Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficient MAC protocols optimization for future high density WLANS

Recently, the High Efficiency WLAN or simply HEW study group was created within IEEE 802.11 working group. This study group considers the improvement of spectrum efficiency to enhance the system's area throughput in high density scenarios. Subsequently, this led to the creation of a new task group called 802.11ax, which is expected to deliver the next Wi-Fi generation. A key perspective considered by the recent discussions is increasing the spatial reuse using Physical Carrier Sensing (PCS) adaptation. While Transmit Power Control (TPC) has always been the chosen technique when targeting spatial reuse improvements, this work investigates the weakness points in TPC especially outside centralized network architectures. On the other hand, the incentives behind adopting the PCS approach are discussed. Accordingly, a new algorithm is proposed to adapt the PCS dynamically. The performance of this proposal is compared to that of TPC using OPNET simulations. For a dense IEEE 802.11n network topology, simulation results show that PCS outperforms TPC (120% versus 66% of throughput gain respectively). Particularly, the PCS approach is more robust when there are some nodes that are not implementing the PCS nor the TPC adaptation.
Tribe: The collaborative platform for reproducible web-based analysis of gene sets

Background The adoption of new bioinformatics webservers provides biological researchers with new analytical opportunities but also raises workflow challenges. These challenges include sharing collections of genes with collaborators, translating gene identifiers to the most appropriate nomenclature for each server, tracking these collections across multiple analysis tools and webservers, and maintaining effective records of the genes used in each analysis. Description In this paper, we present the Tribe webserver (available at https://tribe.greenelab.com), which addresses these challenges in order to make multi-server workflows seamless and reproducible. This allows users to create analysis pipelines that use their own sets of genes in combinations of specialized data mining webservers and tools while seamlessly maintaining gene set version control. Tribe’s web interface facilitates collaborative editing: users can share with collaborators, who can then view, download, and edit these collections. Tribe’s fully-featured API allows users to interact with Tribe programmatically if desired. Tribe implements the OAuth 2.0 standard as well as gene identifier mapping, which facilitates its integration into existing servers. Access to Tribe’s resources is facilitated by an easy-to-install Python application called tribe-client. We provide Tribe and tribe-client under a permissive open-source license to encourage others to download the source code and set up a local instance or to extend its capabilities. Conclusions The Tribe webserver addresses challenges that have made reproducible multi-webserver workflows difficult to implement until now. It is open source, has a user-friendly web interface, and provides a means for researchers to perform reproducible gene set based analyses seamlessly across webservers and command line tools.
Proliferation in the Rat Olfactory Epithelium: Age-Dependent Changes

Vertebrate olfactory sensory neurons are replaced continuously throughout life. We studied the effect of age on proliferation in olfactory epithelium in postnatal rats ranging in age from birth (P1) until P333. Using BrdU to label dividing cells, we determined the proliferation density of basal cells, i.e., the number of labeled nuclei/unit length (240 μm) of olfactory epithelium in coronal sections from six different anterior–posterior levels from each animal. A total length of >1 m of olfactory epithelium was counted in each age group. We observed a dramatic decrease of proliferation density from P1 through P333. At P1, proliferation density is 151 cells/mm; it decreases to approximately half at P21 (70 cells/mm), and half again at P40 (37 cells/mm). At P333 the proliferation density was only 8/mm, ∼5% of that seen at P1. The changes were clearly related to age and not to body weight, because the values were essentially identical for males and females of the same age but of different body weight. Proliferating cells appear in patches that, after P40, become more separated from one another and contain fewer cells. In 6- and 11-month-old rats, 30 and 45% of all units contained no labeled cells. We confirmed the data of others that the olfactory surface area continuously increases with age; we showed that there is a reciprocal relationship between proliferation density and surface area. The proliferating cells provide neurons to sustain growth as well as to replace dying cells.
Demand Side Energy Management via Multiagent Coordination in Consumer Cooperatives

A key challenge in creating a sustainable and energy-efficient society is to make consumer demand adaptive to the supply of energy, especially to the renewable supply. In this article, we propose a partially-centralized organization of consumers (or agents), namely, a consumer cooperative that purchases electricity from the market. In the cooperative, a central coordinator buys the electricity for the whole group. The technical challenge is that consumers make their own demand decisions, based on their private demand constraints and preferences, which they do not share with the coordinator or other agents. We propose a novel multiagent coordination algorithm, to shape the energy demand of the cooperative. To coordinate individual consumers under incomplete information, the coordinator determines virtual price signals that it sends to the consumers to induce them to shift their demands when required. We prove that this algorithm converges to the central optimal solution and minimizes the electric energy cost of the cooperative. Additionally, we present results on the time complexity of the iterative algorithm and its implications for agents' incentive compatibility. Furthermore, we perform simulations based on real world consumption data to (a) characterize the convergence properties of our algorithm and (b) understand the effect of differing demand characteristics of participants as well as of different price functions on the cost reduction. The results show that the convergence time scales linearly with the agent population size and length of the optimization horizon. Finally, we observe that as participants' flexibility of shifting their demands increases, cost reduction increases and that the cost reduction is not sensitive to variation in consumption patterns of the consumers.
An evaluation of two swarm intelligence MANET routing algorithms in an urban environment

We study through simulation the performance of two swarm intelligence MANET routing algorithms in a realistic urban environment. The two algorithms, ANSI and AntHocNet, implement the swarm intelligence paradigm for routing in different ways: while ANSI applies a reactive approach in which ants are only sent out when no route is available between the source and destination of a communication session, AntHocNet integrates reactive and proactive mechanisms whereby the algorithm sends out ants at regular intervals during the entire duration of running sessions in order to continuously adapt and improve existing routes. The two swarm intelligence routing algorithms are compared to AODV, a state-of-the-art reactive algorithm, and OLSR, a state-of-the-art proactive algorithm. Our objective is to investigate the usefulness of the different approaches adopted by the algorithms when confronted with the peculiarities of urban environments and the requirements of real-world applications. At this aim we define a detailed and realistic simulation setup. We model node mobility by limiting node movements to the streets and open spaces of town, use a ray-tracing approach to model the propagation of radio waves, and investigate different kinds of interactive data traffic patterns, ranging from SMS messaging to VoIP communications.
Control of dynamic locomotion for the hybrid wheel-legged mobile robot by using unstable-zeros cancellation

In this paper, a new method of center of mass trajectory planning using the zero-phase low pass filter is proposed. This method is based on a table-cart model which simply describes the relationship between center of mass and zero moment point. Generally, zero moment point should be controlled to realize dynamic motion. This method can easily generate the center of mass trajectory which realizes the desired zero moment point. In our study, this method is applied to wheel-legged locomotion. We will show the result that zero moment point can be sufficiently controlled even if quadruped wheel-legged mobile robot is approximated to a table-cart model. The effectiveness of the idea is validated by simulation and experiment.
Post Processing and Biological Evaluation of the Titanium Scaffolds for Bone Tissue Engineering

Nowadays, post-surgical or post-accidental bone loss can be substituted by custom-made scaffolds fabricated by additive manufacturing (AM) methods from metallic powders. However, the partially melted powder particles must be removed in a post-process chemical treatment. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the chemical polishing with various acid baths on novel scaffolds’ morphology, porosity and mechanical properties. In the first stage, Magics software (Materialise NV, Leuven, Belgium) was used to design a porous scaffolds with pore size equal to (A) 200 µm, (B) 500 µm and (C) 200 + 500 µm, and diamond cell structure. The scaffolds were fabricated from commercially pure titanium powder (CP Ti) using a SLM50 3D printing machine (Realizer GmbH, Borchen, Germany). The selective laser melting (SLM) process was optimized and the laser beam energy density in range of 91–151 J/mm3 was applied to receive 3D structures with fully dense struts. To remove not fully melted titanium particles the scaffolds were chemically polished using various HF and HF-HNO3 acid solutions. Based on scaffolds mass loss and scanning electron (SEM) observations, baths which provided most uniform surface cleaning were proposed for each porosity. The pore and strut size after chemical treatments was calculated based on the micro-computed tomography (µ-CT) and SEM images. The mechanical tests showed that the treated scaffolds had Young’s modulus close to that of compact bone. Additionally, the effect of pore size of chemically polished scaffolds on cell retention, proliferation and differentiation was studied using human mesenchymal stem cells. Small pores yielded higher cell retention within the scaffolds, which then affected their growth. This shows that in vitro cell performance can be controlled to certain extent by varying pore sizes.
Enhanced Recruitment of Endosomal Na+/H+ Exchanger NHE6 into Dendritic Spines of Hippocampal Pyramidal Neurons during NMDA Receptor-Dependent Long-Term Potentiation

Postsynaptic endosomal trafficking has emerged as a principal regulatory mechanism of structural and functional plasticity of glutamatergic synapses. Recycling endosomes perform activity-dependent transport of AMPA receptors (AMPARs) and lipids to the postsynaptic membrane, activities that are known to contribute to long-term synaptic potentiation and hypothesized to subserve learning and memory processes in the brain. Recently, genetic defects in a widely expressed vesicular pH-regulating transporter, the Na+/H+ exchanger NHE6 isoform, have been implicated in neurodevelopmental disorders including severe X-linked mental retardation and autism. However, little information is available regarding the cellular properties of this transporter in the CNS. Here, we show by quantitative light microscopy that the protein abundance of NHE6 is developmentally regulated in area CA1 of the mouse hippocampus. Within pyramidal neurons, NHE6 was found to localize to discrete puncta throughout the soma and neurites, with noticeable accumulation at dendritic spines and presynaptic terminals. Dual immunolabeling of dendritic spines revealed that NHE6 partially colocalizes with typical markers of early and recycling endosomes as well as with the AMPAR subunit GluA1. Significantly, NHE6-containing vesicles exhibited enhanced translocation to dendritic spine heads during NMDA receptor (NMDAR)-dependent long-term potentiation. These data suggest that NHE6 may play a unique, previously unrecognized, role at glutamatergic synapses that are important for learning and memory.
Range of Motion of the Intact Lumbar Segment: A Multivariate Study of 42 Lumbar Spines

Background A thorough understanding of the biomechanical characteristics of the healthy human spine is critical in furthering the treatment of spinal pathology. The goal of this study was to investigate the motion of the intact lumbar spine segment as measured by range of motion (ROM), and to investigate the dependencies thereof on gender and intervertebral level. Materials and Methods Kinematic data was obtained for 42 human lumbar segments (L1-S1) in response to a pure-moment loading protocol in flexion extension (FE), lateral bending (LB) and axial torsion (AT). Data was obtained for 204 individual functional spinal units (91 female, 113 male). Multivariate analysis of variance was conducted to detect differences between genders and intervertebral levels in each mode of loading. Correlations between ROM and donor demographics, including height, weight, and age, were conducted. Results ROM was significantly greater for females than for males in FE, LB and AT (p<0.001). ROM tended to increase down the vertebral column in FE. L3-4 FE ROM was significantly greater than L1-2 (p=0.024), and L4-5 and L5-S1 FE ROM were significantly greater than for every other level (p<0.003). LB ROM tended to be greater toward the center of the segment with L2-3, L3-4 and L4-5 ROM being significantly greater than both L1-2 (p<0.001) and L5-S1 (p=0.006, p<0.001, p=0.043, respectively). A similar trend was found for AT, however only L1-2 was significantly less than all other levels (p=0.042, p<0.001, p<0.001, and p=0.034 for L2-3, L3-4, L4-5, and L5-S1 respectively). Conclusion The significant differences in lumbar ROM between male and female spine segments and between the intervertebral levels must be taken into account in study design in order to prevent biases in outcomes. The significant differences in ROM between levels may also have critical implications in the design of spinal implants, particularly those designed to maintain or restore healthy motion.
Thiazolidinediones and metformin associated with improved survival of diabetic prostate cancer patients.

BACKGROUND The association between antidiabetic medications and the prognosis of human prostate cancer has not been explored. This study examined the impact of these drugs on the outcomes of diabetic patients with prostate cancer to provide a basis for diabetes management strategy in these patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS Records of consecutive prostate cancer patients with coexisting diabetes mellitus type 2 who were treated at the study institution between 15 July 1999 and 31 December 2008 were reviewed. The survival, cancer pathological grade, stage at the time of diagnosis, and antidiabetic pharmacotherapy of the patients were analyzed. RESULTS A total of 233 consecutive cases were analyzed. In Kaplan-Meier analysis, thiazolidinedione (log-rank, P = 0.005) and metformin (log-rank, P = 0.035) usage were significant predictors of improved overall survival, while insulin and insulin secretagogue usage were not significant predictors. Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that thiazolidinedione {hazard ratio [HR] = 0.454 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.213-0.965], P = 0.040} and metformin [HR = 0.550 (95% CI 0.315-0.960), P = 0.035] usage remained as significant predictors of favorable survival after controlling for variables including age, race, Gleason grade, and stage. CONCLUSIONS Thiazolidinediones and metformin appear to be associated with improved overall survival of diabetic prostate cancer patients. The choice of antidiabetic pharmacotherapy may influence overall survival of these patients.
The complexity of finding most vital arcs and nodes

Let G(V; E) be a graph (either directed or undirected) with a non-negative length`(e) associated with each arc e in E. For two speciied nodes s and t in V , the k most vital arcs (or nodes) are those k arcs (nodes) whose removal maximizes the increase in the length of the shortest path from s to t. We prove that nding the k most vital arcs (or nodes) is NP-hard, even when all arcs have unit length. We also correct some errors in an earlier paper by Malik,
Zatocoding applied to mechanical organization of knowledge

The mechanical organization of knowledge for retrieval of stored information can no longer neglect the developments of point‐to‐point communication theory, since both deal with information and handle it by machines. The most versatile retrieval systems are those which delegate a separate tally to each information item, and which impress marks on the tally for the machine to read and to use for selective purposes. Coding is the relationship between these marks and the intellectual content of the information items. Coding determines the complexity of the selective machine and the utility of the whole process. A set of invariant coding principles is stated which define maximum coding efficiency for any tally selecting machines, and parallels are drawn between these principles and the conclusions of modern point‐to‐point communication theory. Zatocoding is defined—the system which superimposes random subject code patterns on the tally—and it is found to obey each of the invariant principles of coding efficiency while still allowing the simplest possible selector machine structure.
Modelling Quality of Protection in Outsourced Business Processes

There is a large number of research papers and standards dedicated to security for outsourced data. Yet, most papers propose new controls to access and protect the data rather than to assess the level of assurance of the whole process that is currently deployed. The main contributions of the paper is an approach for aggregating security properties of individual tasks of a complex business process in order to receive the level of assurance provided by the whole process. The approach takes into account the fact that some tasks of a business process may be outsourced and thus account for not very reliable partners. The approach chooses the concrete business process offering the highest assurance among several possible design alternatives by building an optimal hyper-path traversing the business process.
Wind-wind collision in the η Carinae binary system: a shell-like event near periastron

ABSTRACT The exact nature of η Carinae is still an open issue. Strict periodicity in the lightcurves at several wavelengths seem to point out to a binary system, but the observedradial velocities, measured from space with high spatial resolution are in conﬂict withthe ground based observations used to calculate the binary orbit. Also, the observed2-10 keV X-ray ﬂux is much larger that what is expected from a single star, andfavors the wind-wind collision hypothesis, characteristic of high mass binary systems.However, to explain the duration of the dip in the light curve by wind collisions, it isnecessary to postulate a very large increase in the η Carinae mass loss rate. Finally, theoptical and UV light curves are better explained by periodic shell-ejection events. Inthis paper we conciliate the two hypothesis. We still assume a binary system to explainthe strong X-ray emission, but we also take into account that, near periastron andbecause of the highly eccentric orbit, the wind emerging from η Carinae accumulatesbehind the shock and can mimic a shell-like ejection event. For this process to beeﬀective, at periastron the secondary star should be located between η Carinae andthe observer, solving also the discrepancy between the orbital parameters derived fromground and space based observations. We show that, as the secondary moves in itsorbit, the shell cools down and the number of available stellar ionizing photons is notenough to maintain the shell temperature at its equilibrium value of about 7500 K.The central part of the shell remains cold and under these conditions grain formationand growth can take place in timescales of hours. We also calculated the neutral gascolumn density intercepting the line of sight at each point of the orbit near periastron,and were able to reproduce the form and duration of the X-ray light curve withoutany change in the η Carinae mass loss rate. This same column density can explain theobserved Hα light curve observed during the 2003 event.Key words: stars: individual (η Car) binaries: general stars: variable X-rays: stars
A versatile non-radioactive assay for DNA methyltransferase activity and DNA binding

We present a simple, non-radioactive assay for DNA methyltransferase activity and DNA binding. As most proteins are studied as GFP fusions in living cells, we used a GFP binding nanobody coupled to agarose beads (GFP nanotrap) for rapid one-step purification. Immobilized GFP fusion proteins were subsequently incubated with different fluorescently labeled DNA substrates. The absolute amounts and molar ratios of GFP fusion proteins and bound DNA substrates were determined by fluorescence spectroscopy. In addition to specific DNA binding of GFP fusion proteins, the enzymatic activity of DNA methyltransferases can also be determined by using suicide DNA substrates. These substrates contain the mechanism-based inhibitor 5-aza-dC and lead to irreversible covalent complex formation. We obtained covalent complexes with mammalian DNA methyltransferase 1 (Dnmt1), which were resistant to competition with non-labeled canonical DNA substrates, allowing differentiation between methyltransferase activity and DNA binding. By comparison, the Dnmt1C1229W catalytic site mutant showed DNA-binding activity, but no irreversible covalent complex formation. With this assay, we could also confirm the preference of Dnmt1 for hemimethylated CpG sequences. The rapid optical read-out in a multi-well format and the possibility to test several different substrates in direct competition allow rapid characterization of sequence-specific binding and enzymatic activity.
Host-induced bacterial cell wall decomposition mediates pattern-triggered immunity in Arabidopsis

Peptidoglycans (PGNs) are immunogenic bacterial surface patterns that trigger immune activation in metazoans and plants. It is generally unknown how complex bacterial structures such as PGNs are perceived by plant pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) and whether host hydrolytic activities facilitate decomposition of bacterial matrices and generation of soluble PRR ligands. Here we show that Arabidopsis thaliana, upon bacterial infection or exposure to microbial patterns, produces a metazoan lysozyme-like hydrolase (lysozyme 1, LYS1). LYS1 activity releases soluble PGN fragments from insoluble bacterial cell walls and cleavage products are able to trigger responses typically associated with plant immunity. Importantly, LYS1 mutant genotypes exhibit super-susceptibility to bacterial infections similar to that observed on PGN receptor mutants. We propose that plants employ hydrolytic activities for the decomposition of complex bacterial structures, and that soluble pattern generation might aid PRR-mediated immune activation in cell layers adjacent to infection sites. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.01990. 001