vessels per muscle fiber in mouse soleus muscle. J Appl Physiol 98: 2376–2380, 2005. First published January 27, 2005; doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.01135. 2004. —Extremely low-magnitude (0.3 g), high-frequency (30–90 Hz), whole body vibrations can stimulate bone formation and are hypothesized to provide a surrogate for the oscillations of muscle during contraction. Little is known, however, about the potential of these mechanical signals to stimulate adaptive responses in other tissues. The objective of this study was to determine whether low-level mechanical signals produce structural adaptations in the vasculature of skeletal muscle. Eight-week-old male BALB/cByJ (BALB) mice were divided into two experimental groups: mice subjected to low-level, whole body vibrations (45 Hz, 0.3 g) superimposed on normal cage activities for 15 min/day (n 6), and age-matched controls (n 7). After the 6-wk experimental protocol, sections from end and mid regions of the soleus muscles were stained with lectin from Bandeiraea Simplicifolia, an endothelial cell marker, and smooth muscle (SM) -actin, a perivascular cell marker. Six weeks of this low-level vibration caused a 29% decrease in the number of lectin-positive vessels per muscle fiber in the end region of the soleus muscle, indicating a significant reduction in the number of capillaries per muscle fibers. Similarly, these vibrations caused a 36% reduction in SM -actin-positive vessels per muscle fiber, indicating a reduction in the number of arterioles and venules. The decreases in lectinand SM -actin-positive vessels per muscle fiber ratios were not significant in the mid muscle sections. These results demonstrate the sensitivity of the vasculature in mouse skeletal muscle to whole body, low-level mechanical signals.
A specific enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for measuring beta-amyloid protein oligomers in human plasma and brain tissue of patients with Alzheimer disease.

OBJECTIVE To examine in vivo levels of beta-amyloid (Abeta) oligomers (oAbeta) vs monomeric Abeta in plasma and brain tissue of patients with sporadic and familial Alzheimer disease (AD) using a new enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) specific for oAbeta. DESIGN To establish the oAbeta ELISA, the same N-terminal Abeta antibody was used for antigen capture and detection. Plasma and postmortem brain tissue from patients with AD and control subjects were systematically analyzed by conventional monomeric Abeta and new oAbeta ELISAs. SUBJECTS We measured oAbeta species in plasma samples from 36 patients with clinically well-characterized AD and 10 control subjects. In addition, postmortem samples were obtained from brain autopsies of 9 patients with verified AD and 7 control subjects. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Oligomeric Abeta and 4 monomeric Abeta species in plasma samples from patients with AD and control subjects were measured by ELISA. RESULTS The specificity of the oAbeta ELISA was validated with a disulfide-crossed-linked, synthetic Abeta(1-40)Ser26Cys dimer that was specifically detected before but not after the dissociation of the dimers in beta-mercaptoethanol. Plasma assays showed that relative oAbeta levels were closely associated with relative Abeta(42) monomer levels across all of the subjects. Analysis of sequential plasma samples from a subset of the patients with AD, including a patient with AD caused by a presenilin mutation, revealed decreases in both oAbeta and Abeta(42) monomer levels over a 1- to 2-year period. In brain tissue from 9 patients with AD and 7 control subjects, both oAbeta and monomeric Abeta(42) levels were consistently higher in the AD cases. CONCLUSIONS An oAbeta-specific ELISA reveals a tight link between oAbeta and Abeta(42) monomer levels in plasma and brain. Both forms can decline over time in plasma, presumably reflecting their increasing insolubility in the brain.
The Cα—H⋅⋅⋅O hydrogen bond: A determinant of stability and specificity in transmembrane helix interactions

The Cα—H⋅⋅⋅O hydrogen bond has been given little attention as a determinant of transmembrane helix association. Stimulated by recent calculations suggesting that such bonds can be much stronger than has been supposed, we have analyzed 11 known membrane protein structures and found that apparent carbon α hydrogen bonds cluster frequently at glycine-, serine-, and threonine-rich packing interfaces between transmembrane helices. Parallel right-handed helix–helix interactions appear to favor Cα—H⋅⋅⋅O bond formation. In particular, Cα—H⋅⋅⋅O interactions are frequent between helices having the structural motif of the glycophorin A dimer and the GxxxG pair. We suggest that Cα—H⋅⋅⋅O hydrogen bonds are important determinants of stability and, depending on packing, specificity in membrane protein folding.
WattDB - a Rocky Road to Energy Proportionality

Energy efficiency is becoming more important in database design, i. e. , the work delivered by a database server should be accomplished by minimal energy consumption. So far, a substantial number of research papers examined and optimized the energy consumption of database servers or single components. In this way, our first efforts were exclusively focused on the use of flash memory or SSDs in a DBMS context to identify their performance potential for typical DB operations. In particular, we developed tailor-made algorithms to support caching for flash-based databases [3], however with limited success concerning the energy efficiency of the entire database server. A key observation made by Tsirogiannis et al. [5] concerning the energy efficiency of single servers, the best performing configuration is also the most energy-efficient one, because power use is not proportional to system utilization and, for this reason, runtime needed for accomplishing a computing task essentially determines energy consumption. Based on our caching experiments for flash-based databases, we came to the same conclusion [2]. Hence, the server system must be fully utilized to be most energy efficient. However, real-world workloads do not stress servers continuously. Typically, their average utilization ranges between 20 and 50% of peak performance [1]. Therefore, traditional singleserver DBMSs are chronically underutilized and operate below their optimal energy-consumption-per-query ratio. As a result, there is a big optimization opportunity to decrease energy consumption during off-peak times. Because the energy use of single-server systems is far from being energy proportional, we came up with the hypothesis that better energy efficiency may be achieved by a cluster of nodes whose size is dynamically adjusted to the current workload demand. For this reason, we shifted our research focus from inflexible single-server DBMSs to distributed clusters running on lightweight nodes. Although distributed systems impose some performance degradation com-
Phidippides Cardiomyopathy: A Review and Case Illustration

Phidippides was a Greek messenger who experienced sudden death after running more than 175 miles in two days. In today's world, marathon running and other endurance sports are becoming more popular and raising concern about sudden deaths at these events. Once etiologies such has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, anomalous coronary arteries, and coronary atherosclerosis have been excluded, there is now an additional consideration termed Phidippides cardiomyopathy. Because endurance sports call for a sustained increase in cardiac output for several hours, the heart is put into a state of volume overload. It has been shown that approximately one‐third of marathon runners experience dilation of the right atrium and ventricle, have elevations of cardiac troponin and natriuretic peptides, and in a smaller fraction later develop small patches of cardiac fibrosis that are the likely substrate for ventricular tachyarrhythmias and sudden death. Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging is emerging as the diagnostic test of choice for this condition. This review and case report summarizes the key features of this newly appreciated disorder. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Network Mapping by Replaying Hyperbolic Growth

Recent years have shown a promising progress in understanding geometric underpinnings behind the structure, function, and dynamics of many complex networks in nature and society. However, these promises cannot be readily fulfilled and lead to important practical applications, without a simple, reliable, and fast network mapping method to infer the latent geometric coordinates of nodes in a real network. Here, we present HyperMap, a simple method to map a given real network to its hyperbolic space. The method utilizes a recent geometric theory of complex networks modeled as random geometric graphs in hyperbolic spaces. The method replays the network's geometric growth, estimating at each time-step the hyperbolic coordinates of new nodes in a growing network by maximizing the likelihood of the network snapshot in the model. We apply HyperMap to the Autonomous Systems (AS) Internet and find that: 1) the method produces meaningful results, identifying soft communities of ASs belonging to the same geographic region; 2) the method has a remarkable predictive power: Using the resulting map, we can predict missing links in the Internet with high precision, outperforming popular existing methods; and 3) the resulting map is highly navigable, meaning that a vast majority of greedy geometric routing paths are successful and low-stretch. Even though the method is not without limitations, and is open for improvement, it occupies a unique attractive position in the space of tradeoffs between simplicity, accuracy, and computational complexity.
Make Word Sense Disambiguation in EBMT Practical

In an EBMT system, we will meet the word sense disambiguation problem. The disambiguation methods used at present can’t be used easily in EBMT. We propose a new method for word sense disambiguation in EBMT: it is based on a language mode of the target language. Its main idea is that a proper word sense can make the whole sentence fluent. We use a language model to measure this fluency, and use dynamic programming method to compute the proper words sense sequence in EBMT. It has the virtues of easily being used, and doesn’t need extra lingual knowledge, besides, the general performance of it can be improved by using more target language resource to train. And experiment shows our method works well.
The enamel organic matrix: structure and function

Dental enamel is the most mineralized tissue in the vertebrate body and contains the largest known biologically formed hydroxyapatite crystals. Its formation occurs extracellularly through the collaboration of a proteic transient framework (the enamel organic matrix), which controls hydroxyapatite crystal growth, morphology and orientation. This matrix is deposited with a small amount of mineral during the secretory stage of amelogenesis. The organic components begin to be degraded in the transition stage and are extensively corrupted, and almost entirely replaced by the inorganic crystallites during maturation stage. The present paper reviews current knowledge on the structural biology of the enamel organic matrix.
Decision support system for health care resources allocation

Background A study about healthcare resources can improve decisions regarding the allotment and mobilization of medical resources and to better guide future investment in the health sector. Aim The aim of this work was to design and implement a decision support system to improve medical resources allocation of Bejaia region. Methods To achieve the retrospective cohort study, we integrated existing clinical databases from different Bejaia department health sector institutions (an Algerian department) to collect information about patients from January 2015 through December 2015. Data integration was performed in a data warehouse using the multi-dimensional model and OLAP cube. During implementation, we used Microsoft SQL server 2012 and Microsoft Excel 2010. Results A medical decision support platform was introduced, and was implemented during the planning stages allowing the management of different medical orientations, it provides better apportionment and allotment of medical resources, and ensures that the allocation of health care resources has optimal effects on improving health. Conclusion In this study, we designed and implemented a decision support system which would improve health care in Bejaia department to especially assist in the selection of the optimum location of health center and hospital, the specialty of the health center, the medical equipment and the medical staff.
Vitamin D Insufficiency Exacerbates Adipose Tissue Macrophage Infiltration and Decreases AMPK/SIRT1 Activity in Obese Rats

Obesity is recognized as a state of chronic low-grade systemic inflammation due to adipose tissue macrophage infiltration and production of proinflammatory adipokines. Decreased vitamin D status is associated with obesity. The specific aim of the present study is to investigate the effects of vitamin D on obesity-induced adipose tissue inflammation. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomized and fed a normal diet (NOR, 1000 IU vitamin D/kg diet), a 45% high-fat diet (HF, 1000 IU vitamin D/kg diet), or a 45% high-fat diet containing 25 IU vitamin D/kg diet (HF+LVD) for 12 weeks. The vitamin D-insufficient diet (HF+LVD) led to vitamin D inadequacy as determined by serum 25(OH)D level, 68.56 ± 7.97 nmol/L. The HF+LVD group exacerbated HF-increased adipocyte size, adipogenic gene expression of PPARγ, adipose tissue macrophage recruitment, and proinflammatory cytokine IL-6 and TNFα levels in epididymal white adipose tissue. In addition, vitamin D insufficiency significantly decreased mRNA levels of β-oxidation-related genes such as CPT1α, PGC1α, PPARα, VLCAD, LCAD, MCAD, and UCP1. Moreover, significant decrements of SIRT1 and AMPK activity were noted in obese rats fed with a vitamin D-insufficient diet. The observed deleterious effects of vitamin D insufficiency on adipose tissue expansion, immune cell infiltration and inflammatory status suggest vitamin D plays a beneficial role in adipocyte metabolic metabolism and obesity progression. SIRT1 and AMPK activity may play a role in the mechanism of vitamin D action.