Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Formation shape control: Global asymptotic stability of a four-agent formation

This paper considers formation shape control of a team of four agents in the plane, motivated by an example from [1]. We utilize bidirectional, gradient-based interagent distance control laws which are designed so that the agents cooperatively achieve a specified desired formation shape. When every interagent distance is actively controlled (i.e. the information architecture is a complete graph), there may exist equilibrium formation shapes with incorrect interagent distances. We prove that any incorrect equilibrium formation shape is locally unstable for formations with internal angles that satisfy an acuteness condition and thereby establish that the desired formation shape, for all practical purposes, is globally asymptotically stable.
Isoquercetin as an Adjunct Therapy in Patients With Kidney Cancer Receiving First-Line Sunitinib (QUASAR): Results of a Phase I Trial

Sunitinib is the most commonly prescribed drug for advanced renal cell carcinoma in the first-line setting and has been associated with multiple adverse events related to its on–and off–target effects, including hand and foot syndrome and fatigue. It was hypothesized that sunitinib-induced fatigue may be related to off target inhibition of the AMPK enzyme, which results in impairment of energy-producing processes at a systemic level. Quercetin is a naturally occurring flavonol with established AMPK-stimulating activity. While clinical use of quercetin is limited by its poor bio-availability, quercetin-3-O-β-d-glucopyranoside, that is isoquercetin, has an improved pharmacokinetic profile. On the grounds of the in vitro stimulatory activity with respect to AMPk, we hypothesized that oral isoquercetin could improve fatigue in kidney cancer patients receiving sunitinib. Given the lack of data on the safety of isoquercetin given concomitantly with sunitinib, we conducted a phase I trial to assess the safety of GMP manufactured isoquercetin given at two dose levels (450 and 900 mg a day). In the 12-patient study cohort included in this study, isoquercetin was administered concomitantly with 50 mg sunitinib for a median 81 days (IQR, 75.5, 86.5). None of the 12 patients required isoquercetin suspension or isoquercetin dose reduction because of adverse events. No abnormalities in ECG, heart or lower limbs doppler ultrasound were detected. A statistically significant improvement was reported for the FACIT fatigue score (6.8 points; 95% CI: 2.8–10.8; p = 0.002) and for the FACIT Adverse Events score (18.9 points; 95% CI: 9.1–28.8; p < 0.001) after isoquercetin consumption vs. baseline. In this phase I trial, isoquercetin was remarkably safe, with a preliminary signal of activity in terms of improvement of sunitinib adverse events.
An evolutionary motifs-based algorithm for community detection

Motifs are considered fundamental building blocks of complex networks. As such, these patterns of interconnections, similarly to the interactions between edges exploited by the traditional community detection algorithms, may give insights on how networks are organized in modules. The aim of this work is to identify clusters of network motifs. We propose an approach based on genetic algorithms for clustering nodes according to their participation in instances of particular motifs. The algorithm finds the best local solution by partitioning the network into a number of communities that minimizes the concept of motif conductance. A comparison with state-of-the-art methods on several real-world networks shows that our genetic approach is able to better capture the community structure of networks.
Geminivirus protein structure and function

Summary Geminiviruses are a family of plant viruses that cause economically important plant diseases worldwide. These viruses have circular single‐stranded DNA genomes and four to eight genes that are expressed from both strands of the double‐stranded DNA replicative intermediate. The transcription of these genes occurs under the control of two bidirectional promoters and one monodirectional promoter. The viral proteins function to facilitate virus replication, virus movement, the assembly of virus‐specific nucleoprotein particles, vector transmission and to counteract plant host defence responses. Recent research findings have provided new insights into the structure and function of these proteins and have identified numerous host interacting partners. Most of the viral proteins have been shown to be multifunctional, participating in multiple events during the infection cycle and have, indeed, evolved coordinated interactions with host proteins to ensure a successful infection. Here, an up‐to‐date review of viral protein structure and function is presented, and some areas requiring further research are identified.
Diversity-multiplexing tradeoff analysis of multi-source multi-relay coded networks

We study the impact of efficient network coding and multiple access techniques in a two-source two-relay one-destination wireless network through the diversity-multiplexing tradeoff (DMT) analysis. We compare the standard relaying protocol without network coding and the protocols using either a binary network coding (BNC) or an appropriately designed non-binary finite-field network coding (FFNC) at the relays. It is shown that the use of the non-binary FFNC strictly outperforms the other two protocols in terms of DMT. In addition, we propose a new transmission strategy based on the non-binary FFNC design and the non-orthogonal multiple access technique to further improve the DMT performance. Our results highlight the advantages of applying appropriate network coding in multi-source multi-relay networks.
Cooperative NOMA Systems With Partial Channel State Information Over Nakagami- $m$ Fading Channels

In this paper, we study the performance of a downlink non-orthogonal multiple access-based cooperative relay system with a single relay over Nakagami- $m$ fading channels, where both decode-and-forward (DF) and amplify-and-forward (AF) protocols are considered. We assume that only statistical channel state information is available to the system and used to determine the decoding order of cell-edge users’ data. For DF relaying, both ergodic sum rate and outage probability are solved in closed form. For AF relaying, closed-form asymptotic ergodic sum rate and outage probability are provided. Numerical results verify the accuracy of the analysis and demonstrate that the DF protocol significantly outperforms the AF one in terms of ergodic sum rate even the channel’s near–far effect weakens. In addition, the DF protocol exhibits better outage performance than the AF one at low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), though the superiority becomes negligible with the increasing SNR.
INTAKE OF SUGAR-SWEETENED BEVERAGES, MILK AND ITS ASSOCIATION WITH BODY MASS INDEX IN ADOLESCENCE: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

ABSTRACT Objective: To systematize literature references addressing the association of sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) and milk intake with body mass index (BMI) in adolescents. Data source: A search was carried out in PubMed (US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health) and BVS (Virtual Library in Health). The descriptors used were: adolescents, young adult, beverages, drinking, obesity, overweight, BMI, and nutritional status. The following filters were applied: age ranging from 10 to 19 years, studies published in Portuguese or English language between 2011-2015. Data synthesis: Thirty studies were selected (22 cross-sectional studies, 4 cohort studies, 1 randomized clinical trial, 1 case-control study, and 1 quasi-experimental study). There was association between the intake of these beverages and increase in BMI in 55% of all 20 studies that dealt with sugary drinks. When it came to soft drinks, 100% of studies reported association with increase in BMI. As to milk intake, only one article showed association with increased BMI. Three articles reported milk as a protection factor against increase in BMI; three studies found no association between this intake and BMI. Nineteen studies had representative samples and 20 surveys reported random samples. Among papers using questionnaires, 84% had been validated. Conclusions: There is no consensus in the literature about the association between SSB or milk intake and BMI in adolescents.
The CD16+ (FcγRIII+) Subset of Human Monocytes Preferentially Becomes Migratory Dendritic Cells in a Model Tissue Setting

Much remains to be learned about the physiologic events that promote monocytes to become lymph-homing dendritic cells (DCs). In a model of transendothelial trafficking, some monocytes become DCs in response to endogenous signals. These DCs migrate across endothelium in the ablumenal-to-lumenal direction (reverse transmigration), reminiscent of the migration into lymphatic vessels. Here we show that the subpopulation of monocytes that expresses CD16 (Fcγ receptor III) is predisposed to become migratory DCs. The vast majority of cells derived from CD16+ monocytes reverse transmigrated, and their presence was associated with migratory cells expressing high levels of CD86 and human histocompatibility leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DR, and robust capacity to induce allogeneic T cell proliferation. A minority of CD16− monocytes reverse transmigrated, and these cells stimulated T cell proliferation less efficiently. CD16 was not functionally required for reverse transmigration, but promoted cell survival when yeast particles (zymosan) were present as a maturation stimulus in the subendothelial matrix. The cell surface phenotype and migratory characteristics of CD16+ monocytes were inducible in CD16− monocytes by preincubation with TGFβ1. We propose that CD16+ monocytes may contribute significantly to precursors for DCs that transiently survey tissues and migrate to lymph nodes via afferent lymphatic vessels.
Exploiting Ubiquitous Data Collection for Mobile Users in Wireless Sensor Networks

We study the ubiquitous data collection for mobile users in wireless sensor networks. People with handheld devices can easily interact with the network and collect data. We propose a novel approach for mobile users to collect the network-wide data. The routing structure of data collection is additively updated with the movement of the mobile user. With this approach, we only perform a limited modification to update the routing structure while the routing performance is bounded and controlled compared to the optimal performance. The proposed protocol is easy to implement. Our analysis shows that the proposed approach is scalable in maintenance overheads, performs efficiently in the routing performance, and provides continuous data delivery during the user movement. We implement the proposed protocol in a prototype system and test its feasibility and applicability by a 49-node testbed. We further conduct extensive simulations to examine the efficiency and scalability of our protocol with varied network settings.
Prophecy: Accelerating Mobile Page Loads Using Final-state Write Logs

Web browsing on mobile devices is expensive in terms of battery drainage and bandwidth consumption. Mobile pages also frequently suffer from long load times due to high-latency cellular connections. In this paper, we introduce Prophecy, a new acceleration technology for mobile pages. Prophecy simultaneously reduces energy costs, bandwidth consumption, and page load times. In Prophecy, web servers precompute the JavaScript heap and the DOM tree for a page; when a mobile browser requests the page, the server returns a write log that contains a single write per JavaScript variable or DOM node. The mobile browser replays the writes to quickly reconstruct the final page state, eliding unnecessary intermediate computations. Prophecy’s server-side component generates write logs by tracking low-level data flows between the JavaScript heap and the DOM. Using knowledge of these flows, Prophecy enables optimizations that are impossible for prior web accelerators; for example, Prophecy can generate write logs that interleave DOM construction and JavaScript heap construction, allowing interactive page elements to become functional immediately after they become visible to the mobile user. Experiments with real pages and real phones show that Prophecy reduces median page load time by 53%, energy expenditure by 36%, and bandwidth costs by 21%.
Integral sliding mode tracking control of piezoelectric positioning platform with compensating hysteresis-observer

Piezoelectric positioning platform is widely applied in the micro-nano positioning field. However, the inherent hysteresis nonlinearity in piezoelectric materials seriously damages the positional accuracy of the platform. In this study, an integral sliding mode control with compensating hysteresis-observer is developed for high-precision positioning control of the piezoelectric positioning platform. Hysteresis-observer is used to estimate and compensate the hysteresis nonlinearity part of the platform. The observation errors and parameter uncertainties part are considered as external disturbance of systems, which are eliminated using the designed integral sliding mode controller. Then, the stability of the proposed control strategy is demonstrated using the Lyapunov stability theory. Finally, a series of tracking experiments are implemented on the piezoelectric positioning platform. Experimental results reveal that the proposed integral sliding mode control with compensating hysteresis-observer can achieve the high precision tracking control of the piezoelectric positioning platform.
Network localization in partially localizable networks

Knowing the positions of the nodes in a network is essential to many next generation pervasive and sensor network functionalities. Although many network localization systems have recently been proposed and evaluated, there has been no systematic study of partially localizable networks, i.e., networks in which there exist nodes whose positions cannot be uniquely determined. There is no existing study which correctly identifies precisely which nodes in a network are uniquely localizable and which are not. This absence of a sufficient uniqueness condition permits the computation of erroneous positions that may in turn lead applications to produce flawed results. In this paper, in addition to demonstrating the relevance of networks that may not be fully localizable, we design the first framework for two dimensional network localization with an efficient component to correctly determine which nodes are localizable and which are not. Implementing this system, we conduct comprehensive evaluations of network localizability, providing guidelines for both network design and deployment. Furthermore, we study an integration of traditional geographic routing with geographic routing over virtual coordinates in the partially localizable network setting. We show that this novel cross-layer integration yields good performance, and argue that such optimizations will be likely be necessary to ensure acceptable application performance in partially localizable networks.
Long non-coding RNAs and complex diseases: from experimental results to computational models

Abstract LncRNAs have attracted lots of attentions from researchers worldwide in recent decades. With the rapid advances in both experimental technology and computational prediction algorithm, thousands of lncRNA have been identified in eukaryotic organisms ranging from nematodes to humans in the past few years. More and more research evidences have indicated that lncRNAs are involved in almost the whole life cycle of cells through different mechanisms and play important roles in many critical biological processes. Therefore, it is not surprising that the mutations and dysregulations of lncRNAs would contribute to the development of various human complex diseases. In this review, we first made a brief introduction about the functions of lncRNAs, five important lncRNA-related diseases, five critical disease-related lncRNAs and some important publicly available lncRNA-related databases about sequence, expression, function, etc. Nowadays, only a limited number of lncRNAs have been experimentally reported to be related to human diseases. Therefore, analyzing available lncRNA–disease associations and predicting potential human lncRNA–disease associations have become important tasks of bioinformatics, which would benefit human complex diseases mechanism understanding at lncRNA level, disease biomarker detection and disease diagnosis, treatment, prognosis and prevention. Furthermore, we introduced some state-of-the-art computational models, which could be effectively used to identify disease-related lncRNAs on a large scale and select the most promising disease-related lncRNAs for experimental validation. We also analyzed the limitations of these models and discussed the future directions of developing computational models for lncRNA research.
Severe mental retardation, seizures, and hypotonia due to deletions of MEF2C

We present four patients, in whom we identified overlapping deletions in 5q14.3 involving MEF2C using a clinical oligonucleotide array comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) chromosomal microarray analysis (CMA). In case 1, CMA revealed an ∼140 kb deletion encompassing the first three exons of MEF2C in a 3‐year‐old patient with severe psychomotor retardation, periodic tremor, and an abnormal motor pattern with mirror movement of the upper limbs observed during infancy, hypotonia, abnormal EEG, epilepsy, absence of speech, autistic behavior, bruxism, and mild dysmorphic features. MRI of the brain showed mild thinning of the corpus callosum and delay of white matter myelination in the occipital lobes. In case 2, an ∼1.8 Mb deletion of TMEM161B and MEF2C was found in a child with severe developmental delay, hypotonia, and seizures. Patient 3 had epilepsy, hypotonia, thinning of the corpus callosum, and developmental delay associated with a de novo ∼2.4 Mb deletion in 5q14.3 including MEF2C and five other genes. In case 4, a de novo ∼5.7 Mb deletion of MEF2C and five other genes was found in a child with truncal hypotonia, intractable seizures, profound developmental delay, and shortening of the corpus callosum on brain MRI. These deletions further support that haploinsufficiency of MEF2C is responsible for severe mental retardation, seizures, and hypotonia. Our results, in combination with previous reports, imply that exon‐targeted oligo array CGH, which is more efficient in identifying exonic copy number variants, should improve the detection of clinically significant deletions and duplications over arrays with probes spaced evenly throughout the genome. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Ambulatory blood pressure in the hypertensive population: patterns and prevalence of hypertensive subforms

Background A number of clinically identifiable patterns of blood pressure elevation are apparent using ambulatory measurement. Their prevalence and age and sex distribution have not been described. The purpose of this study was to describe the epidemiology of patterns of high blood pressure in a large population. Design Retrospective database analysis of referral hypertensive population. Patients Clinic and ambulatory blood pressure measurements were performed in 2092 patients with essential hypertension while they were not taking antihypertensive medication. Methods The patients were classified into six groups on the basis of their ambulatory blood pressure monitoring profiles: white-coat hypertensives, borderline hypertensives, isolated systolic hypertensives, isolated diastolic hypertensives, combined systolic and diastolic hypertensives and nocturnal hypertensives. The categories were examined for age and sex differences. Results All patients were categorized into one of the six groups. The majority (56.2%) were systolodiastolic hypertensives, 12.9% were borderline and 10.8% were white-coat hypertensives. Isolated systolic hypertensives comprised 6.2% of the population, isolated diastolic hypertensives 6.9% and nocturnal hypertensives 7.1%. The isolated systolic hypertensives showed the greatest change with age, with a prevalence of < 5% in patients below 40 years of age, rising to almost 20% in the 70 plus age group. White-coat, isolated diastolic and borderline hypertensives showed the opposite change in prevalence, falling from younger to older age groups. Apart from a greater prevalence of white-coat hypertension in females, the patterns were largely similar between sexes. Conclusions Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring allows the blood pressure pattern to be defined in hypertensive patients. The patterns identified here in a referral hypertensive cohort show changes in prevalence with age, and further study is required to determine the prognostic significance of hypertensive sub-forms.
Open domain real-time question answering based on asynchronous multiperspective context-driven retrieval and neural paraphrasing

The live-QA task involves real user questions, extracted from the stream of most recent questions submitted to the Yahoo Answers (YA) site that has not yet been answered. There are two tracks in the live-QA task, general domain, and medical domain. In general domain, unanswered questions are taken from six categories of real-time yahoo question answering feed, and for the medical domain, they are taken from the consumer health questions asked in NLM forums. The answers given by the system for both general and medical tasks are evaluated by human experts looking into accuracy, readability, and preciseness. The features of our open-domain question answering include question decomposition, question focus iden-tiﬁcation, context identiﬁcation, answer retrieval and summarization. The current system builds an asynchronous sys-tem which has a multi-perspective view of the question being asked by decomposing the question into multiple smaller questions and identifying answers to sub-questions and summarizing the answers. Our system performed close to the median in the live-QA task and ranked second in the medical sub-task.
A study on the longitudinal mode behavior of Fabry-Perot cavity composed of fiber Bragg grating

The characteristics of transmission spectrum of Fabry-Perot(F-P) cavity composed of two fiber Bragg gratings(FBG) are analysed in this paper. As the influence factors, bandwidth of FBG, phase factor of reflection coefficient of FBG and length of cavity are included. The changes of its characteristics caused by temperature and strain are dicussed. Then the method of how to design this kind of F-P cavity with single mode at the Bragg wavelength of FBG is provided. The numerical simulation spectrum and experimental result are also given.