Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Synchronization Properties of Coupled FitzHugh-Nagumo Systems

— We study the synchronized/unsynchronized transition as a function of the noise intensity which appears in a system of globally coupled FitzHugh– Nagumo units under the effect of white noise. By the use of the proper definition of an order parameter, we obtain numerically the phase diagram as a function of the noise intensity and coupling constant.
Process considerations in restructurable VLSI for wafer-scale integration

Wafer-scale integration has recently been demonstrated using a technique called Restructurable VLSI. An array of logic cells embedded in programmable interconnect is fabricated on the wafer. All the parts are tested by wafer probing, and links are made or broken with a laser to wire the complete system. One such chip, a digital integrator 24 cm2in area with 25 MHz input data rate, has been successfully programmed. This paper will describe the RVLSI concept and discuss several aspects of wafer fabrication which are unusual in this technology.
Enhanced SDN security using firewall in a distributed scenario

Software Defined Network (SDN) attract much attendance from research and industrial area; reason behind is the open interface, user controlled management and lower operating cost for data/flow handling rules that implements on software module rather than embedding in hardware with greatly improve performance. Network with the high security demanding higher in this generation. New service and products provide advanced technology and flexible architecture but changing in network landscape can introduce new security issues. SDN simplifies hardware, software and management of network device but faces many forms of attack. SDN or TNA (Traditional Network Architecture) has same uses firewall to manage legacy network traffic. This paper introduce firewall for SDN infrastructure to secure network attached device from suspicious and malicious traffic regarding to attack and access control to enhancing SDN security by distributing system.
The acute effects of prostacyclin on pulmonary hemodynamics in patients with pulmonary hypertension secondary to systemic sclerosis.

OBJECTIVE To determine whether patients with isolated pulmonary hypertension secondary to systemic sclerosis (SSc) have a pulmonary vasculature that is responsive to treatment with vasodilators. METHODS Seven SSc patients with pulmonary hypertension underwent right heart catheterization. Pulmonary pressures and cardiac output were measured before and during a systemic intravenous infusion of prostacyclin. RESULTS Both pulmonary arterial mean pressure and pulmonary vascular resistance decreased significantly with prostacyclin infusion (median decrease 11% and 32%, respectively), with a concomitant increase in cardiac output (median increase 26%). No adverse hemodynamic effects were noted during the infusion. CONCLUSION Vasospasm contributes to the pulmonary hypertension complicating SSc. This feature may be amenable to treatment with vasodilators.
Assessment of the Importance of a New Risk Factor in Prediction Models

Background: Discovery of new risk factors poses new challenges on how to quantify their added value and importance in risk prediction improvement. Objectives: The aim of this study was to apply different statistics and to quantify the importance of some risk factors in acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Patients and Methods: In a retrospective cohort study, 607 patients with AMI, aged more than 25 years were studied. They were admitted to the CCU of Imam Reza hospital in Mashhad, Iran from 2007 to 2012. Health information and death registration systems were used to identify patients and to assess their outcome. At first a model containing all variables was fitted (full model). Importance of variables was compared in terms of standardized regression coefficient and inclusion frequency in bootstrap samples. Then, a series of reduced models were fitted, where in each of them only one of the independent variables was excluded. Models were compared in terms of goodness of fit, accuracy (Cindex, R square), separation of patients into risk groups (SEP), and net reclassification improvement (NRI). Results: Age was selected as the important factor based on all 7 statistics. Exclusion of age variable decreased C index from 0.75 to 0.68 and R square from 0.25 to 0.15. Duration of hospitalization was important based on 4 statistics. Exclusion of this variable decreased R square from 0.25 to 0.21. While gender was a useful variable in separation of patients into risk groups, its omission did not reduce model likelihood. The opposite was true in the case of using streptokinase during hospitalization. Conclusions: Our results revealed that a variable with high separation ability might not necessarily be useful in terms of goodness of fit. Therefore, importance should be defined carefully based on clinical objectives of the study.
An adaptive intelligent particle filter for state estimation

Particle filter (PF) is an effective approach for the state estimation of nonlinear systems. However, PF still faces many problems which influence the accuracy of state estimation. One typical problem is the particle impoverishment. In this study, an adaptive intelligent particle filter (AIPF) is proposed to mitigate the particle impoverishment problem common in PF. We adopt the idea of evolution to solve the loss of the particle diversity based on genetic algorithm (GA) and adaptive genetic algorithm (AGA). The general PF can be regarded as a particular instance of AIPF. Further, the proposed method does not need the process of coding and the calculation of parameter for GA. Finally, the effectiveness of AIPF is verified by two simulation examples.
Activation of PPAR-&ggr; by Pioglitazone Attenuates Oxidative Stress in Aging Rat Cerebral Arteries Through Upregulating UCP2

Abstract: Increasing amounts of evidence implicate oxidative stress as having a pivotal role in age-related cerebrovascular dysfunction, which is an important risk factor for the development of cerebrovascular disease. Previous studies have shown that the activation of the expression of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPAR-&ggr;) in vascular endothelial cells results in an improvement of vascular function. Pioglitazone, a well-known PPAR-&ggr; agonist, protects against oxidative stress in the rostral ventrolateral medulla by the upregulation of mitochondrial uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2). In this study, we sought to explore the effects and the underlying mechanisms of pioglitazone on age-related oxidative stress elevation and cerebrovascular dysfunction in aging rat cerebral arteries. A natural aging model was constructed and used in these experiments. One-month oral administration of pioglitazone (20 mg·kg−1·d−1) ameliorated the production of reactive oxygen species, promoted endothelial nitric oxide synthase phosphorylation and increased the nitric oxide available, thus improving endothelium-dependent relaxation in aging rat cerebral arteries. One-month pioglitazone administration also restored PPAR-&ggr; expression and increased the levels of UCP2 in aging rat cerebral arteries. Using in vitro studies, we demonstrated that pioglitazone attenuated reactive oxygen species levels in aging human umbilical vein endothelial cells through PPAR-&ggr; activation. Furthermore, we found that this occurs in an UCP2-dependent manner. Our study demonstrated that the activation of PPAR-&ggr; by pioglitazone protected against oxidative stress damage in aging cerebral arteries by upregulating UCP2. PPAR-&ggr; may be a new target in treating age-related cerebrovascular dysfunction.
STELLAR ACTIVITY IN THE BROADBAND ULTRAVIOLET

The completion of the GALEX All-Sky Survey in the ultraviolet allows activity measurements to be acquired for many more stars than is possible with the limited sensitivity of ROSAT or the limited sky coverage of Chandra, XMM, or spectroscopic surveys for line emission in the optical or ultraviolet. We have explored the use of GALEX photometry as an activity indicator, using stars within 50 pc as a calibration sample representing the field and in selected nearby associations representing the youngest stages of stellar evolution. We present preliminary relations between UV flux and the optical activity indicator R′HK and between UV flux and age. We demonstrate that far-UV (FUV, 1350–1780 Å) excess flux is roughly proportional to R′HK. We also detect a correlation between near-UV (NUV, 1780–2830 Å) flux and activity or age, but the effect is much more subtle, particularly for stars older than ∼0.5–1 Gyr. Both the FUV and NUV relations show large scatter, ∼0.2 mag when predicting UV flux, ∼0.18 dex when predicting R′HK, and ∼0.4 dex when predicting age. This scatter appears to be evenly split between observational errors in current state-of-the-art data and long-term activity variability in the sample stars.
Sleep after critical illness: Study of survivors of acute respiratory distress syndrome and systematic review of literature

Background and Aims: This study aims to evaluate the sleep quality, architecture, sleep-related quality of life, and sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) survivors early after discharge. Materials and Methods: In this prospective, observational study, consecutive patients with ARDS discharged from the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) underwent evaluation with Epworth sleepiness scale (ESS), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Functional Outcomes of Sleep Questionnaire (FOSQ), and overnight polysomnography. Patients having one or more of the following characteristics were classified as having abnormal sleep: ESS>10, PSQI>5, FOSQ <17.9, apnea–hypopnea index (AHI) ≥5, or AHI during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep ≥5. Results: Twenty patients (median interquartile range [IQR] age of 24 [22–28] years, 11 [55%] females) were included in the study. Acute febrile illness of unknown etiology with multi-organ dysfunction syndrome was the most common underlying etiology for ARDS. The median (IQR) PaO2/FiO2 ratio and APACHE II scores on admission were 176 (151–191.5) and 14 (14–16), respectively. The median (IQR) duration of stay in the ICU was 10 days (7.3–19.5). The overall sleep efficiency (median [IQR], 54% [32.3–65.4%]) was poor. None of the patients had ESS>10, seven (35%) had global PSQI>5 and one had FOSQ <17.9. Ten (50%) patients had at least one characteristic that suggested abnormal sleep (4 insomnia, 2 central sleep apnea, 1 obstructive sleep apnea, 1 REM-SDB, and 2 with a high PSQI, but no specific sleep abnormality). Conclusions: Sleep disturbances are common in ARDS survivors early after discharge from the ICU.
On Area-Efficient Implementation of Data Delays in 7 Series Xilinx FPGAs

For 7 series Xilinx FPGAs, this paper shows that it is risky to believe that so fundamental operation as data delay must be always implemented without wasting chip area, even when design tools are not especially guided by a developer. Against this background, two solutions are presented that allow for minimizing the area occupied by flip-flops used to delay data that comes from outside the slices containing these flipflops. Both approaches are based on exploiting the additional storage elements that are present in slices of 7 series FPGAs. The implicit solution is to constrain floorplanning, while the explicit solution requires quite advanced and tricky HDL coding: low-level primitives must be instantiated, including LUTs in the 2-output mode. For both approaches, we describe in detail how to enable the additional register in order to save slices. Our research was aimed at designing FIR filters for digital signal processing.
Combination therapy in type 2 diabetes mellitus: adding linagliptin to a stable regimen of metformin and a sulfonylurea

Linagliptin, the most recently approved drug of the dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitor class, is an oral agent used to improve glycemic control in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). By inhibiting the DPP-4 enzyme, these drugs slow the inactivation of the endogenous incretin hormones glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP), in turn reducing blood glucose levels in a glucose-dependent manner. As well as significantly reducing glycosylated hemoglobin, the class has a good safety profile, with a low incidence of hypoglycemia, and is not associated with weight gain. From a practical point of view, they also have simple regimens, generally with once-daily oral administration, and can be used as monotherapy or in combination with other anti-diabetic drugs. Owens and colleagues have reported a 6-month study of linagliptin add-on therapy in patients who were receiving a stable regimen of metformin and a sulfonylurea, but needed additional glycemic control. Linagliptin was associated with significant improvement in glycemic control and was well-tolerated by patients, indicating that it provides a valuable option for a large number of patients with T2DM, especially for those who would prefer to add an oral therapy to a current regimen.
Imago Dialogues

Abstract The goal of Imago Relationship Therapy (IRT) is to have a healing connection form within the couple relationship. Some tools for achieving such connection include the Couples-Dialogue and the Parent-Child Dialogue. Despite the effectiveness of these interventions, it seems that some past childhood hurts and traumas remain unprocessed within the brain of certain individuals, thus inhibiting intimacy. By implementing Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) in tandem with IRT, clients who are stuck within these communication enhancement exercises are often able to establish a healing connection, thus further repairing past childhood wounds. Case studies have been included to illustrate the effectiveness of such integration.
Impact or explosion? Technological culture and the ballistic metaphor

The term ‘impact’ has become the kind of word which, when it relates to the evaluation of technological advances in contemporary culture, suggests signs of erosion, debilitation and evasion. The misinformed and in-discriminate use of the term in the most varied of contexts has created an impasse in the cultural semiotic approach, where sign systems are viewed in terms of borders and relations. The objective of this article is to examine the trivialisation of the use of the ballistic metaphor in this explosive moment of the culture. For this, we will refer to the formulations presented by the semiotician, Juri Lotman, in his book, appropriately entitled Culture and Explosion . To what degree is the concept of explosion presented as a counterpart to the notion of impact? The desire to find answers to this question is what moti-vated this inquiry.
CRMA: a cycle-breaking multicast routing algorithm for supporting QoS over the Internet

Multicasting is an efficient and effective approach for supporting content distribution based on the current Internet infrastructure. In this paper, we propose the source-initiated CRMA (cycle-breaking rollback multicast routing algorithm), which is a congestion-aware QoS (quality of service) based multicast routing algorithm. CRMA attempts to achieve the objective of minimizing network congestion conditions while satisfying bandwidth and end-to-end path delay requirements from users. Our proposed approach has several features: (1) It construct a shared symmetric distribution tree for multicast source(s) and its members rather than the conventional approach of constructing multicast tree. (2) CRMA combines the multicast path computation with resource allocation through introducing the WFQ (weighted fair queuing) packet scheduling into path computation. (3) CRMA can be easily implemented and integrated into the common shortest path router architecture without a thorough adjustment. Through extensive simulations, we demonstrate that our CRMA can effectively reduce the cost, which is the reflection of network congestion conditions, of the computed multicast tree, compared to other proposed multicast routing schemes.
Reformation of the marginal band of avian erythrocytes in vitro using calf-brain tubulin: peripheral determinants of microtubule form

The microtubules of nucleated erythrocytes form an extraordinary structure: they are organized into a marginal band at the periphery of the cell. This unusual organelle, recurring in detail in each cell, provides an excellent opportunity to study the determinants of microtubule form. We have been able to reform the marginal band, using detergent-extracted erythrocytes that have been depleted of microtubules in vivo and phosphocellulose-purified tubulin from calf brain. We find that detergent-extracted cytoskeletons incubated under these conditions again have microtubules, and that the pattern of these microtubules recapitulates several features of the intact marginal band. In particular, most of the microtubules after regrowth are located in a band at the periphery of the cell, and curve to form an ellipse. These results support the hypothesis that the specification of microtubule location and shape in these cells is governed by determinants that reside at the periphery of the cell.
Establishment of a novel dwarf rat strain: cartilage calcification insufficient (CCI) rats

Rats with dwarfism accompanied by skeletal abnormalities, such as shortness of the limbs, tail, and body (dwarf rats), emerged in a Jcl-derived Sprague-Dawley rat colony maintained at the Institute for Animal Experimentation, St. Marianna University Graduate School of Medicine. Since the dwarfism was assumed to be due to a genetic mutation based on its frequency, we bred the dwarf rats and investigated their characteristics in order to identify the causative factors of their phenotypes and whether they could be used as a human disease model. One male and female that produced dwarf progeny were selected, and reproduction was initiated by mating the pair. The incidence of dwarfism was 25.8% among the resultant litter, and dwarfism occurred in both genders, suggesting that it was inherited in an autosomal recessive manner. At 12 weeks of age, the body weights of the male and female dwarf rats were 40% and 57% of those of the normal rats, respectively. In soft X-ray radiographic and histological examinations, shortening and hypoplasia of the long bones, such as the tibia and femur, were observed, which were suggestive of endochondral ossification abnormalities. An immunohistochemical examination detected an aggrecan synthesis disorder, which might have led to delayed calcification and increased growth plate thickening in the dwarf rats. We hypothesized that the principal characteristics of the dwarf rats were systemically induced by insufficient cartilage calcification in their long bones; thus, we named them cartilage calcification insufficient (CCI) rats.
Evaluation of the nutritional and microbiological status of co-fermented cereals / cowpea ‘ OGI ’

This study investigated nutritional, viscosity and microbial status of co-fermented cereal /cowpea. Standard Methods According to AOAC (2005) were used for proximate compositions. Mineral Safety Index (MSI) was calculated. Characterization of isolates were by macroscopic, microscopic and biochemical tests. Viscosity was measured using Rotational Viscometer. Protein contents were comparable. Crude fibre was higher in millet/cowpea and lipid in sorghum/cowpea. Both samples had comparable K, Cu, Zn and Mn values. Fe and Na values were higher in millet/cowpea and P, Ca and Mg in sorghum/cowpea. Mineral Safety Index for copper, phosphorus and zinc were lower in both samples than tabulated required daily allowance (RDA) for infants; while sodium was comparable to RDA values. Iron in millet/cowpea was higher than RDA and magnesium in sorghum/cowpea. Millet/cowpea had more yeasts, moulds and enterobacteriaceae. Total plate count was more in sorghum/cowpea and lactic acid bacteria count more in millet/cowpea. Probable organism isolated from sorghum/cowpea was Lactobacillus plantarun and Lactobacillus brevis from millet/cowpea. Consistency values were comparable at 12% flour concentration for both samples; viscosity was more reduced at 12% in millet/cowpea. Sorghum/cowpea ogi had acceptable values of Ca, Mg, crude fiber and lipid contents. Millet/cowpea ogi might be more desirable in terms of viscosity.
Contingency management literature review: Application to problem gambling counselling

Contingency management is a form of behaviour modification where participants who perform specified target behaviours receive valued outcomes. The efficacy of this process is based on the operant conditioning principle that the frequency of behaviour is influenced by the contingent consequences that follow (Skinner, 1953). Although contingency management has consistently been demonstrated as an effective psychosocial treatment for substance abuse (Petry, 2010), it is virtually unknown in the problem gambling counsellor community (West, 2008). This article attempts to address this issue by presenting the basic contingency management concepts, related research, and describing the benefits and criticisms of using contingency management as a treatment for problem gambling.
A time-predictable execution mode for superscalar pipelines with instruction prescheduling

The time predictability of the components of a real-time system is required whenever it must be guaranteed that deadlines will be met. Research on techniques to evaluate the Worst-Case Execution Time (WCET) of programs has received much attention these last years but current high-performance processors prove to be hard to model both safely and tightly. We acknowledge the difficulty of taking into account more and more dynamic mechanisms within static analysis and this motivates our approach that consists in making the processor fit WCET estimation techniques. We focus on out-of-order superscalar pipelines and we propose to regulate the instruction flow so that subsequent basic blocks execute independently one of each other. This would allow any WCET estimation tool to limit the measurement to individual basic blocks.
Differential Bell-Labs Layered Space Time Architectures

Most research on differential MIMO is based on space-time block codes, aiming to achieve maximum transmit diversity and thus make the transmission more robust by the aid of the special orthogonal or quasi-orthogonal code structures. However, a differential scheme based on a spatial multiplexing approach such as the Bell-Labs layered space time (BLAST) wireless architecture would be likely to provide a much greater capacity. To this end, in this paper, we derive a simple differential modulation scheme based on BLAST for any number of transmit antennas and receive antennas. A special symbol mapping method is developed to avoid amplitude variation of the transmitted signals, which can also improve the system performance. This differential scheme can significantly reduce the system complexity, since it avoids the need for channel estimation. Moreover, an improved sub-optimal detection algorithm based on a Gaussian approximation is applied to greatly reduce computational complexity at the receiver, otherwise prohibitive, with only very slight performance loss.