Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
PECAM-1 (CD31) regulates a hydrogen peroxide–activated nonselective cation channel in endothelial cells

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) released by neutrophils is an important mediator of endothelial cell (EC) injury and vascular inflammation via its effect on EC-free Ca2+, [Ca2+]i. Although the underlying mechanisms are not well understood, platelet endothelial cell adhesion molecule (PECAM)-1/CD-31 is a critical modulator of neutrophil–EC transmigration. PECAM-1 is also known to regulate EC calcium signals and to undergo selective tyrosine phosphorylation. Here, we report that PECAM-1 molecules transduce EC responses to hydrogen peroxide. In human umbilical vein EC and REN cells (a PECAM-1–negative EC-like cell line) stably transfected with PECAM-1 (RHP), noncytolytic H2O2 exposure (100–200 μM H2O2) activated a calcium-permeant, nonselective cation current, and a transient rise in [Ca2+]i of similar time course. Neither response was observed in untransfected REN cells, and H2O2-evoked cation current was ablated in REN cells transfected with PECAM-1 constructs mutated in the cytoplasmic tyrosine–containing domain. The PECAM-dependent H2O2 current was inhibited by dialysis of anti–PECAM-1 cytoplasmic domain antibodies, required Src family tyrosine kinase activity, was independent of inositol trisphosphate receptor activation, and required only an intact PECAM-1 cytoplasmic domain. PECAM-1–dependent H2O2 currents and associated [Ca2+]i transients may play a significant role in regulating neutrophil–endothelial interaction, as well as in oxidant-mediated endothelial response and injury.
Porous Tantalum Coatings Prepared by Vacuum Plasma Spraying Enhance BMSCs Osteogenic Differentiation and Bone Regeneration In Vitro and In Vivo

Tantalum, as a potential metallic implant biomaterial, is attracting more and more attention because of its excellent anticorrosion and biocompatibility. However, its significantly high elastic modulus and large mechanical incompatibility with bone tissue make it unsuitable for load-bearing implants. In this study, porous tantalum coatings were first successfully fabricated on titanium substrates by vacuum plasma spraying (VPS), which would exert the excellent biocompatibility of tantalum and alleviate the elastic modulus of tantalum for bone tissue. We evaluated cytocompatibility and osteogenesis activity of the porous tantalum coatings using human bone marrow stromal cells (hBMSCs) and its ability to repair rabbit femur bone defects. The morphology and actin cytoskeletons of hBMSCs were observed via electron microscopy and confocal, and the cell viability, proliferation and osteogenic differentiation potential of hBMSCs were examined quantitatively by PrestoBlue assay, Ki67 immunofluorescence assay, real-time PCR technology and ALP staining. For in vivo detection, the repaired femur were evaluated by histomorphology and double fluorescence labeling 3 months postoperation. Porous tantalum coating surfaces promoted hBMSCs adhesion, proliferation, osteogenesis activity and had better osseointegration and faster new bone formation rate than titanium coating control. Our observation suggested that the porous tantalum coatings had good biocompatibility and could enhance osseoinductivity in vitro and promote new bone formation in vivo. The porous tantalum coatings prepared by VPS is a promising strategy for bone regeneration.
Enhanced 20th-century heat transfer to the Arctic simulated in the context of climate variations over the last millennium

Abstract. Oceanic heat transport variations, carried by the northward-flowing Atlantic Water, strongly influence Arctic sea-ice distribution, ocean–atmosphere exchanges, and pan-Arctic temperatures. Palaeoceanographic reconstructions from marine sediments near Fram Strait have documented a dramatic increase in Atlantic Water temperatures over the 20th century, unprecedented in the last millennium. Here we present results from Earth system model simulations that reproduce and explain the reconstructed exceptional Atlantic Water warming in Fram Strait in the 20th century in the context of natural variability during the last millennium. The associated increase in ocean heat transfer to the Arctic can be traced back to changes in the ocean circulation in the subpolar North Atlantic. An interplay between a weakening overturning circulation and a strengthening subpolar gyre as a consequence of 20th-century global warming is identified as the driving mechanism for the pronounced warming along the Atlantic Water path toward the Arctic. Simulations covering the late Holocene provide a reference frame that allows us to conclude that the changes during the last century are unprecedented in the last 1150 years and that they cannot be explained by internal variability or natural forcing alone.
Optimal Operation Point Detection Based on Force Transmitting Behavior for Wheel Slip Prevention of Electric Vehicles

The optimal wheel slip prevention control of ground vehicles aims at maintaining the operation point around the optimal one to achieve the maximum adhesion utilization, which contributes not only to ensure the adhesion stability but also to obtain the optimal traction performance, particularly being useful for the low grip conditions. However, the uncertainty of tire-road contacts brings great challenges for the optimal operation point determination. This paper proposes a novel methodology for the online search of the optimal operation point under uncertain low grip conditions. First, the force transmitting behavior is analyzed in the stable adhesion state and the unstable slipping state. Then, a determination law to identify the optimal operation point via investigating the adhesion force is proposed, which functions during the transient process from the stable region to the unstable region under the action of an increasing drive force. The adhesion force is estimated using the wheel rotational speed and the wheel drive torque. Both the simulation and experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.
Within and across sentence boundary language model

In this paper, we propose two different language modeling approaches, namely skip trigram and across sentence boundary, to capture the long range dependencies. The skip trigram model is able to cover more predecessor words of the present word compared to the normal trigram while the same memory space is required. The across sentence boundary model uses the word distribution of the previous sentences to calculate the unigram probability which is applied as the emission probability in the word and the class model frameworks. Our experiments on the Penn Treebank [1] show that each of our proposed models and also their combination significantly outperform the baseline for both the word and the class models and their linear interpolation. The linear interpolation of the word and the class models with the proposed skip trigram and across sentence boundary models achieves 118.4 perplexity while the best state-of-the-art language model has a perplexity of 137.2 on the same dataset.
A High-Efficiency Low-Distortion GaN HEMT Doherty Power Amplifier With a Series-Connected Load

A distortion reduction method for a newly developed GaN HEMT Doherty amplifier (DA) with a series-connected load operating at 1.8 GHz is presented. Differing from conventional DAs with shunt-connected loads, the newly developed DA with a series-connected load has high input impedance, resulting in low-loss impedance matching and high-efficiency power combining. A distortion cancellation mechanism and its condition are derived, where odd-order nonlinear factors of transistors are considered, so as to retain inherent distortion cancellation between a peaking amplifier and a carrier amplifier. The validity of the design method is demonstrated using the developed 1.8-GHz GaN HEMT DA with a series-connected load. The third-order intermodulation distortion of the DA is improved by more than 15 dB at output powers from 5 to 20 dBm, compared to the case giving priority to power efficiency. The developed amplifier delivers a power-added efficiency (PAE) of 31% at an output power of 24 dBm, corresponding to 10-dB input backoff from a saturated output power of 31 dBm with a PAE of 58%. The proposed distortion reduction method can also be applied to shunt-connected-load-type amplifiers of other devices.
Global observation of anthropogenic aerosols from satellite

This paper provides the first climatology from satellite of aerosol loading, both over land and oceanic surfaces. Over land, aerosol loading is retrieved using a new remote sensing technique based on the polarization signature of scattered solar radiances. The product is sensitive to particles that are within the accumulation mode, smaller than ≈0. 5µm. Those are mainly produced by anthropogenic sources, like smoke and urban/industrial aerosols. A rough identification of aerosol origin is obtained from the concomitant detection of fires from spaceborne observations. The combination of aerosol load and fire identification suggests that biomass burning is the main source of small particles in the atmosphere and that, at the regional scale, other anthropogenic activities have a significant impact limited to China and India.
Efficient adaptive equalization of doubly dispersive channels in MIMO-FBMC/OQAM systems

The problem of adaptively equalizing doubly dispersive MIMO channels for FBMC/OQAM systems is studied in this paper. The challenges in this type of multicarrier systems include their intrinsic self-interference and the need to cope with time- and frequency-selective subchannels in realistic propagation conditions. An efficient and numerically stable algorithm is adopted, relying on a decision feedback structure that implements BLAST ordering for the input signals recovery. The ability of this algorithm to address the above challenges has been demonstrated. The focus of this paper is on reducing the needs of this equalizer in training information. A channel estimate-based (re-)initialization scheme is developed and shown to be quite effective in lowering the training overhead, at an affordable additional cost in complexity. For the sake of comparison, the MIMO-OFDM problem is also studied. Simulation results for practical scenarios demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Logistic Regression with Missing Haplotypes

Complex diseases are thought to be caused by both environmental and genetic factors. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are currently being explored for use as genetic markers in association studies of complex diseases. SNPs are abundant in the genome, leading to much finer scans of candidate regions. Since multiple SNPs in a region are likely in linkage disequilibrium, it has been suggested that methods which use the information at several SNPs at a time, along the haplotype, will be better for finding disease-predisposing genes through association studies. For certain genotypes, it is not possible to determine the haplotype phase so missing data methods have been used to infer the haplotype or the haplotype frequencies in a sample. The inferred haplotypes or frequencies are then used in association analyses. A chi square test, either on the inferred haplotype counts or the estimated haplotype frequencies, is commonly used but does not account for environmental factors. Currently, many association analyses which adjust for environmental cofactors use imputed haplotypes but do not account for this uncertainty. In this project, the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm is used to handle the missing haplotype information in a logistic regression with haplotypes as the genetic covariates and other fully observed environmental covariates. The haplotypes are not imputed, instead the EM algorithm is used to obtain maximum likelihood estimates of the regression coefficients directly. The variance-covariance matrix is derived using Louis' formula for the observed information (1982) and the method is applied to a simulated cohort study dataset. This method, which allows for both genetic and environmental factors and does not assume that the haplotypes are fully observed, is shown to find the genetic signal better than an analysis which does not include environmental factors.
Magma chamber below Poàs volcano, Costa Rica

Direct field evidence for links between volcanic rocks and contemporaneous subvolcanic intrusions are difficult to establish. Such links might, however, be inferred by making physical measurements on a youthful active volcano. Poás is a small composite volcano (elevation 2700 m, diameter 20 km) which has evolved to its present form by a sequence of caldera- and crater-forming episodes, possibly during the last 5 × 104 y. There has been a high level of historic activity from the active crater, which is 1 km in diameter and 300 m deep, and which contains a hot lake. Lavas and dominant pyroclastic rocks exposed in the active crater calc-alkaline basaltic andesites and andesites. Poás volcano is therefore typical of those in island arcs and young continental margins. Gravity measurements show that the volcano has a regional negative Bouguer anomaly, of amplitudes 100–200 gu, upon which is superimposed a closed positive anomaly, in the active crater area, about 2 km in diameter and with a maximum amplitude of 100 gu. This is thought to indicate a 1 km radius cylinder of solid rock of basaltic andesite or andesite composition with a shallow upper surface and extending to a depth of several kilometers. The concept of a large shallow magma chamber, with a diameter similar to that of the volcano, appears not to be appropriate for this volcano.
Attitudes and perceptions of livestock farmers on the adequacy of government compensation scheme: human carnivore conflict in Ngamiland

Human-wildlife conflict has become an important socio-economic and environmental problem in Botswana to the extent that government has instituted a compensation policy to promote the co-existence of humans and wildlife. This study analyses farmers' perceptions and attitudes on the effectiveness of the compensation policy with the aim of suggesting some improvements. The survey was undertaken in settlements and cattle posts surrounding the villages of Maun, Shorobe, Toteng and Nxaraga in the Ngamiland district. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data among farmers who received compensation during 2006 and 2007. Majority of farmers perceived the compensation policy to be ineffective because of the low compensation paid, the slow payment process and the exclusion of other predator species from the list of compensatable species. Most farmers would disapprove a possible termination of the scheme as this would have undesirable social and environmental consequences. The study concludes by recommending a revision of the compensation policy.
A POSSIBLE TSUNAMI IN THE LABRADOR SEA RELATED TO THE DRAINAGE OF GLACIAL LAKE AGASSIZ ~8400 YEARS B.P.

For thousands of years, the thick Laurentide Ice Sheet covered a large part of northern North America, damming northward-draining rivers. As this ice retreated, large lakes formed along its margin. Glacial Lake Agassiz was the largest of these ice-marginal lakes, covering an area of >800,000 km 2 (more than twice the size of the largest lake in the modern world, the Caspian Sea) before it drained catastrophically into the Labrador Sea. Even before that, Lake Agassiz had periodically released large volumes of water into the ocean via the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence and the Athabasca-Mackenzie River systems. The last and largest of these outbursts released >150,000 km 3 through Hudson Bay and Hudson Strait in 6-12 months; the average flux over that period was ~5 Sv (1 Sv = 1×10 6 m 3 s -1 ). When a volume of water this large is discharged into a coastal sea like the Labrador Sea, it may generate a surface flood wave or a tsunami if the water mass is large enough and introduced in a short time. To our knowledge no previous calculations have been made to estimate the potential impact of a flood burst on the generation of solitary waves. Using analogies of tsunamis generated by submarine landslides and ocean earthquakes, the amplitude of a Lake Agassiz generated tsunami is estimated to have been at least 2 m. Directionality considerations, as well as the effect of the Coriolis Force in the Northern Hemisphere, suggest that the resulting tsunami probably traveled 50-100 km along the west coast of the Labrador Sea, south of Hudson Strait where the outburst entered the ocean, before being dissipated. The erosional and depositional affects of historic and prehistoric tsunamis are present in the geological record, and provide guidance in seeking evidence for the Lake Agassiz flood burst and subsequent tsunami. This record may be found along the western coast of the Labrador Sea as well as along the shores of Hudson Strait.
Soluble epoxide hydrolase and epoxyeicosatrienoic acids modulate two distinct analgesic pathways

During inflammation, a large amount of arachidonic acid (AA) is released into the cellular milieu and cyclooxygenase enzymes convert this AA to prostaglandins that in turn sensitize pain pathways. However, AA is also converted to natural epoxyeicosatrienoic acids (EETs) by cytochrome P450 enzymes. EET levels are typically regulated by soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH), the major enzyme degrading EETs. Here we demonstrate that EETs or inhibition of sEH lead to antihyperalgesia by at least 2 spinal mechanisms, first by repressing the induction of the COX2 gene and second by rapidly up-regulating an acute neurosteroid-producing gene, StARD1, which requires the synchronized presence of elevated cAMP and EET levels. The analgesic activities of neurosteroids are well known; however, here we describe a clear course toward augmenting the levels of these molecules. Redirecting the flow of pronociceptive intracellular cAMP toward up-regulation of StARD1 mRNA by concomitantly elevating EETs is a novel path to accomplish pain relief in both inflammatory and neuropathic pain states.
Design of defected ground structure (DGS) for mutual coupling reduction of microstrip antenna array

Mutual coupling is a well-known effect in multi element array antennas. Generally, mutual coupling is an unwanted phenomenon that distorts the behavior of the radiating elements in an antenna array. Every element in an antenna array affects every other element by radiating over the air or by propagating surface currents through the ground plane. Surface currents can be a bigger problem, especially when antenna elements are closely packed. Microstrip patch antennas are well-known antenna types in different kinds of applications, like mobile and satellite communications. In practice, an array of several antenna elements is used for applications requiring high gain and/or high directivity. However, the performance of such antennas tends to drop due to the strong mutual interaction between the antenna elements. In this project, a two compact T-shaped defected ground structure (DGS) placed back to back are applied to reduce the mutual coupling between elements in a microstrip antenna array design. The proposed compact DGS slots are inserted between the adjacent E-plane coupled elements in the array to limit the propagation of surface waves between the elements of the array. In order to validate the feasibility of the proposed structure, a two-element array with 0. 45λo distance between centers of two patches is designed, fabricated, and measured. The measured results show a reduction in mutual coupling of 19 dB obtained between elements at the operation frequency. Radiation patterns have minimal change in the broadside direction but back lobe level is increased because of the existence of the slots in the ground plane.
Effects of protease inhibitors on hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia, and lipodystrophy: a 5-year cohort study.

BACKGROUND Although human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-related morbidity and mortality rates in patients with advanced HIV infection who are treated with combination antiretroviral drugs have declined, significant metabolic adverse effects associated with these regimens have been increasingly recognized. However, since data from patients studied before and after initiation of protease inhibitor (PI) therapy are scant, the true effect of PIs on these metabolic changes remains unknown. OBJECTIVES To examine temporal trends in serum glucose and lipid levels after initiation of PI therapy, to assess whether changes are independent of virological response and improvement in disease severity, and to determine risk factors associated with the development of hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia, and lipodystrophy. METHODS A 5-year historical cohort analysis in a population of 221 HIV-infected patients observed in the Infectious Diseases Clinic of a tertiary care center from October 1, 1993, through July 31, 1998. Clinical and laboratory data were retrieved from medical records and a computerized database. The main outcome measure was the incidence of hyperglycemia, hypercholesterolemia, hypertriglyceridemia, and lipodystrophy. Adjusted incidence rate ratios (IRRs) were estimated by means of Poisson regression. In addition, mixed regression analyses were performed to examine effects of PIs on serum lipid and glucose levels, modeled as continuous outcomes. RESULTS The cumulative incidence of new-onset hyperglycemia, hypercholesterolemia, hypertriglyceridemia, and lipodystrophy was 5%, 24%, 19%, and 13%, respectively. Most of these events occurred after initiation of PI therapy. Protease inhibitors were independently associated with hyperglycemia (adjusted IRR, 5.0; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1. 3-19.4), hypercholesterolemia (adjusted IRR, 2.8; 95% CI, 1.5-5.2), hypertriglyceridemia (adjusted IRR, 6.1; 95% CI, 3.1-11.7), and lipodystrophy (adjusted IRR, 5.1; 95% CI, 1.9-13.9). Anabolic steroids and psychotropic medications were also associated with lipodystrophy. Inclusion of potential intermediate variables (eg, virological suppression and increase in body weight) did not reduce the magnitude of the association with PIs. The association between hypertriglyceridemia and ritonavir was stronger than for other PIs (Wald test, P=.02). In contrast, the incidence of hyperglycemia, hypercholesterolemia, and lipodystrophy did not vary significantly across different PIs. Longitudinal mixed models confirmed that serum lipid levels were more substantially affected by antiretroviral therapy, particularly PIs, than serum glucose levels. Similarly, controlling for surrogate markers did not abolish the strong association between PIs and increase in serum lipid levels. CONCLUSION We found an independent association between PI use and hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia, and lipodystrophy that is not explained by the antiviral and therapeutic effect of PIs.
The design of slow-motion feedback

The misalignment between the timeframe of systems and that of their users can cause problems, especially when the system relies on implicit interaction. It makes it hard for users to understand what is happening and leaves them little chance to intervene. This paper introduces the design concept of slow-motion feedback, which can help to address this issue. A definition is provided, together with an overview of existing applications of this technique.
= 1/2 super Yang-Mills theory on euclidean AdS2 × S2

We study D-branes in the background of euclidean AdS2 × S2 with a graviphoton field turned on. As the background is not Ricci flat, the graviphoton field must have both self-dual and antiself-dual parts. This, in general, will break all the supersymmetries on the brane. However, we show that there exists a limit for which one can restore half of the supersymmetries. Further, we show that in this limit, the = 1/2 SYM lagrangian on flat space can be lifted on to the euclidean AdS2 × S2 preserving the same amount of supersymmetries as in the flat case. We observe that without the C-dependent terms present in the action this lift is not possible.