Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interference Alignment : Beyond Generic Channels

Author(s): Krishnamurthy, Sundar Rajan | Advisor(s): Jafar, Syed A | Abstract: Capacity characterization of communication networks is the most fundamental problem in Information Theory, that underlies the design of various wireless and wired networks. The radical idea of "Interference alignment" has enabled Capacity or Degrees of Freedom characterization (DoF, a first order approximation) for many interference networks. Various alignment schemes developed have provided new and fundamental insights into the number of accessible signal dimensions in communication networks where the output signals are linear functions of the input signals. Most of the prior art deal with generic channels wherein the channel coefficients are assumed to be independent and drawn from a continuous distribution, continuous alphabet with infinite diversity, and the network is often single-hop. These assumptions are challenged due to the following reasons : 1) In MIMO systems, poor scattering environment and network topology lead to spatial dependencies that are manifested as rank deficient channels, 2) Multi-hop dependencies arise due to the presence of relays, and 3) Linear network coding applications (as in wired networks) act as finite field counterparts of wireless networks, with limited diversity.In this thesis, Capacity / DoF of linear communication networks are characterized for "Non-generic channels". One of the significant problems considered is the DoF of the K-user MIMO rank deficient interference channel, with different ranks for the direct and the cross channels. For this rank deficient interference channel, it is shown that the rank deficiency of direct channels does not help DoF and the rank-deficiency of cross-channels does not hurt DoF. The main challenge is to account for the spatial dependencies introduced by rank deficiencies in the interference alignment schemes that typically rely on the independence of channel coefficients. Another interesting problem is the DoF of Two-hop MIMO rank deficient interference channel with different channel ranks in the first and the second hops, for which a rank-matching principle is identified reminiscent of impedance matching in circuit theory. For this channel, the DoF loss is shown to be the rank-mismatch between the two hops. Finally, capacity results for the finite field counterparts of wireless networks are presented, exploring the implications of channels being from a finite alphabet with limiteddiversity. By characterizing the capacity of constant finite field channels over F_{p^n} for 2-user X channel and 3-user interference channel, interesting parallels are drawn between p and SNR, and n and Channel Diversity.
Determination of O6-butylguanine in DNA by immunoaffinity extraction/gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.

A sensitive, specific, and rapid method for quantitating the minor adduct O6-butylguanine (O6BuG) in hydrolyzed DNA has been developed by combining immunoaffinity chromatography and high resolution gas chromatography-negative ion chemical ionization-mass spectrometry. Polyclonal antibodies raised against O6BuG were coupled to CNBr-activated Sepharose 4B and used for sample clean-up and extraction of the specific O6-alkylguanine. After addition of O6BuG and its deuterium labeled analogue (O6BuG-D7), used as internal standard, hydrolyzed DNA was applied on the immunoaffinity column and washed with water, and the immunoadsorbed butylated guanines were eluted with acetone/water cetome/water (95/5) before gas chromatographic derivatization. O6BuG and O6BuG-D7 were analyzed and quantitated by high resolution gas chromatography-negative ion chemical ionization-mass spectrometry as their pentafluorobenzyl-trimethylsilyl derivatives. Immunoaffinity column capacity and O6BuG recovery from this column were 1.53 nmol O6BuG/column and 62 +/- 5%, respectively. The method was applied to evaluate O6BuG levels in DNA butylated in vitro with 10 mM N-nitroso-Nr-butylurea or isolated from rats given an i.p. dose of 185 mg/kg N-nitroso-N-butylurea or N-nitrosodibutylamine. In the first case the level of modifications present in calf thymus DNA was 104 mumol O6BuG/mol guanine, and in the second case O6BuG in liver DNA was about 6 times higher after N-nitroso-N-butylurea (2.11 mumol O6BuG/mol guanine) than after N-nitrosodibutylamine (0.34 mumol O6BuG/mol guanine) treatment. These results indicate that O6BuG formed in vivo can be isolated and quantitated by this method, which may also be useful for studying DNA damage and repair mechanisms.
Tailoring Traditional Interviewing Techniques for Qualitative Research with Seriously Ill Patients about the End-of-Life: A Primer

Conducting qualitative interviews with seriously ill individuals about end-of-life issues is challenging for interviewers seeking to understand the problems, processes, and experiences individuals undergo when faced with death and dying. Although all qualitative interviewers face issues of building trust and obtaining answers to their research questions, these issues are exacerbated for interviewers of end-of-life issues due to the challenges of debilitated participants, sensitive subject matter, and heightened emotionalism. The purpose of this article is to offer field-tested techniques to tailor basic interviewing practices for discussions of end-of-life issues with seriously ill individuals. Use of tailored techniques facilitates the comfort of both interviewer and participant and enhances the probability of obtaining complete and accurate data, which in turn can improve the effectiveness of subsequent programs, policies, and clinical practice based on research findings.
Revisiting Sovereign Bond Spreads’ Determinants in the EMU

We study the determinants of 10-year sovereign bond yield spreads of 11 EMU member states, covering the lifetime of the euro, up until the end of 2014. Panel and SUR analyses coupled with qualitative variables show that the pricing of European debt has not been static across time and EMU countries, and market participants became increasingly aware of macroeconomic and fiscal fundamentals. Key Words : Sovereign bond spreads; panel data; EMU
Performance evaluation of optimized available bandwidth estimation tools in FTTH networks

The estimation of available bandwidth over an end-to-end communication path is of paramount importance as it measures the performance of the underlying network infrastructure. Over the years, many available bandwidth estimation tools have been developed. Numerous studies have also been conducted to evaluate and compare the performance of these tools. However, most of these evaluations were conducted by using simplified testbed built from ordinary general purpose computers or low-end routers. In addition, these experiments were normally carried out by using the default runtime input parameters settings suggested by the inventor of the corresponding tool. Consequently, this may not necessarily lead to optimum results and therefore may not truly reflect the actual capability of these tools when they are fine-tuned to their optimum configurations which suit the real production environment especially in today's advanced internetworking technologies. This paper addresses these common weaknesses in the past studies by evaluating several prominent available bandwidth estimation tools being carefully tuned to their respective optimized runtime input parameters settings in a realistic testbed built with commercial network equipment that resembles a typical Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) High Speed Broadband (HSBB) network. The results obtained demonstrate a better manifestation on the performance of these tools under optimum configurations and validate their applicability in the advanced networks of today.
A transportation service procurement problem with combinatorial auction

This paper discusses a practical transportation service procurement problem, which is originated from an external project with the department of transportation purchasing at Royal Philips. A combinatorial auction strategy is developed to help the department to determine the annual transportation service procurement cost. Because of a few preset internal and external policies, to settle an optimal purchasing plan becomes a challenging job for the company. We formulate this problem into a linear integer programming model, and prove it is MV-Hard. We also find that the integer programming model is only solvable for very small cases with only a few lanes, bidders and bids using the state-of-the-art commercial solver ILOG CPLEX 11. We propose an iterative rounding heuristic algorithm that works on the linear-relaxation of the integer programming model. Experiments show that good-quality solutions are achieved for instances of moderate size.
Multichannel Intraluminal Impedance Monitoring in the Evaluation of Patients with Non-Obstructive Dysphagia

BACKGROUND:Non-obstructive dysphagia (NOD) often poses diagnostic problems. The aim of this study was to evaluate the value of the addition of multichannel intraluminal impedance (MII) recording to esophageal manometry in the work-up of patients with NOD.METHODS:A total of 40 consecutive patients with NOD underwent combined esophageal MII recording and perfusion manometry. Ten liquid and 10 viscous boluses were tested in each patient. Values for bolus presence time (BPT) at each of the four recording sites and total bolus transit time (TBTT) were calculated. Bolus transit (BT) was considered to be normal when BPT at all sites and TBTT were within the normal limits defined in 42 healthy subjects. Patients were judged to have normal transit if ≥80% of liquid and ≥70% of viscous swallows showed normal transit.RESULTS:The following manometric diagnoses were made: normal motility (20), ineffective esophageal motility (IEM) (13), diffuse esophageal spasm (DES) (4), and achalasia (3). Abnormal transit for liquid and/or viscous boluses was found in 35.3% of patients with normal motility, in 66.7% of DES patients, and in 100% of achalasia patients. In patients with achalasia quantification of BT was often made impossible by low initial impedance baseline. Two IEM patients (15.4%) showed normal liquid and viscous transit. Swallows showing normal transit had significantly longer duration of LES relaxation in patients with normal manometry and IEM (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS:MII recording identifies esophageal function abnormalities in NOD patients with normal manometry, IEM, and DES. The MII technique seems to be less suitable for the most severe end of the dysphagia spectrum like achalasia.
Unsaturated fatty acids inhibit transcription of the sterol regulatory element-binding protein-1c (SREBP-1c) gene by antagonizing ligand-dependent activation of the LXR

Sterol regulatory element-binding protein-1c (SREBP-1c) enhances transcription of genes encoding enzymes of unsaturated fatty acid biosynthesis in liver. SREBP-1c mRNA is known to increase when cells are treated with agonists of liver X receptor (LXR), a nuclear hormone receptor, and to decrease when cells are treated with unsaturated fatty acids, the end products of SREBP-1c action. Here we show that unsaturated fatty acids lower SREBP-1c mRNA levels in part by antagonizing the actions of LXR. In cultured rat hepatoma cells, arachidonic acid and other fatty acids competitively inhibited activation of the endogenous SREBP-1c gene by an LXR ligand. Arachidonate also blocked the activation of a synthetic LXR-dependent promoter in transfected human embryonic kidney-293 cells. In vitro, arachidonate and other unsaturated fatty acids competitively blocked activation of LXR, as reflected by a fluorescence polarization assay that measures ligand-dependent binding of LXR to a peptide derived from a coactivator. These data offer a potential mechanism that partially explains the long-known ability of dietary unsaturated fatty acids to decrease the synthesis and secretion of fatty acids and triglycerides in livers of humans and other animals.
Channel capacity of adaptive transmission with L-MRC systems in Hoyt (Nakagami-q) fading channels

Capacity of maximal-ratio combining (MRC) diversity receiver with arbitrary number of input branches over a slow varying Hoyt fading channels has been analyzed. Closed-form expressions for various power and rate adaptive techniques available in the literature have been obtained. A study on the effect of diversity order and fading parameters on the channel capacity with different adaptive transmission schemes has been presented.
Mapping and Explaining Parliamentary Rule Changes in Europe : A Research Program

We outline a comprehensive research program on institutional reforms in European parliaments. Original data show that parliamentary rules in Western European parliaments have been changed frequently and massively during the period from 1945 to 2010 suggesting that actors use institutional reforms as a distinct strategy to pursue their substantive goals. We discuss how institutional instability affects existing theoretical and empirical arguments about institutional effects. Furthermore, we present four ideal-typical approaches to analyzing rule changes, present new software tools for identifying and coding changes in large text corpora, and demonstrate their usefulness for valid measurement of the overall change between subsequent text versions.
Identification of epithelial and myeloid‐specific DNA elements regulating MRP14 gene transcription

Macrophage migration inhibition factor‐related protein 14 (MRP14) is a Ca2+‐binding protein of the S‐100 family highly abundant in myelomonocytic and epithelial cells. The expression pattern is restricted to myeloid and epithelial cells and therefore the MRP14 gene is ideally suited to study the regulation of gene expression in these cells. We characterized the human MRP14 promoter by using the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase reporter assay system. The analysis was performed in epithelial (TR146) and myeloid (HL‐60) cells, and we were successful in mapping positive and negative regulatory elements. The region ‐114/‐419 contains strong myeloid‐specific regulatory elements, whereas the domain ‐600/‐1000 enhances the MRP14 transcription in epithelial cells. The sequence ‐462/‐600 accommodates a regulatory element that enhances the promoter activity in both myeloid and epithelial cells. Regions ‐114/‐419 and ‐1000/‐4500 reduce the expression of MRP14 only in epithelial cells, whereas the domains ‐419/‐462 and ‐4500/‐6500 contain down‐regulating elements in both, epithelial and myeloid cells. The presented data demonstrate that transcription of the human MRP14 gene is regulated in a complex manner enabling the precise control of the MRP14 level in epithelial and myeloid cells. J. Cell. Biochem. 73:49–55, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
ASIC2a and ASIC3 Heteromultimerize to Form pH-Sensitive Channels in Mouse Cardiac Dorsal Root Ganglia Neurons

Rationale: Acid-sensing ion channels (ASICs) are Na+ channels that are activated by acidic pH. Their expression in cardiac afferents and remarkable sensitivity to small pH changes has made them leading candidates to sense cardiac ischemia. Objective: Four genes encode six different ASIC subunits, however it is not yet clear which of the ASIC subunits contribute to the composition of ASICs in cardiac afferents. Methods and Results: Here, we labeled cardiac afferents using a retrograde tracer dye in mice, which allowed for patch-clamp studies of murine cardiac afferents. We found that a higher percentage of cardiac sensory neurons from the dorsal root ganglia respond to acidic pH and generated larger currents compared to those from the nodose ganglia. The ASIC-like current properties of the cardiac dorsal root ganglia neurons from wild-type mice most closely matched the properties of ASIC2a/3 heteromeric channels. This was supported by studies in ASIC-null mice: acid-evoked currents from ASIC3−/− cardiac afferents matched the properties of ASIC2a channels, and currents from ASIC2−/− cardiac afferents matched the properties of ASIC3 channels. Conclusions: We conclude that ASIC2a and -3 are the major ASIC subunits in cardiac dorsal root ganglia neurons and provide potential molecular targets to attenuate chest pain and deleterious reflexes associated with cardiac disease.
Effect of optical defocus on multifocal ERG responses

Background: Multifocal electroretinography (mfERG) is a sensitive technique to probe retinal function topographically. Various conditions such as rnacular degeneration decrease the first‐order kernel (K1) response magnitude of mfERG. Previous studies have given inconsistent results on the effect of optical defocus due to poor controls. This study investigated the effect of optical defocus on the K1 response of the central retina using a wellcontrolled method.
pH dependence of the flash-induced S-state transitions in the oxygen-evolving center of photosystem II from Thermosynechoccocus elongatus as revealed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy.

pH dependence of the efficiencies of the flash-induced S-state transitions in the oxygen-evolving center (OEC) was studied by means of Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) difference spectroscopy using photosystem II (PSII) core complexes from the thermophilic cyanobacterium Thermosynechoccocus elongatus. The PSII core complexes dark-adapted at different pHs in the presence of ferricyanide as an electron acceptor were excited by four consecutive saturating laser flashes, and FTIR difference spectra induced by each flash were recorded in the region of 1800-1200 cm(-1). Each difference spectrum was fitted with a linear combination of standard spectra measured at pH 6.0, which represent the spectra upon individual S-state transitions, and the transition efficiencies were estimated from the fitting parameters. It was found that the S1 --> S2 transition probability is independent of pH throughout the pH region of 3.5-9.5, while the S2 --> S3, S3 --> S0, and S0 --> S1 transition probabilities decrease at acidic pH with pK values of 3.6 +/- 0.2, 4.2 +/- 0.3, and 4.7 +/- 0.5, respectively. These findings, i.e., the pH-independent S1 --> S2 transition probability and the pK values for the inhibition in the acidic range of the other three transitions, were in good agreement with recent results obtained by electron paramagnetic resonance measurements for PSII-enriched membranes of spinach [Bernát, G. , Morvaridi, F. , Feyziyev, Y. , and Styring, S. (2002) Biochemistry 41, 5830-5843]. On the basis of this correspondence for quite different types of PSII preparations exhibiting marked difference in the pH dependence of the apparent proton release pattern, it is concluded that the inhibition of the S2 --> S3, S3 --> S0, and S0 --> S1 transitions in the acidic region is an inherent property of the OEC. This feature probably reflects proton release from substrate water in these three transitions. On the other hand, all of the S-state transitions remained generally efficient up to pH 9.5 in the alkaline region, except for a slight decrease of the S3 --> S0 transition probability above pH 8 (pK approximately 10). This observation partly differs from the tendency reported for spinach preparations, suggesting that a mechanism different from that in the acidic region is responsible for the transition efficiencies in the alkaline region.
A fast on-board integrated battery charger for four-motor EVs

A novel type of fast on-board battery charger, applicable for four-motor electric vehicles (EVs), is presented in the paper. The charger consists exclusively of components that are already present on-board the vehicle. Having no new elements, it has a positive impact on the cost, weight and space saving in the vehicle. A three-phase grid is directly attached to the neutral points of three propulsion machines, so that hardware reconfiguration with respect to the propulsion mode of operation is not required. The charger operates with unity power factor and both charging and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) modes are feasible. The torque is not produced in the machines during the charging/V2G process. The charger is particularly suited for the interleaving process, which is used to improve the quality of the current that is taken/injected into the grid. A complete control algorithm for the charging/V2G operation is given, and performance of the charger, including torque-free operation feature, is validated by simulations.
A Smaller Window to the University: The Impact of Athletic De-Escalation on Status and Reputation

Given the changing landscape of Division I athletic competition, determining the most advantageous commitment to athletic programs is an important issue in sport and university policy. With the recent autonomy granted to select Division I Football Bowl Subdivision conferences and pending antitrust litigation vying for college athlete compensation, many universities are considering alternative courses of action in reducing their existing commitment to Division I athletics. Accordingly, this study sought to examine the impact of de-escalating Division I commitment—specifically discontinuing a Division I football program—on the status and reputation of the university and athletic department. In considering the entire population of universities which have discontinued their Division I football program from 1981 to 2010 (N = 21), the results revealed that football program discontinuation had little positive or negative impact on academic status and reputation, and a slight negative impact on athletic status. T.
Communication Technology and Friendship During the Transition From High School to College

Within social networks, relationships are “enacted. ” They grow or decline through communication and the exchange of social resources. Although geographic distance can inhibit enactment, telecommunication technologies (e.g., phone, email, IM) are increasingly being used to maintain relationships over long distances. In this paper, we examine the role these technologies play in maintaining friendships. Taking advantage of a natural situation in which friendships are at risk of ending, we follow students in their transition from high school to college. When students move away from home, they reduce both their communication with their old high school friends and their sense of psychological connection to them. Longitudinal analyses show that communication slows the decline in psychological closeness, but psychological closeness does not slow the decline in communication. E-mail and IM are telecommunication technologies that are especially useful among these students for maintaining friendships. The usefulness of these technologies may stem from arbitrary pricing decisions, which allow students to use them frequently, rather than from their intrinsic features, such as media richness. Unlike the phone, pricing of e-mail and IM does not depend on either message length or the distance the message must travel.