Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Intensity Matching Approach: A Tractable Stochastic Geometry Approximation to System-Level Analysis of Cellular Networks

The intensity matching approach for tractable performance evaluation and optimization of cellular networks is introduced. It assumes that the base stations are modeled as the points of a Poisson point process (PPP) and leverages stochastic geometry for system-level analysis. Its rationale relies on observing that system-level performance is determined by the intensity measure of transformations of the underlaying spatial PPP. By approximating the original system model with a simplified one, whose performance is determined by a mathematically convenient intensity measure, tractable yet accurate integral expressions for computing area spectral efficiency and potential throughput are provided. The considered system model accounts for many practical aspects that, for tractability, are typically neglected, e.g., line-of-sight (LOS) and non-LOS propagation, antenna radiation patterns, traffic load, practical cell associations, and general fading channels. The proposed approach, more importantly, is conveniently formulated for unveiling the impact of several system parameters, e.g., the density of base stations and blockages. The effectiveness of this novel and general methodology is validated with the aid of empirical data for the locations of base stations and for the footprints of buildings in dense urban environments.
Cardiovascular Effects of Brain Kinin Receptor Blockade in Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats

We studied the role of brain kinins in the regulation of cardiovascular function. Intracerebroventricular injection of 380 pmol bradykinin increased mean blood pressure by 20±2 mm Hg (p<.01) in normotensive Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats. Complete inhibition of this effect was achieved with intracerebroventricular administration of the newly synthesized, long-acting B2 receptor antagonist D-Arg,[Hyp3,Thi5,D-Tic7, Oic8-bradykinin (Hoe 140). On a molar basis, Hoe 140 was two orders of magnitude more potent than antagonists of the first generation. Baroreceptor sensitivity, estimated as the heart rate response to blood pressure changes induced by intravenous injection of phenylephrine or sodium nitroprusside, was not altered by Hoe 140 in WKY rats. In spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR), baroreceptor reflex sensitivity to increments in mean blood pressure was reduced by Hoe 140 mean slope value: −0.47±0.07 versus −0.92±0.13 beats per minute per millimeter of mercury in controls, P<. 05). Hoe 140 did not affect the tachycardic component of the baroreceptor reflex. Two-week intracerebroventricular infusion of Hoe 140 did not alter systolic blood pressure or heart rate in WKY rats. In SHR, systolic blood pressure increased (P<.01) similarly during the infusion of Hoe 140 or vehicle (from 174 ±6 to 220±5 mm Hg and 178±4 to 210±4 mm Hg at 2 weeks, respectively), whereas heart rate did not change. Failure of long-term blockade of B2 receptors to affect normal blood pressure of WKY rats and to blunt the progression of hypertension in SHR does not favor the hypothesis that brain kinins are involved in the regulation of blood pressure. On the other hand, the present study suggests modulation of barorereceptor reflex sensitivity by brain kinins in genetic hypertension.
Immunomodulatory Effects of the Agaricus blazei Murrill-Based Mushroom Extract AndoSan in Patients with Multiple Myeloma Undergoing High Dose Chemotherapy and Autologous Stem Cell Transplantation: A Randomized, Double Blinded Clinical Study

Forty patients with multiple myeloma scheduled to undergo high dose chemotherapy with autologous stem cell support were randomized in a double blinded fashion to receive adjuvant treatment with the mushroom extract AndoSan, containing 82% of Agaricus blazei Murrill (19 patients) or placebo (21 patients). Intake of the study product started on the day of stem cell mobilizing chemotherapy and continued until the end of aplasia after high dose chemotherapy, a period of about seven weeks. Thirty-three patients were evaluable for all study endpoints, while all 40 included patients were evaluable for survival endpoints. In the leukapheresis product harvested after stem cell mobilisation, increased percentages of Treg cells and plasmacytoid dendritic cells were found in patients receiving AndoSan. Also, in this group, a significant increase of serum levels of IL-1ra, IL-5, and IL-7 at the end of treatment was found. Whole genome microarray showed increased expression of immunoglobulin genes, Killer Immunoglobulin Receptor (KIR) genes, and HLA genes in the Agaricus group. Furthermore, AndoSan displayed a concentration dependent antiproliferative effect on mouse myeloma cells in vitro. There were no statistically significant differences in treatment response, overall survival, and time to new treatment. The study was registered with Clinicaltrials.gov NCT00970021.
Lipids and Membrane Lateral Organization

Shortly after the elucidation of the very basic structure and properties of cellular membranes, it became evident that cellular membranes are highly organized structures with multiple and multi-dimensional levels of order. Very early observations suggested that the lipid components of biological membranes might be active players in the creation of these levels of order. In the late 1980s, several different and diverse experimental pieces of evidence coalesced together giving rise to the lipid raft hypothesis. Lipid rafts became enormously (and, in the opinion of these authors, sometimes acritically) popular, surprisingly not just within the lipidologist community (who is supposed to be naturally sensitive to the fascination of lipid rafts). Today, a PubMed search using the key word “lipid rafts” returned a list of 3767 papers, including 690 reviews (as a term of comparison, searching over the same time span for a very hot lipid-related key word, “ceramide” returned 6187 hits with 799 reviews), and a tremendous number of different cellular functions have been described as “lipid raft-dependent. ” However, a clear consensus definition of lipid raft has been proposed only in recent times, and the basic properties, the ruling forces, and even the existence of lipid rafts in living cells has been recently matter of intense debate. The scenario that is gradually emerging from the controversies elicited by the lipid raft hypothesis emphasizes multiple roles for membrane lipids in determining membrane order, that encompass their tendency to phase separation but are clearly not limited to this. In this review, we would like to re-focus the attention of the readers on the importance of lipids in organizing the fine structure of cellular membranes.
Interface for heterogeneous kernels: A framework to enable hybrid OS designs targeting high performance computing on manycore architectures

Turning towards exascale systems and beyond, it has been widely argued that the currently available systems software is not going to be feasible due to various requirements such as the ability to deal with heterogeneous architectures, the need for systems level optimization targeting specific applications, elimination of OS noise, and at the same time, compatibility with legacy applications. To cope with these issues, a hybrid design of operating systems where light-weight specialized kernels can cooperate with a traditional OS kernel seems adequate, and a number of recent research projects are now heading into this direction. This paper presents Interface for Heterogeneous Kernels (IHK), a general framework enabling hybrid kernel designs in systems equipped with manycore processors and/or accelerators. IHK provides a range of capabilities, such as resource partitioning, management of heterogeneous OS kernels, as well as a low-level communication layer among the kernels. We describe IHK's interface and demonstrate its feasibility for hybrid kernel designs through executing various different lightweight OS kernels on top of it, which are specialized for certain types of applications. We use the Intel Xeon Phi, Intel's latest manycore coprocessor, as our experimental platform.
An Observer That Converges in Finite Time Due to Measurement-Based State Updates

Abstract This paper presents a new observer that estimates the exact state of a linear continuous-time system in predetermined finite time. The finite convergence time of the proposed observer is achieved by updating the observer state based on the difference between the measured output and the estimated output at discrete time instants. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the convergence behavior and the applicability of the proposed observer.
Productivity improvement of manufacturing SMEs via technology innovation in Korea

The competitive strength of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) based on technological innovation is one of the most important managerial strategies for holding a dominant position under the fierce global competition. In this study, a decision tree is used to grasp SMEs' innovation activities hierarchically for technological innovation, where the increase of annual productivity rate is used as a proxy target variable for innovation while SMEs' various innovative activities are used as explanatory variables in the form of information acquisition, technological cooperation, technology acquisition, government support, patenting, and compensation. Based on the results of our decision tree analysis, we suggest some insightful strategies for successful innovation of SMEs. It is expected that our study can provide a means for improvement of productivity based on technological innovation.
MiRNA-429 suppresses the growth of gastric cancer cells in vitro

Micro-RNAs (miRNAs) have been found to be implicated in a very wide range of physiological processes. This study was aimed to investigate the regulation of miRNA-429 (miR-429) in gastric cancer cells on cell proliferation and apoptosis. Quantitative PCR was employed to detect the expressions of miR-429 after eukaryotic expression plasmid of miR-429 and its inhibitor were transiently transfected into poorly differentiated human gastric cancer cell line BGC823. The 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) reduction assays were used to examine proliferation ability. Apoptosis was analyzed by flow cytometry after transfection. The results showed that 48 h after transfection, overexpression of miR-429 reached maximum efficiency. Compared with mock transfection, miR-429 inhibited tumor cell proliferation significantly (P < 0.05) at 48 h and 72 h. of Overexpression of miR-429 promoted tumor cell apoptosis when compared with mock transfected cells (P < 0.05). On the contrary, miR-429 inhibitor promoted tumor cell proliferation and inhibited apoptosis when compared with controls (P < 0.05). Our results suggested that miRNA-429 may serve as a tumor suppressor during tumorigenesis of gastric cancer and may be a potential gastric cancer therapeutic target.
Recognizing Implied Predicate-Argument Relationships in Textual Inference

We investigate recognizing implied predicate-argument relationships which are not explicitly expressed in syntactic structure. While prior works addressed such relationships as an extension to semantic role labeling, our work investigates them in the context of textual inference scenarios. Such scenarios provide prior information, which substantially eases the task. We provide a large and freely available evaluation dataset for our task setting, and propose methods to cope with it, while obtaining promising results in empirical evaluations. 1 Motivation and Task
Opioid Therapy Pharmacogenomics for Noncancer Pain: Efficacy, Adverse Events, and Costs

Chronic non-cancer pain is a debilitating condition associated with high individual and societal costs. While opioid treatment for pain has been available for centuries, it is associated with high variability in outcome, and a considerable proportion of patients is unable to attain relief from symptoms while suffering adverse events and developing medication dependence. We performed a review of the efficacy of pharmacogenomic markers and their abilities to predict adverse events, dependence, and associated economic costs, focusing on two genes: OPRM1 and CYP2D6. Data sources were articles indexed by PubMed on or before August 6, 2013. Articles were first selected after review of their titles and abstracts, and full papers were read to confirm eligibility. Initially, fifty-two articles were identified. Of these, 17 were relevant to biological actions of pharmacogenomic markers and their effect on therapeutic efficacy, 16 to adverse events, 15 to opioid dependence, and eight to economic costs. In conclusion, increasing costs of opioid therapy have made the advances in pharmacogenomics an attractive solution to personalize care with unclear repercussions related to the impact on costs, morbidity, and outcomes. This intersection of pharmacoeconomics and pharmacogenomics presents a unique platform to further examine current advances in clinical medicine and their utility in cost-effective treatment of chronic pain.
A method for computing general automorphic forms on general groups

Abstract This article describes a general method for computing automorphic forms using Voronoi-type summation formulas. It gives a numerical example where the technique is successful in quickly finding a cusp form on GL(3, ℤ)\GL(3, ℝ), albeit one whose existence was already known as a Langlands lift.
Traffic classification based on port connection pattern

While the traditional Web, Email and other Internet applications are still used large-scale, Internet applications, such as typical P2P resource sharing, streaming, games, instant messaging and other new applications emerging, is generating the rapid growth traffic. Connection pattern approach is to observe and identify connection patterns of host behavior at the transport layer. This method has no access to packet payload, no knowledge of port numbers and no additional information other than what current flow collectors provide. But traffic classification method based on host connection pattern can't distinguish some similar applications provided by one server. This paper analyzes the connection pattern between servers for SMTP, POP3, Web, BT traffic, and the distribution of simultaneous connections for each server port, and then propose a new traffic classified approach based on port connection pattern and the simultaneous connection number. The classified method can distinguish WEB, SMTP, POP3, and BT traffic each port in a server without any knowledge of port. The experimental result shows that this method is effective.
Association of the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio and prostate cancer detection rates in patients via contemporary multi-core prostate biopsy

The aim of this study was to determine whether the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), a measure of the systemic inflammatory response is associated with the overall prostate cancer detection rate in men who underwent contemporary multi (≥12)-core transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) biopsy. We reviewed the records of 3913 patients with initial prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels ranging from 4 to 10 ng ml−1 who underwent TRUS-guided prostate biopsy between April 2006 and May 2014. NLR was calculated by prebiopsy neutrophil and lymphocyte counts. We excluded patients who had evidence of acute prostatitis, a history of prostate surgery, and any systemic inflammatory disease. A multivariate logistic regression model was used to analyze prostate cancer detection. After adjusting for confounding factors, predictive values were determined according to the receiver operating characteristic-derived area under the curve, both including and excluding the NLR variable. In univariate analyses, NLR was a significant predictor of prostate cancer detection (P < 0.001). In multivariate analyses, a higher NLR was significantly associated with prostate cancer detection after adjusting for other factors (OR = 1.372, P= 0.038). The addition of NLR increased the accuracy from 0.712 to 0.725 (P = 0.005) in the multivariate model for prostate cancer detection. NLR may be a potentially useful clinical marker in the detection of prostate cancer among men with a PSA level in the 4-10 ng ml−1 range. These findings are derived from a retrospective analysis and should be validated in larger populations through prospective studies.
Churn Prediction using Complaints Data

The aim of this paper is to identify the most suitable model for churn prediction based on three different techniques. The paper identifies the variables that affect churn in reverence of customer complaints data and provides a comparative analysis of neural networks, regression trees and regression in their capabilities of predicting customer churn. Keywords—Churn, Neural Networks, Regression, Decision
Syllable-based automatic Arabic speech recognition in different conditions of noise

The presence of noise degrades the recognition percent of automatic speech recognition systems. The improvement of noise can be achieved by changing acoustic units during the recognition process. In this paper, we concentrate on automatic Arabic speech recognition in different conditions of noise using different acoustic units. Automatic Arabic speech was described by showing their constructing monophones, triphones and syllables. Speaker-independent hidden Markov models (HMMs)-based speech recognition system was designed using hidden Markov model toolkit (HTK). The database used of Arabic consists from fifty-nine Egyptian speakers. Speakers were asked to utter different sentences of Egyptian proverbs. As shown in experiments here, the recognition rates using syllables outperform monophones and triphones by 21.46% and 15.63% repectively, when SNR is 20 dB at the average of the some different conditions of noise. Motivated by the obtained results, speech recognition using syllables is more robustness to noise than triphones and monophones.
Human Curation and Convnets: Powering Item-to-Item Recommendations on Pinterest

This paper presents Pinterest Related Pins, an item-to-item recommendation system that combines collaborative filtering with content-based ranking. We demonstrate that signals derived from user curation, the activity of users organizing content, are highly effective when used in conjunction with content-based ranking. This paper also demonstrates the effectiveness of visual features, such as image or object representations learned from convnets, in improving the user engagement rate of our item-to-item recommendation system.
Novel levocetirizine HCl tablets with enhanced palatability: synergistic effect of combining taste modifiers and effervescence technique

Objectives Levocetirizine HCl, a second-generation piperazine derivative and H1-selective antihistaminic agent, possesses few side effects. The first objective of the study was to compare and evaluate the taste-masking effect of different ratios of 2-hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin and mannitol on levocetirizine HCl using an inclusion complex and solid dispersion, respectively. The second objective was to study the possibility of preparing and evaluating effervescent tablets from the best-chosen taste-masked blends for the purpose of their use either as orodispersible tablets or as water-soluble effervescent tablets, according to patients’ will. Materials and methods Prepared taste-masked blends were prepared and subjected to palatability, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, and differential scanning calorimetry studies. Tablets containing different percentages of effervescent mixtures were prepared by direct compression on the selected taste-modified blends. Evaluation tests were conducted, including flowability and compressibility on the precompressed blends and hardness, friability, wetting time, effervescent time, in vitro, in vivo disintegration time, and in vitro dissolution study on the compressed tablets. Formulated tablets were evaluated and compared to marketed orodispersible tablets for mouth feel and palatability. Results All prepared tablets showed convenient physical and palatability properties compared to the selected brand. The in vitro drug-release study revealed fast release of levocetirizine HCl within 5 minutes from all prepared tablets. Conclusion Levocetirizine HCl effervescent tablets are likely to increase patient compliance with drug administration. Moreover, the use of these effervescent tablets in an orodispersible dosage form can improve oral drug bioavailability and act as an attractive pediatric dosage form.
Modeling and simulation of a level control system

This paper describes a methodology for developing an accurate model of a laboratory level control system (Festo Compact Workstation). The model of each element in the system is based on the theoretical background of the functionality as well as on experimental measurements. Scientific software (Matlab and Simulink) is used to aid the simulation activities. A suggested model is presented and the simulations that may be put in practice provide students with important concepts regarding the analysis of continuous dynamic systems.
Qingxuan Jiangya Decoction Reverses Vascular Remodeling by Inducing Vascular Smooth Muscle Cell Apoptosis in Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats

Qingxuan Jiangya Decoction (QXJYD), a traditional Chinese medicine formula prescribed by academician Ke-ji Chen, has been used in China to clinically treat hypertension for decades of years. However, the molecular mechanisms of its action remain largely unknown. In this study, we examined the therapeutic efficacy of QXJYD against elevated systolic blood pressure in the spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR) model, and investigated the underlying molecular mechanisms. We found that oral administration of QXJYD significantly reduced the elevation of systolic blood pressure in SHR but had no effect on body weight change. Additionally, QXJYD treatment significantly decreased the media thickness and ratio of media thickness/lumen diameter in the carotid arteries of SHR. Moreover, QXJYD remarkably promoted apoptosis of vascular smooth muscle cells and reduced the expression of anti-apoptotic B-cell leukemia/lymphoma 2. Furthermore, QXJYD significantly decreased the plasma Angiotensin II level in SHR. Collectively, our findings suggest that reversing vascular remodeling via inducing VSMC apoptosis could be one of the mechanisms whereby QXJYD treats hypertension.
Realizing perceptive virtual reality imaging applications on conventional PC hardware

Abstract In this work, we investigate the immersive presentation of three‐dimensional content using real‐time multi‐view projection from a conventional PC hardware platform. By combining the available graphics capability of a modern workstation with an established, low‐cost technique for multi‐view image separation, we present a technique for real‐time, interactive virtual reality content presentation. We present a number of potential imaging applications with exemplar results the medical, engineering, geo‐spatial and educational domains.