Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Time-of-Arrival Estimation Based on Information Theoretic Criteria

The possibility to accurately localize tags by using wireless techniques is of great importance for several emerging applications in the Internet of Things. Precise ranging can be obtained with ultra wideband (UWB) impulse radio (IR) systems, where short impulses are transmitted, and their time-of-arrival (ToA) is estimated at the receiver. Due to the presence of noise and multipath, the estimator has the difficult task of discriminating the time intervals where the received waveform is due to noise only, by those where there are also signal components. Common low-complexity methods use an energy detector (ED), whose output is compared with a threshold, to discriminate the time intervals containing noise only from those containing signal plus noise. Optimal threshold design for these methods requires knowledge of the channel impulse response and of the receiver noise power. We propose a different approach, where ToA estimation is based on model selection by information theoretic criteria (ITC). The resulting ToA algorithms do not use thresholds, and do not require any information about the channel or the noise power level. These blind, universal ToA estimators show, for completely unknown multipath channels and in the presence of noise with unknown power, excellent performance when compared with ideal genie-aided schemes.
Predicting ordinary kriging errors caused by surface roughness and dissectivity

The magnitude of kriging errors varies in accordance with the surface properties. The purpose of this paper is to determine the association of ordinary kriging (OK) estimated errors with the local variability of surface roughness, and to analyse the suitability of probabilistic models for predicting the magnitude of OK errors from surface parameters. This task includes determining the terrain parameters in order to explain the variation in the magnitude of OK errors. The results of this research indicate that the higher order regression models, with complex interaction terms, were able to explain 95 per cent of the variation in the OK error magnitude using the least number of predictors. In addition, the results underscore the importance of the role of the local diversity of relief properties in increasing or decreasing the magnitude of interpolation errors. The newly developed dissectivity parameters provide useful information for terrain analysis. Our study also provides constructive guides to understanding the local variation of interpolation errors and their dependence on surface dissectivity. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Automated segmentation of acetabulum and femoral head from 3-d CT images

This paper describes several new methods and software for automatic segmentation of the pelvis and the femur, based on clinically obtained multislice computed tomography (CT) data. The hip joint is composed of the acetabulum, cavity of the pelvic bone, and the femoral head. In vivo CT data sets of 60 actual patients were used in the study. The 120 (60 /spl times/ 2) hip joints in the data sets were divided into four groups according to several key features for segmentation. Conventional techniques for classification of bony tissues were first employed to distinguish the pelvis and the femur from other CT tissue images in the hip joint. Automatic techniques were developed to extract the boundary between the acetabulum and the femoral head. An automatic method was built up to manage the segmentation task according to image intensity of bone tissues, size, center, shape of the femoral heads, and other characters. The processing scheme consisted of the following five steps: 1) preprocessing, including resampling 3-D CT data by a modified Sine interpolation to create isotropic volume and to avoid Gibbs ringing, and smoothing the resulting images by a 3-D Gaussian filter; 2) detecting bone tissues from CT images by conventional techniques including histogram-based thresholding and binary morphological operations; 3) estimating initial boundary of the femoral head and the joint space between the acetabulum and the femoral head by a new approach utilizing the constraints of the greater trochanter and the shapes of the femoral head; 4) enhancing the joint space by a Hessian filter; and 5) refining the rough boundary obtained in step 3) by a moving disk technique and the filtered images obtained in step 4). The above method was implemented in a Microsoft Windows software package and the resulting software is freely available on the Internet. The feasibility of this method was tested on the data sets of 60 clinical cases (5000 CT images).
Percepción de Conflictos Familiares en Jóvenes Universitarios: El Rol de la Deseabilidad Social (Perception of Family Conflicts in College Students: The Role of Social Desirability)

The families in the Metropolitan Area of Monterrey live in a particular situation given the violence that is lived in the city. Combined to it, the familiar conflicts become present. The present study had like objective, to know the bias that there is in the perspective of college students on the conflicts that are lived in the Regiomontanus families. Subjects. The sample was composed by 250 college students, 29% of men (n=73) and 71% of women, whose ages oscillated between 16 to the 28 years, (n=177). Instrument. A self-report questionnaire of 36 questions was used to analyze the categories of: communication, rules, respect, violence, alcohol consumption and economy, looking for the endogroup or exogroup attribution to the familiar group of the participants. The time average of application was of 15 minutes. Results. The presence of social desirability in the referring answers was towards the families of the participants in each one of the dimensions. The Euclidian distance showed a significant difference between the perceptions of conflicts within the families of the community and in the families of the survey ones. This distance was of approximately 50% in each one of the analyzed dimensions. These results provide empirical data that demonstrate social desirability in the perception of the college students with respect to the familiar problems.
An Optically Interconnected Distributed Shared Memory System: Architecture and Performance Analysis

This paper introduces an optically interconnected distributed shared memory system. The distributed shared memory approach integrates both shared memory and distributed memory system ideas to extract the strengths of each while balancing their respective weaknesses. The system is a system based on a photonic network to support the high communication requirement of . The employs wavelength division multiple access on the photonic network, enabling multiple channels to be formed on a single optical fiber. A result of the high communication capacity is the simplification of the global address mapping problem. This simplified uniform address allocation scheme is introduced. The advantages of the proposed approach are examined through a performance analysis based on a closed queueing network which has been validated through extensive simulation. The performance of the system is evaluated in terms of transaction time of a memory request and system throughput. The impact of variations in the number of channels and processors in the system on these metrics is studied. The effect of variations in memory and channel service times are also evaluated.
Inactivation of a Novel Gene Produces a Phenotypic Variant Cell and Affects the Symbiotic Behavior of Xenorhabdus nematophilus

ABSTRACT Xenorhabdus nematophilus is an insect pathogen that lives in a symbiotic association with a specific entomopathogenic nematode. During prolonged culturing, variant cells arise that are deficient in numerous properties. To understand the genetic mechanism underlying variant cell formation, a transposon mutagenesis approach was taken. Three phenotypically similar variant strains ofX. nematophilus, each of which contained a single transposon insertion, were isolated. The insertions occurred at different locations in the chromosome. The variant strain, ANV2, was further characterized. It was deficient in several properties, including the ability to produce antibiotics and the stationary-phase-induced outer membrane protein, OpnB. Unlike wild-type cells, ANV2 produced lecithinase. The emergence of ANV2 from the nematode host was delayed relative to the emergence of the parental strain. The transposon in ANV2 had inserted in a gene designatedvar1, which encodes a novel protein composed of 121 amino acid residues. Complementation analysis confirmed that the pleiotropic phenotype of the ANV2 strain was produced by inactivation of var1. Other variant strains were not complemented by var1. These results indicate that inactivation of a single gene was sufficient to promote variant cell formation in X. nematophilus and that disruption of genetic loci other than var1 can result in the same pleiotropic phenotype.
Energy Efficient Dynamic Integration of Thresholds for Migration at Cloud Data Centers

Cloud Computing is one of the fast spreading technologies for providing utility-based IT services to its user. Large-scale virtualized data-centers are established to meet this requirement. Data centers consumes large amount of computation power for providing efficient and reliable services to its user. Such large consumption of electrical energy has increased operating cost for the service providers as well as for the service users. Moreover, a large amount of carbon dioxide is emitted, results into increased global warming in near future. From our studies we concluded that, power consumption can be reduced by live migration of the virtual machines (VM) as required and by switching off idle machines. So, we proposed a dynamic threshold based approach for CPU utilization for host at data center. This consolidation will work on dynamic and unpredictable workload avoiding unnecessary power consumption. We will not only meet energy efficiency requirement but would also ensure quality of service to the user by minimizing the Service Level Agreement violation. We would also validate the proposed technique results with higher efficiency. General Terms Algorithms, Table
Delayed initiation of clozapine may be related to poor response in treatment-resistant schizophrenia

The aim of this retrospective chart-review study was to investigate the relationship between delayed commencement of clozapine and the level of response in treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS). We included 162 patients with schizophrenia who used clozapine. The mean delay until starting clozapine after fulfillment of the TRS criteria was 29 months. The delay was shorter in those who gained benefit from clozapine (P=0.04), those who were treated in a specialized psychosis outpatient unit (P=0.01), and in men (P=0.009), and it correlated with age (P<0.001). The delay in starting clozapine and the maximum clozapine dose were independent contributors toward the response to clozapine in the logistic regression analysis. Moreover, of those who gained considerable benefit from clozapine, the patients were younger (P=0.01), the duration of illness before clozapine treatment was shorter (P=0.001), and the numbers of adequate antipsychotic trials before the use of clozapine were fewer (P=0.05). Our findings suggest that efforts aimed at reducing the delay for starting clozapine may increase the effectiveness of clozapine in TRS.
Design of Threshold Logic Flip-Flops for Achieving Efficient Performance of System

The approach is based on a design of threshold logic gates (TLGs) and their seamless integration with conventional standard-cell design flow. We first describe a new robust, standard-cell library of configurable circuits for implementing threshold functions. Abstractly, the threshold gate behaves as a multi-input, single output, edge-triggered flip-flop, which computes a threshold function of the inputs on the clock edge. The resulting circuits, with both conventional and TLGs (called hybrid circuits), are placed and routed using commercial tools. The design shows significant reductions (using post layout simulations) in power, leakage, and area of the hybrid circuits when compared with the conventional logic circuits, when both are operated at the maximum possible frequency of the conventional design.
A direct link between the global regulator PhoP and the Csr regulon in Y. pseudotuberculosis through the small regulatory RNA CsrC

In this study we investigated the influence of the global response regulator PhoP on the complex regulatory cascade controlling expression of early stage virulence genes of Yersinia pseudotuberculosis via the virulence regulator RovA. Our analysis revealed the following novel features: (1) PhoP activates expression of the CsrC RNA in Y. pseudotuberculosis, leading to activation of RovA synthesis through the CsrABC-RovM cascade, (2) activation of csrC transcription is direct and PhoP is shown to bind to two separate PhoP box-like sites, (3) PhoP-mediated activation results in transcription from two different promoters closely downstream of the PhoP binding sites, leading to two distinct CsrC RNAs, and (4) the stability of the CsrC RNAs differs significantly between the Y. pseudotuberculosis strains YPIII and IP32953 due to a 20 nucleotides insertion in CsrCIP32953, which renders the transcript more susceptible to degradation. In summary, our study showed that PhoP-mediated influence on the regulatory cascade controlling the Csr system and RovA in Y. pseudotuberculosis varies within the species, suggesting that the Csr system is a focal point to readjust and adapt the genus to different hosts and reservoirs.
Attenuation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis by Disruption of a mas-Like Gene or a Chalcone Synthase-Like Gene, Which Causes Deficiency in Dimycocerosyl Phthiocerol Synthesis

ABSTRACT Tuberculosis is one of the leading preventable causes of death. Emergence of drug-resistant tuberculosis makes the discovery of new targets for antimycobacterial drugs critical. The unique mycobacterial cell wall lipids are known to play an important role in pathogenesis, and therefore the genes responsible for their biosynthesis offer potential new targets. To assess the possible role of some of the genes potentially involved in cell wall lipid synthesis, we disrupted a mas-like gene, msl7, and a chalcone synthase-like gene, pks10, with phage-mediated delivery of the disruption construct, in which the target gene was disrupted by replacement of an internal segment with the hygromycin resistance gene (hyg). Gene disruption by allelic exchange in the case of each disruptant was confirmed by PCR and Southern blot analyses. Neither msl7 nor pks10 mutants could produce dimycocerosyl phthiocerol, although both could produce mycocerosic acids. Thus, it is concluded that these gene products are involved in the biosynthesis of phthiocerol. Both mutants were found to be attenuated in a murine model, supporting the hypothesis that dimycocerosyl phthiocerol is a virulence factor and thus the many steps involved in its biosynthesis offer potential novel targets for antimycobacterial therapy.
PARTIAL CAVITY INSTABILITIES

This paper reviews some of the literature on partial cavity instabilities on single hydrofoils and then summarizes the striking differences in the appearance and behavior of partial cavities on swept foils (as opposed to two-dimensional, unswept foils) as rcently highlighted by de Lange et al. (1994) and Laberteaux and Ceccio (1998). These demonstrate the importance of the spanwise evolution of the re-entrant jet, and the consequences for the characteristics of the cavity closure flow. It is suggested in this paper that several variants of this evolution can be seen in the photographs of cavitation on single hydrofoils foils and on propellers. What is common to many of these variants is that, the spanwise evolution of the cavity and the re-entrant jet can give rise to conditions at some particular spanwise location(s) which initiate partial cavity instability. In this paper we present information on an instability that was observed to occur on a cavitating propeller of modern US Navy design. Detailed photographic examinations show that the instability oscillations involve spanwise development of a re-entrant jet and behavior similar to that of the partial cavity oscillations previously observed on two-dimensional foils.
Serum TNF-Alpha Level Predicts Nonproliferative Diabetic Retinopathy in Children

The aim of this study was identification of the immunologic markers of the damage to the eye apparatus at early stages of diabetes mellitus (DM) type 1 children. One hundred and eleven children with DM type 1 were divided into two groups: those with nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR) and without retinopathy. All the children had their daily urine albumin excretion, HbA1c, C-peptide measured, 24-hour blood pressure monitoring, and ophthalmologic examination. Levels of TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-12 in serum were measured by ELISA tests (Quantikine High Sensitivity Human by R&D Systems, Minneapolis, Minn, USA). The NPDR children demonstrated a significantly longer duration of the disease in addition to higher HbA1c, albumin excretion rate, C-reactive protein, systolic blood pressure, as well as TNF-α and IL-6 levels than those without retinopathy. The logistic regression revealed that the risk of NPDR was strongly dependent on TNF-α [(OR 4.01; 95%CI 2.01−7.96)]. TNF-α appears to be the most significant predictor among the analyzed parameters of damage to the eye apparatus. The early introduction of the TNF-α antagonists to the treatment of young patients with DM type 1 who show high serum activity of the TNF-α may prevent them from development of diabetic retinopathy.
Syndromic Surveillance

Tracing the origins of loup-ing ill virus by molecular phylogenetic analysis. To the Editor: As public health practitioners directly involved in constructing , maintaining, and interpreting syndromic disease surveillance systems, we offer the following comments on the Buehler et al. article, " Syndromic Surveillance and Bio-terrorism-related Epidemics " (1). In general, this article was well-crafted. It reviewed the potential for syndromic surveillance to detect various diseases of bioterrorism, specifically an anthrax event based on the inhalational anthrax cases of 2001. However, the reader may conclude that hospital-based syn-dromic surveillance is potentially ineffective and unproven. Buehler et al. describe how, within 18 hours, a presumptive diagnosis of anthrax would prompt a full-scale response. We think that functional syndromic surveillance can respond to the rapid onset of hospital-based disease. To isolate and positively identify Bacillus anthracis from a blood culture would take ≈48 hours. Syndromic surveillance should detect a large number of cases within 24 hours. A fully functional hospital syn-dromic surveillance system that uses automated analysis (such as the daily emergency department–based surveillance with SaTScan in New York City) should identify a substantial increase in a relevant syndrome within 12 to 24 hours after data submission (2). A continued daily rise in any disease category would most certainly set off alarms in a syndromic surveillance network. If active statewide laboratory surveillance is included in syndromic surveillance, such as the gram-positive rod surveillance conducted in Connecticut (3), this surveillance should rapidly detect even single cases of anthrax concurrent with the presumptive diagnosis within the hospital. The authors also state that syn-dromic surveillance would not detect outbreaks too small to trigger statistical alarms. The combination of active and passive surveillance in the hospital admissions–based syndromic surveillance in Connecticut allows a number of syndromes to be tracked immediately upon notification; these syndromes include pneumonia and acute respiratory disease in healthcare workers admitted to a hospital, all disease clusters, and fever with rash illness. This system is very flexible, and active surveillance of other syndromes can be quickly instituted as required. This active surveillance component has been proven useful. The first 2 of Connecticut's 17 confirmed human cases of West Nile virus during 2002 were discovered in August when a health director, who regularly monitored the syndromic admissions data for the hospital in his municipality, requested immediate West Nile virus testing from the hos-pital's infection-control department when he received two late summer reports of neurologic …
Gemini Alkyldeoxy-D-Glucitolammonium Salts as Modern Surfactants and Microbiocides: Synthesis, Antimicrobial and Surface Activity, Biodegradation

Dimeric quaternary alkylammonium salts possess a favourable surface and antimicrobial activity. In this paper we describe synthesis, spectroscopic analysis, surface and antimicrobial activity as well as biodegradability of polymethylene-α,ω-bis(N,N-dialkyl-N-deoxy-D-glucitolammonium iodides), a new group of dimeric quaternary ammonium salts. This new group of gemini surfactants can be produced from chemicals which come from renewable sources. The structure of products has been determined by the FTIR and 1H and 13C NMR spectroscopy. The biodegradability, surface activity and antimicrobial efficacy against Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Candida albicans, Aspergillus niger and Penicillium chrysogenum were determined. The influence of the number of alkyl chains and their lengths on surface and antimicrobial properties has been shown. In general, dimeric quaternary alkyldeoxy-D-glucitolammonium salts with long alkyl substituents show favourable surface properties and an excellent antimicrobial activity.
Applications of Photoluminescence Imaging to Dopant and Carrier Concentration Measurements of Silicon Wafers

Photoluminescence-based imaging is most commonly used to measure the excess minority carrier density and its corresponding lifetime. By using appropriate surface treatments, this high-resolution imaging technique can also be used for majority carrier concentration determination. The mechanism involves effectively pinning the minority excess carrier density, resulting in a dependence of the photoluminescence intensity on only the majority carrier density. Three suitable surface preparation methods are introduced in this paper: aluminum sputtering, deionized water etching, and mechanical abrasion. Spatially resolved dopant density images determined using this technique are consistent with the images obtained by a well-established technique based on free carrier infrared emission. Three applications of the technique are also presented in this paper, which include imaging of oxygen-related thermal donors, radial dopant density analysis, and the study of donor-related recombination active defects. These applications demonstrate the usefulness of the technique in characterizing silicon materials for photovoltaics.