Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cooperative multi-user MIMO based on limited feedback in downlink OFDM systems

Multi-cellular radio systems are often limited due to the presence of cochannel interference. Physical layer concepts as e.g. interference rejection combining, optimize the receiver side and thus strengthen the signal while combating the interference at the terminal side only. It is well known that joint transceiver optimization, i.e. coordinated joint transmission from several base stations, yields large capacity improvement for downlink transmission. However, the performance highly depends on the available channel knowledge. We focus on how to realize a decentralized and limited cooperative downlink transmission in a multi-cellular network. This yields the crucial question: Is an efficient cooperative transmission possible by using simple channel quality identifiers, or is channel state information at the transmitter mandatory? Further, we use minimum mean square error equalization at the terminal side to combat residual cochannel interference. For baseline we apply receiver optimization only and compare these results with those obtained from cooperative transmission. We demonstrate potential capacity gains in a cellular orthogonal frequency division multiplexing system and their scaling with the number of cooperating antenna arrays.
Joint attention and dynam-ics repertoire in coupled dynamical recognizers

A coupled dynamical recognizer is proposed as a model for simulating turn-taking behavior. An agent is modeled as a mobile robot with two wheels. A recurrent neural network is used to produce the motor outputs. By controlling this, agents compete to take turns on a two dimensional arena. By using the genetic algorithm technique, we show that turn-taking behavior is developed between two agents. It is worth noting that turntaking is established with a variety of dynamics. A coupling between agents is sensitive to the dynamics and we discuss the sensitivity by referring to Trevarthen’s double monitor experiments. 1 Intersubjectivity and Joint Attention Here in this paper, we propose a simulation study of joint attention via coupled dynamical recognizers. There are many ways to understand psychological phenomena not directly by studying human behavior but by computer simulations and robot experiments (e.g. B.Scassellati (1999), K. Dautenhahn (1999)). To bridge between simulation studies and psychology, we think it worth discussing some key concepts such as joint attention and intersubjectivity as a Rosetta stone.
Dissecting Urban Noises from Heterogeneous Geo-Social Media and Sensor Data

Geo-social media services, such as Foursquare and Flickr, provide rich data that sensors various urban activities of human beings from geographical, mobility, visual, and social aspects. While noise pollution in modern cities is getting worse and sound sensors are sparse and costly, it is highly demanded to infer and analyze the noise at any region in urban areas. In this paper, we aim to leverage heterogeneous geo-social sensor data on Foursquare, Flickr, and Gowalla, to dissect urban noises for every regions in a city. Using NYC 311 noise complaint records as the approximation of urban noises generated by regions, we propose a novel unsupervised framework that integrates the extracted geographical, mobility, visual, and social features to infer the noise composition for regions and time intervals of interest in NYC. Experimental results show that our system can achieve promising results with substantially few training data, compared to state-of-the-art methods.
The effect of macrobiotic Ma-Pi 2 diet on systemic inflammation in patients with type 2 diabetes: a post hoc analysis of the MADIAB trial

Introduction Current guidelines for the management of type 2 diabetes (T2D) emphasize diet as essential therapy. However, the effect of diet on systemic inflammation remains unclear. We investigated the effects of consuming a macrobiotic Ma-Pi 2 diet versus a standard recommended diet (control diet) on markers of inflammation in patients with T2D. Methods This was a post hoc analysis of the MADIAB trial, a 21-day randomized controlled trial conducted in 51 patients (25 males and 26 females) with T2D. Patients were randomized 1:1 to the Ma-Pi 2 macrobiotic diet or a control diet based on dietary guidelines for T2D. Biological antioxidant potential of plasma and circulating levels of high-sensitivity C reactive protein, interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor-α, and insulin-like growth factor-1 were assessed. Results After 21 days on the Ma-Pi 2 or control diet, markers of inflammation were reduced in both groups. The antioxidant potential of plasma improved significantly in the Ma-Pi group. A significant reduction in insulin growth factor-1 was observed in the Ma-Pi group versus control group (p<0.001). Conclusions Findings of this post hoc analysis demonstrated that the Ma-Pi 2 diet is a safe dietary strategy to reduce levels of the markers of insulin resistance and inflammation, compared with baseline values, in the short term. Furthermore, the Ma-Pi 2 diet was superior to the control diet in reducing insulin growth factor-1 and may be beneficial for patients with T2D. Trial registration number Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN10467793.
Dust Extinction and Molecular Cloud Structure: L977

We report results of a near-infrared imaging survey of L977, a dark cloud in Cygnus seen in projection against the plane of the Milky Way. We use measurements of the near-infrared color excess and positions of the 1628 brightest stars in our survey to measure directly dust extinction through the cloud following the method described by Lada and coworkers. We spatially convolve the individual extinction measurements with a square filter 90'' in size to construct a large-scale map of extinction in the cloud. We integrate over this map to derive a total mass of ML977 = (660 ± 30)(D/500 pc)2 M☉ and, via a comparison of source counts with predictions of a Galactic model, estimate a distance to L977 of 500 ± 100 pc. We find a correlation between the measured dispersion in our extinction determinations and the extinction, which is very similar to that found for the dark cloud IC 5146 in a previous study. We interpret this as evidence for the presence of structure on scales smaller than the 90'' resolution of our extinction map. To further investigate the structure of the cloud we construct the frequency distribution of the 1628 individual extinction measurements in the L977 cloud. The shape of the distribution is similar to that of the IC 5146 cloud. Monte Carlo modeling of this distribution suggests that in the range 2 mag < AV < 40 mag (or roughly 1 pc < r < 0.1 pc) the material inside L977 is characterized by a density profile ρ(r) ∝ r-2. Direct measurement of the radial profile of a portion of the cloud confirms this result. At the lower Galactic latitude of L977, we find both the mean and dispersion of the infrared colors of field stars to be larger than those observed toward IC 5146. This produces an increase of about a factor of 2 in the minimum or threshold value of extinction that can be reliably measured toward L977 with this technique. Nevertheless, the accuracy in an extinction map pixel is not significantly different toward L977 because of the increased number of field stars at this latitude. We also find an increase in the number of detected giant stars at the lower Galactic latitude of the survey by almost a factor of 2. Most of these excess stars suffer extraneous extinction and are probably red giants seen along the disk of the Milky Way up to distances of ~15 kpc and reddened by unrelated background molecular clouds along this direction of the Galaxy. We discuss a possible application of this observable to Galactic structure studies on the plane of the Galaxy.
Overexpression of Kinase-Negative Protein Kinase Cδ in Pancreatic β-Cells Protects Mice From Diet-Induced Glucose Intolerance and β-Cell Dysfunction

OBJECTIVE In vitro models suggest that free fatty acid–induced apoptotic β-cell death is mediated through protein kinase C (PKC)δ. To examine the role of PKCδ signaling in vivo, transgenic mice overexpressing a kinase-negative PKCδ (PKCδKN) selectively in β-cells were generated and analyzed for glucose homeostasis and β-cell survival. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Mice were fed a standard or high-fat diet (HFD). Blood glucose and insulin levels were determined after glucose loads. Islet size, cleaved caspase-3, and PKCδ expression were estimated by immunohistochemistry. In isolated islet cells apoptosis was assessed with TUNEL/TO-PRO3 DNA staining and the mitochondrial potential by rhodamine-123 staining. Changes in phosphorylation and subcellular distribution of forkhead box class O1 (FOXO1) were analyzed by Western blotting and immunohistochemistry. RESULTS PKCδKN mice were protected from HFD-induced glucose intolerance. This was accompanied by increased insulin levels in vivo, by an increased islet size, and by a reduced staining of β-cells for cleaved caspase-3 compared with wild-type littermates. In accordance, long-term treatment with palmitate increased apoptotic cell death of isolated islet cells from wild-type but not from PKCδKN mice. PKCδKN overexpression protected islet cells from palmitate-induced mitochondrial dysfunction and inhibited nuclear accumulation of FOXO1 in mouse islet and INS-1E cells. The inhibition of nuclear accumulation of FOXO1 by PKCδKN was accompanied by an increased phosphorylation of FOXO1 at Ser256 and a significant reduction of FOXO1 protein. CONCLUSIONS Overexpression of PKCδKN in β-cells protects from HFD-induced β-cell failure in vivo by a mechanism that involves inhibition of fatty acid–mediated apoptosis, inhibition of mitochondrial dysfunction, and inhibition of FOXO1 activation.
Voice User Interface as an Alternative Access Point to Web-Based Services – an Investigation Using an End-To-End Design Approach

This Master’s Thesis investigates the potential benefits and challenges of using a Voice User Interface as an additional access point to a service otherwise only available as a web-based cell phone client using a Graphical User Interface. The service used in the Thesis is a furniture advertisement service. Two different user groups are thought of as the potential end users of this so-called Spoken Dialogue System. The first one consist of people in rural areas in developing countries to whom a Spoken Dialogue System potentially could be the only access point to a web-based service and the second one consists of more advanced cell phone users for whom using a Voice User Interface potentially could have specific advantages compared to using a Graphical User Interface. An end-to-end design life-cycle approach is used as the overall method for this Thesis, including all steps from designing a dialogue structure, conducting user tests to creating a working prototype. The main emphasis is laid upon the two user tests conducted; one conducted in an early stage of the design process using a Wizard of Oz technique and the other one conducted on a working prototype. An open source speech recognition engine called Sphinx4 is used for the final prototype and is also shallowly evaluated. Both tests produce data that, after analysis, generate interesting and useful results regarding weaknesses and strengths of both the specific Spoken Dialogue System developed in this Master’s Thesis as well as general aspects regarding the use of such a system. The most prominent strengths of the investigated system are ease of use, ease of navigation and speed of talking. The most important weaknesses are information overflow, a sub-standard system recognition accuracy and the dialogue being too slow. The two user tests had a transaction success rate of 78% and 90% respectively indicating that the designed dialogue structure and the final Spoken Dialogue System was beneficial even though there were limitations in its implementation. Moreover, both user groups were positive to the idea of using a voice-based interface for the proposed service. Talbaserat gränssnitt som alternativ ingång till webbaserade tjänster En designprocessbaserad undersökning
ACP based self-learning control for urban intersection

The intersection models, such as delay models and queuing length models, are the foundations of optimal signal timing for urban intersection. Lack of the field data of intersection, it is highly difficult to calibrate parameters of the intersection models. Due to the effects of intersection topology, channelization and traffic conditions on these models, obviously it is impossible for single model to be suitable for optimal control of various intersections.
Effective Environmental Strategies for Small Countries in an Interconnected Global Setting

This chapter describes how the small country of the Netherlands has traditionally played a prominent role in (international) environmental policy. However, globalization and the higher assertiveness and demands of citizens have eroded this leading role. National initiatives lose meaning in a world where citizens are more individualized, increasingly vote with their feet and support good causes through non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Three schools in public administration shed a political light on environmental policy: the conservative school highlights the reinforcement of inherent and institutional trust, communitarians stress community trust, and liberals focus on personalized trust. The practice of environmental policy shows evidence of all three: legislation (as advocated by the conservatives), voluntary sectoral agreements (as advocated by the communitarians), and corporate social responsibility (as promoted by the liberals). In this context, the Netherlands has excellent assets to fulfill a future trigger rule in the international arena. Using its strong home base of multinational companies and NGOs, the Netherlands can create a stimulating environment in which partnerships and civil-society initiatives prosper and spill over to other countries.
The effect of human immunodeficiency virus on sperm parameters and the outcome of intrauterine insemination following sperm washing.

BACKGROUND This is the first study to assess the outcome of sperm washing and intrauterine insemination (IUI) cycles in human immunodeficiency virus-positive (HIV(+)) men to determine any predictors of success, as well as evaluating the effect of HIV on sperm parameters. METHODS Semen characteristics were evaluated in 106 HIV(+) men and a control group of 234 HIV(-) men, and the effect of markers of HIV disease assessed. Age, stimulation regime, sperm parameters, markers of HIV disease and the use of anti-retrovirals were assessed as predictors of the outcome of sperm washing/IUI cycles in the HIV(+) men. RESULTS Ejaculate volume, sperm concentration, total count, progressive motility and normal morphology were all significantly higher in the control group compared to the HIV(+) men (P<0.05). A significant positive correlation was observed between CD4 count and sperm concentration, total count, motility, progressive motility type 'a'+'b' and post-preparation concentration and a significant negative correlation with normal sperm morphology of both raw and post-preparation samples. No correlation was observed between viral load (VL), years since diagnosis, use of anti-retrovirals or duration of use and any sperm parameter. The only factors that significantly improved IUI outcome were a VL <1000 copies/ml and the use of anti-retrovirals. CONCLUSIONS These data demonstrate that sperm parameters are significantly impaired by the presence of HIV infection and in particular correlate with CD4 count. Undetectable VL and the use of anti-retrovirals improve the outcome of IUI/sperm washing in HIV(+) men.
Temperature prediction using fuzzy time series

A drawback of traditional forecasting methods is that they can not deal with forecasting problems in which the historical data are represented by linguistic values. Using fuzzy time series to deal with forecasting problems can overcome this drawback. In this paper, we propose a new fuzzy time series model called the two-factors time-variant fuzzy time series model to deal with forecasting problems. Based on the proposed model, we develop two algorithms for temperature prediction. Both algorithms have the advantage of obtaining good forecasting results.
Taxonomy of data quality problems in multidimensional Data Warehouse models

The impact of poor data quality on the process of decision making, organizational trust and customer satisfaction is well known. In today's organizations, Data Warehousing (DW) have offered support to business management and become part of natural and logical evolution for any decision support systems. In this scenario, DW solutions deployments have failed due to poor data quality implementations. Although some research has been devoted to investigating these problems, none has performed complete and thoroughly focused on examining quality issues manifests in its core component, i.e., the DW repository. This article presents a taxonomy for data quality issues, in the context of multidimensional data models, characteristic of DW. Finally, this work demonstrates that the proposed Taxonomy provides a more appropriate coverage to the problems of data quality and proposes its use in future works for quality measurements.
Multi-resolution Next Location Prediction for Distributed Virtual Environments

Computing performance of today's graphics hardware grows fast as well as amount of rendered data. Modern graphics engines enable a possibility to use an arbitrary number of textures with arbitrary resolutions. On the other hand, high quality distributed 3D virtual environments can't exploit the computation power due to the limited network bandwidth. The problem mainly appears just in case the designers of such environments use high resolution textures. To overcome this streaming bottleneck an efficient prefetching scheme should be proposed. Instead of blind greedy scheduling policy we propose a scheme which exploits movement history of users to realize a look-ahead policy which enables the clients to retrieve potentially rendered data in advance. The prediction itself is established by Markov chains due to their ability to fast learning in conjunction with 2-state predictor which increases ability of the scheduling system to adapt to new habits of particular users.
Current Trends in Bioethanol Production by Saccharomyces cerevisiae: Substrate, Inhibitor Reduction, Growth Variables, Coculture, and Immobilization

Bioethanol is one of the most commonly used biofuels in transportation sector to reduce greenhouse gases. S. cerevisiae is the most employed yeast for ethanol production at industrial level though ethanol is produced by an array of other yeasts, bacteria, and fungi. This paper reviews the current and nonmolecular trends in ethanol production using S. cerevisiae. Ethanol has been produced from wide range of substrates such as molasses, starch based substrate, sweet sorghum cane extract, lignocellulose, and other wastes. The inhibitors in lignocellulosic hydrolysates can be reduced by repeated sequential fermentation, treatment with reducing agents and activated charcoal, overliming, anion exchanger, evaporation, enzymatic treatment with peroxidase and laccase, in situ detoxification by fermenting microbes, and different extraction methods. Coculturing S. cerevisiae with other yeasts or microbes is targeted to optimize ethanol production, shorten fermentation time, and reduce process cost. Immobilization of yeast cells has been considered as potential alternative for enhancing ethanol productivity, because immobilizing yeasts reduce risk of contamination, make the separation of cell mass from the bulk liquid easy, retain stability of cell activities, minimize production costs, enable biocatalyst recycling, reduce fermentation time, and protect the cells from inhibitors. The effects of growth variables of the yeast and supplementation of external nitrogen sources on ethanol optimization are also reviewed.
Automatic Generation of Configuration Manuals for Open-Source Software

The installation and initial configuration of an open-source software can be difficult for novice users because of a common lack of adequate manuals. To address this problem, we have proposed a method of automatically generating Web based installation manuals for open-source software by editing the log information recorded during the installation process by a skilled user. A lot of systems using open-source software require changes of configuration files. Actually, middleware systems such as application servers and database management systems, often exhibit the low performance under their default configuration files. Thus, the optimization of such systems by setting the optimal confirmation is essential for significant performance improvements. In this paper, we propose the extension of our previous method to the automatic generation of Web-based configuration manuals. We verify the effectiveness of our proposal through experiments.
15-Deoxy- 12,14-prostaglandin J2 induces apoptosis in human malignant B cells: an effect associated with inhibition of NF- B activity and down-regulation of antiapoptotic proteins

Cyclopentenone prostaglandins are potent inhibitors of nuclear factor– B (NFB), a transcription factor with a critical role in promoting inflammation and connected with multiple aspects of oncogenesis and cancer cell survival. In the present report, we investigated the role of NFB in the antineoplastic activity of the cyclopentenone prostaglandin 15-deoxy-PGJ2 (15d-PGJ2) in multiple myeloma (MM) and Burkitt lymphoma (BL) cells expressing constitutively active NFB. 15d-PGJ2 was found to suppress constitutive NFB activity and potently induce apoptosis in both types of B-cell malignancies. 15d-PGJ2–induced apoptosis occurs through multiple caspase activation pathways involving caspase-8 and caspase-9, and is prevented by pretreatment with the pan-caspase inhibitor ZVAD (z-Val-Ala-Asp). NFB inhibition is accompanied by rapid down-regulation of NFB–dependent antiapoptotic gene products, including cellular inhibitor-ofapoptosis protein 1 (cIAP-1), cIAP-2, Xchromosome-linked inhibitor-of-apoptosis protein (XIAP), and FLICE-inhibitory protein (cFLIP). These effects were mimicked by the proteasome inhibitor MG132, but not by the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor(PPAR) agonist troglitazone, suggesting that 15d-PGJ2– induced apoptosis is independent of PPAR. Knockdown of the NFB p65subunit by lentiviral-mediated shRNA interference also resulted in apoptosis induction in malignant B cells with constitutively active NFB. The results indicate that inhibition of NFB plays a major role in the proapoptotic activity of 15d-PGJ2 in aggressive B-cell malignancies characterized by aberrant regulation of NFB. (Blood. 2005;105:1750-1758)
MAGIC observation of GRB090102

On January 2, the MAGIC-I Telescope observed GRB090102 (z=1.55) under particularly good observation conditions. Using the recently upgraded MAGIC-1 sum trigger system, upper limits down to below 50 GeV have been obtained. This is the first time that the new trigger system was fully exploited for a Gamma-ray Burst (GRB) observation and shows the capabilities of the MAGIC observatory for future follow-up observations.
Semi-Supervised Learning Using Kernel Spectral Clustering Core Model

A multi-class semi-supervised learning algorithm formulated as a regularized kernel spectral clustering (KSC) approach is proposed. The method is bale to address both semi-supervised classification and clustering. In additio n a low embedding dimension is utilized to reveal the existing number of clusters. Thanks to the Nystr öm approximation technique, the approach can be scaled up for analyzing large scale datasets. The model is trained using a training dataset and the class/cluster membership of the te st data points are estimated using the out-of-sample extensio n property of the model.