Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Disseminating Updates on Broadcast Disks

Lately there has been increasing interest in the use of data dissemination as a means for delivering data from servers to clients in both wired and wireless environments. Using data dissemination, the transfer of data is initiated by servers, resulting in a reversal of the traditional relationship between clients and servers. In previous papers, we have proposed Broadcast Disks as a model for structuring the repetitive transmission of data in a broadcast medium. Broadcast Disks are intended for use in environments where, for either physical or application-dependent reasons, there is asymmetry in the communication capacity between clients and servers. Examples of such environments include wireless networks with mobile clients, cable and direct satellite broadcast, and information dispersal applications. Our initial studies of Broadcast Disks focused on the performance of the mechanism when the data being broadcast did not change. In this paper, we extend those results to incorporate the impact of updates. We first propose several alternative models for updates and examine the fundamental tradeoff that arises between the currency of data and performance. We then propose and analyze mechanisms for implementing these various models. The performance results show that, even in a model where updates must be transmitted immediately, the performance of the Broadcast Disks technique can be made quite mbust through the use of simple techniques for propagating and prefetching data items.
Social Motility in African Trypanosomes

African trypanosomes are devastating human and animal pathogens that cause significant human mortality and limit economic development in sub-Saharan Africa. Studies of trypanosome biology generally consider these protozoan parasites as individual cells in suspension cultures or in animal models of infection. Here we report that the procyclic form of the African trypanosome Trypanosoma brucei engages in social behavior when cultivated on semisolid agarose surfaces. This behavior is characterized by trypanosomes assembling into multicellular communities that engage in polarized migrations across the agarose surface and cooperate to divert their movements in response to external signals. These cooperative movements are flagellum-mediated, since they do not occur in trypanin knockdown parasites that lack normal flagellum motility. We term this behavior social motility based on features shared with social motility and other types of surface-induced social behavior in bacteria. Social motility represents a novel and unexpected aspect of trypanosome biology and offers new paradigms for considering host-parasite interactions.
A Context-Adaptive Group Awareness Tool

Existing group awareness system do not scale well with large distributed teams. This article proposes a new way to tackle the information overload problem that arise in such a case. We propose to adapt the aggregation, the filtering and the representation of group awareness information to the user’s work context. The expected result is a group awareness system more pertinent and less intrusive. This adaptation is based on a functional architecture build from a cognitive model of group awareness. This paper explains the foundation of the functional architecture, and how a group awareness tool is made more pertinent and less intrusive by using context to adapt group awareness information.
No association of estrogen receptor α and cytochrome P450c17α polymorphisms with age at menopause in a Dutch cohort

Background: Age at menopause is under strong genetic control. So far, genetic variations of only one gene, the PvuII polymorphism of the estrogen receptor alpha (ERalpha) gene, have been shown to be associated with age at onset of menopause. This study aims to investigate whether PvuII, XbaI and B-variant polymorphisms of the ERalpha gene, and the MspAI polymorphism of the cytochrome P450c17alpha (CYP17) gene are associated with age at menopause in a Dutch cohort. Methods: DNA was isolated from urine samples of 385 Caucasian women with natural menopause and the genotypes of the four polymorphisms were determined. A questionnaire was used for background characteristics. The genotypes of PvuII, XbaI, MspAI were obtained by PCR restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis. The B-variant was determined with an allele-specific oligonucleotide hybridization method. Two-sided t-tests were performed to assess the association between the four polymorphisms and menopausal age. The PvuII and XbaI polymorphisms were analysed separately as well as in a combined score. Results: The results show that none of the polymorphisms independently, nor the combined genotypes for PvuII and XbaI, were associated with age at natural menopause. Conclusion: No evidence was found for a relationship between common variants of the ERalpha gene and the CYP17 gene with age at natural menopause
Improving accuracy of glottal closure instant detection methods in nonstationary noise

The glottal closure instant (GCI) detection is crucial in all kinds of speech processing applications. A variety of GCI detection methods were proposed but the performance of most existing methods was evaluated using only voiced parts of the speech signal. Under noisy conditions, the recorded speech consists of voiced, unvoiced and non-speech parts. Thus, most GCI detection methods demand an accurate voice activity detection (VAD) design. In this paper, we present post-processing techniques to improve the GCI detection accuracy and robustness in additive nonstationary noisy environments. We study the performance of the four methods: center of gravity (CoG), group delay function (GDF), zero frequency resonator (ZFR), and speech event detection using the residual excitation and a mean-based signal (SEDREAMS). The performance of each method with the proposed method-specific post-processing technique is tested and validated under both clean and noisy environments. Experimental results show that the method with post-processing technique outperforms the conventional GCI detection methods under noisy conditions. Results further show that the proposed technique can not only improve the overall detection accuracy but also reduce the complexity by avoiding VAD algorithm.
Robust Clock Tree Synthesis with timing yield optimization for 3D-ICs

3D integration has new manufacturing and design challenges such as timing corner mismatch between tiers and device variation due to Through Silicon Via (TSV) induced stress. Timing corner mismatch between tiers is caused because each tier is manufactured in independent process. Therefore, inter-die variation should be considered to analyze and optimize for paths spreading over several tiers. TSV induced stress is another challenge in 3D Clock Tree Synthesis (CTS). Mobility variation of a clock buffer due to stress from TSV can cause unexpected skew which degrades overall chip performance. In this paper, we propose clock tree design methodology with the following objectives: (a) to minimize clock period variation by assigning optimal z-location of clock buffers with an Integer Linear Program (ILP) formulation, (b) to prevent unwanted skew induced by the stress. In the results, we show that our clock buffer tier assignment reduces clock period variation up to 34.2%, and the most of stress-induced skew can be removed by our stress-aware CTS. Overall, we show that performance gain can be up to 5.7% with our robust 3D CTS.
A randomised double-blind control study of early intracoronary autologous bone marrow cell infusion in acute myocardial infarction (REGENERATE-AMI)

Introduction Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) remains a major cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide despite the latest therapeutic advances designed to decrease myocardial injury. Preclinical and emerging clinical evidence show that the intracoronary injection of autologous bone marrow mononuclear cells (BMCs) following AMI leads to improvement in left ventricular ejection function (LVEF). In this clinical trial we will for the first time assess the effect of early (<24 h) infusion of autologous BMCs following AMI on cardiac function. Methods and analysis REGENERATE-AMI is a double-blind, randomised, multicentre, placebo-controlled trial to determine whether early (<24 h) intracoronary infusion of BMCs improves LVEF after AMI. The study will enrol 100 patients presenting with an anterior AMI demonstrating anterior regional wall motion abnormality. Patients will be randomised to receive intracoronary infusion of BMCs or placebo (0.9% saline). Primary endpoint will be change in LVEF at 1 year compared to baseline, measured by cardiac MRI. Secondary endpoints at 6 months include the change in global LVEF relative to baseline measured by quantitative left ventriculography and echocardiography, as well as major adverse cardiac events which is also measured at 1 year. Ethics and dissemination The study will be performed in agreement with the Declaration of Helsinki and is approved by local ethics committee (NRES Committee London West London: 07/Q0603/76). Trial registration http://clincialtrials.gov (NCT00765453). The results of the trial will be published according to the CONSORT statement and will be presented at conferences and reported in peer-reviewed journals.
Spectrum Sharing between Cooperative Relay and Ad-Hoc Networks: Dynamic Transmissions under Computation and Signaling Limitations

This paper studies a spectrum sharing scenario between an uplink cognitive relay network (CRN) and some nearby low power ad-hoc networks. In particular, the dynamic resource allocation of the CRN is analyzed, which aims to minimize the average interfering time with the ad-hoc networks subject to a minimal average uplink throughput constraint. A long term average rate formula is considered, which is achieved by a half-duplex decode-and-forward (DF) relay strategy with multi-channel transmissions. Both the source and relay are allowed to queue their data, by which they can adjust the transmission rates flexibly based on sensing and predicting the channel state and ad-hoc traffic. The dynamic resource allocation of the CRN is formulated as a non-convex stochastic optimization problem. By carefully analyzing the optimal transmission time scheduling, it is reduced to a stochastic convex optimization problem and solved by the dual optimization method. The signaling and computation processes are designed carefully to reduce the computations at the source (mobile terminal, MT). The time delay between spectrum sensing and the transmission period is quite short to guarantee the accuracy of ad-hoc traffic prediction. The key idea to achieve these benefits is making use of the analytical structure of the optimal solution. Numerical results are presented to show the benefits of our spectrum sharing strategy.
Video Behavior Profiling for Anomaly Detection

This paper aims to address the problem of modeling video behavior captured in surveillance videos for the applications of online normal behavior recognition and anomaly detection. A novel framework is developed for automatic behavior profiling and online anomaly sampling/detection without any manual labeling of the training data set. The framework consists of the following key components: 1) A compact and effective behavior representation method is developed based on discrete-scene event detection. The similarity between behavior patterns are measured based on modeling each pattern using a Dynamic Bayesian Network (DBN). 2) The natural grouping of behavior patterns is discovered through a novel spectral clustering algorithm with unsupervised model selection and feature selection on the eigenvectors of a normalized affinity matrix. 3) A composite generative behavior model is constructed that is capable of generalizing from a small training set to accommodate variations in unseen normal behavior patterns. 4) A runtime accumulative anomaly measure is introduced to detect abnormal behavior, whereas normal behavior patterns are recognized when sufficient visual evidence has become available based on an online Likelihood Ratio Test (LRT) method. This ensures robust and reliable anomaly detection and normal behavior recognition at the shortest possible time. The effectiveness and robustness of our approach is demonstrated through experiments using noisy and sparse data sets collected from both indoor and outdoor surveillance scenarios. In particular, it is shown that a behavior model trained using an unlabeled data set is superior to those trained using the same but labeled data set in detecting anomaly from an unseen video. The experiments also suggest that our online LRT-based behavior recognition approach is advantageous over the commonly used Maximum Likelihood (ML) method in differentiating ambiguities among different behavior classes observed online.
Constructing the Prediction Model for the Risk of Stroke in a Chinese Population: Report From a Cohort Study in Taiwan

Background and Purpose— Prediction rules for the risk of stroke have been proposed. However, most studies were conducted with whites or for secondary prevention, and it is not clear whether these models apply to the Chinese population. The purpose of this study was to construct a simple points-based clinical model for predicting incident stroke among Chinese adults in Taiwan. Methods— We estimated the 10-year risk of stroke in a cohort study of middle-aged and elderly participants who were free from stroke at baseline. Multivariate Cox model-derived coefficients were used to construct the simple points-based clinical and biochemical model and the prediction measures using the area under the receive operating characteristic curve, net reclassification improvement, and integrated discrimination improvement statistics were applied. Results— Of the 3513 participants without stroke at baseline, 240 incident cases of stroke were documented for a median 15.9-year follow-up. Age (8 points), gender (1 point), systolic blood pressure (3 points), diastolic blood pressure (2 points), family history of stroke (1 point), atrial fibrillation (3 points), and diabetes (1 point) were found to significantly predict stroke events. The estimated area under the receive operating characteristic curve for this clinical points-based model was 0.772 (95% CI, 0.744 to 0.799). The discrimination ability of this clinical model was similar to the coefficients-based models and better than available stroke models. Conclusions— We have constructed a model for predicting 15-year incidence of stroke in Chinese adults and this model may be useful in identifying individuals at high risk of stroke.
Coronary Artery Calcium and Carotid Artery Intima Media Thickness and Plaque: Clinical Use in Need of Clarification

Atherosclerosis begins in early life and has a long latent period prior to onset of clinical disease. Measures of subclinical atherosclerosis, therefore, may have important implications for research and clinical practice of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). In this review, we focus on coronary artery calcium (CAC) and carotid artery intima-media thickness (cIMT) and plaque as many population-based studies have investigated these measures due to their non-invasive features and ease of administration. To date, a vast majority of studies have been conducted in the US and European countries, in which both CAC and cIMT/plaque have been shown to be associated with future risk of ASCVD, independent of conventional risk factors. Furthermore, these measures improve risk prediction when added to a global risk prediction model, such as the Framingham risk score. However, no clinical trial has assessed whether screening with CAC or cIMT/plaque will lead to improved clinical outcomes and healthcare costs. Interestingly, similar levels of CAC or cIMT/plaque among various regions and ethnic groups may in fact be associated with significantly different levels of absolute risk of ASCVD. Therefore, it remains to be determined whether measures of subclinical atherosclerosis improve risk prediction in non-US/European populations. Although CAC and cIMT/plaque are promising surrogates of ASCVD in research, we conclude that their use in clinical practice, especially as screening tools for primary prevention in asymptomatic adults, is premature due to many vagaries that remain to be clarified.
Liftered forward masking procedure for robust digits recognition

Using TI digits recognition experiments, we show that a combination of two dynamic speech features, Liftered Forward Masked (LFM) MFCC and 2-D cepstrum, can improve system robustness to additive Volvo noise while maintaining system performance comparable to standard MFCC features in clean conditions. Through experiments, we show that the information extracted by forward masking and by the 2D cepstrum are in some sense orthogonal. By combining the LFM MFCC and the 2-D cepstrum plus (cid:1) 2-D cepstrum, we achieve a recognition rate above 90% on the TI connected digits task, even in additive Volvo noise condition with SNR as low as 0dB. This corresponds to a SNR gain over 30dB compared with standard MFCC plus dynamic and acceleration coefﬁcients.
Location based alteration of simulation models for multi screen VR applications

Simulation and VR application models may depend on parameters that are location dependent. To enhance portability and to speed up deployment times we propose a method, which uses a separate location based deployment model that gets loaded automatically by the simulation system. Subsequently loaded simulation models will get altered by the system, according to the deployment model. The deployment model can be further used as a topology for distributed rendering and simulation, or as a basis for an application controlling a multi-screen VR wall.
Drug resistance pattern and associated risk factors of tuberculosis patients in the central province of Iran.

BACKGROUND One of the fundamental issues of infectious disease treatment is drug resistance. The aim of the present study was to investigate the first-line anti-tuberculosis drug resistance rates and determine the risk factors related to multidrug resistant mycobacterium tuberculosis. METHODS From March 2011 to September 2012, mycobacterial strains were collected from one hundred fifteen diagnosed smear positive patients in the central province of Iran and tested for drug susceptible against ethambutol, rifampicin, isoniazid and streptomycin and the risk factors influencing the development of drug resistance were determined. RESULTS The mean age of patients was 52.23±19.75 years. The rate of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) was 7.8%. Our study revealed that there were significant associations between prior treatment, age < 45 years, positive smear result at the end of the second month and positive smear result at the end of the third month. However, there was no association found between gender, inhabitant, nationality, close contact with TB patient, HIV infection and size of mantoux test. CONCLUSION The results show that about 8% of TB cases in Arak are MDR TB. The age under 45 years, previous TB treatment and positive smear at the end of the second and third months of treatment were the main factors in the development of MDR-TB.
The Use of Antioxidants with First-Line Chemotherapy in Two Cases of Ovarian Cancer

Objective: Because of poor overall survival in advanced ovarian malignancies, patients often turn to alternative therapies despite controversy surrounding their use. Currently, the majority of cancer patients combine some form of complementary and alternative medicine with conventional therapies. Of these therapies, antioxidants, added to chemotherapy, are a frequent choice. Methods: For this preliminary report, two patients with advanced epithelial ovarian cancer were studied. One patient had Stage IIIC papillary serous adenocarcinoma, and the other had Stage IIIC mixed papillary serous and seromucinous adenocarcinoma. Both patients were optimally cytoreduced prior to first-line carboplatinum/paclitaxel chemotherapy. Patient 2 had a delay in initiation of chemotherapy secondary to co-morbid conditions and had evidence for progression of disease prior to institution of therapy. Patient 1 began oral high-dose antioxidant therapy during her first month of therapy. This consisted of oral vitamin C, vitamin E, beta-carotene, coenzyme Q-10 and a multivitamin/mineral complex. In addition to the oral antioxidant therapy, patient 1 added parenteral ascorbic acid at a total dose of 60 grams given twice weekly at the end of her chemotherapy and prior to consolidation paclitaxel chemotherapy. Patient 2 added oral antioxidants just prior to beginning chemotherapy, including vitamin C, beta-carotene, vitamin E, coenzyme Q-10 and a multivitamin/mineral complex. Patient 2 received six cycles of paclitaxel/carboplatinum chemotherapy and refused consolidation chemotherapy despite radiographic evidence of persistent disease. Instead, she elected to add intravenous ascorbic acid at 60 grams twice weekly. Both patients gave written consent for the use of their records in this report. Results: Patient 1 had normalization of her CA-125 after the first cycle of chemotherapy and has remained normal, almost 3½ years after diagnosis. CT scans of the abdomen and pelvis remain without evidence of recurrence. Patient 2 had normalization of her CA-125 after the first cycle of chemotherapy. After her first round of chemotherapy, the patient was noted to have residual disease in the pelvis. She declined further chemotherapy and added intravenous ascorbic acid. There is no evidence for recurrent disease by physical examination, and her CA-125 has remained normal three years after diagnosis. Conclusion: Antioxidants, when added adjunctively, to first-line chemotherapy, may improve the efficacy of chemotherapy and may prove to be safe. A review of four common antioxidants follows. Because of the positive results found in these two patients, a randomized controlled trial is now underway at the University of Kansas Medical Center evaluating safety and efficacy of antioxidants when added to chemotherapy in newly diagnosed ovarian cancer.
N-Glycans Mediate the Apical Sorting of a Gpi-Anchored, Raft-Associated Protein in Madin-Darby Canine Kidney Cells

Glycosyl-phosphatidylinositol (GPI)- anchored proteins are preferentially transported to the apical cell surface of polarized Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cells. It has been assumed that the GPI anchor itself acts as an apical determinant by its interaction with sphingolipid-cholesterol rafts. We modified the rat growth hormone (rGH), an unglycosylated, unpolarized secreted protein, into a GPI-anchored protein and analyzed its surface delivery in polarized MDCK cells. The addition of a GPI anchor to rGH did not lead to an increase in apical delivery of the protein. However, addition of N-glycans to GPI-anchored rGH resulted in predominant apical delivery, suggesting that N-glycans act as apical sorting signals on GPI-anchored proteins as they do on transmembrane and secretory proteins. In contrast to the GPI-anchored rGH, a transmembrane form of rGH which was not raft-associated accumulated intracellularly. Addition of N-glycans to this chimeric protein prevented intracellular accumulation and led to apical delivery.
Secret key agreement by reliability information of signals in Gaussian Maurer’s Model

We consider the problem of secret key agreement in Gaussian Maurerpsilas Model. In Gaussian Maurerpsilas model, legitimate receivers, Alice and Bob, and a wire-tapper, Eve, receive signals randomly generated by a satellite through three independent memoryless Gaussian channels respectively. Then Alice and Bob generate a common secret key from their received signals. In this model, we propose a protocol for generating a common secret key by using the result of soft-decision of Alice and Bobpsilas received signals. Then, we calculate a lower bound on the secret key rate in our proposed protocol. As a result of comparison with the protocol that only uses hard-decision, we found that the higher rate is obtained by using our protocol.