Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Study of Metamaterial Based Electrically Small Antenna to Enhance Gain

This is a review paper in which electrically small metamaterial-based antennas are discussed from the industrial point of view using mobile phones as the application example and dual band microstrip antenna with metamaterial structure for dual band operation. The most interesting feature of the design is the ability of enhancing the gain and total efficiency of the antenna without affecting the other important parameters like bandwidth and directivity. The double negative (DNG) properties of metamaterial (-ɛ and -μ) have been proved by simulated S-parameters showing improved results in form of power gain and efficiency. Metamaterial (MTM) in antennas is proposed for better improvement in the impedance bandwidth and reduction in the return loss at operating frequencies. It appears that despite the interesting theoretical findings, the commercial acceptability of these antennas is low. Some of the issues possibly leading to this situation are addressed. Discussion topics range from challenging application environment, through the response of finite-size composite-material samples, all the way to the required constructive criticism and acknowledgement of prior art. Selected issues are discussed in more details, and proposals how to possibly improve the commercial acceptability of metamaterial-based antennas are made.
A role for cpeYZ in cyanobacterial phycoerythrin biosynthesis

Pigment mutant strain FdR1 of the filamentous cyanobacterium Fremyella diplosiphon is characterized by constitutive synthesis of the phycobiliprotein phycoerythrin due to insertional inactivation of the rcaC regulatory gene by endogenous transposon Tn5469. Whereas the parental strain Fd33 harbors five genomic copies of Tn5469, cells of strain FdR1 harbor six genomic copies of the element; the sixth copy in FdR1 is localized to the rcaC gene. Electroporation of FdR1 cells yielded secondary pigment mutant strains FdR1E1 and FdR1E4, which identically exhibited the FdR1 phenotype with significantly reduced levels of phycoerythrin. In both FdR1E1 and FdR1E4, a seventh genomic copy of Tn5469 was localized to the cpeY gene of the sequenced but phenotypically uncharacterized cpeYZ gene set. This gene set is located downstream of the cpeBA operon which encodes the alpha and beta subunits of phycoerythrin. Complementation experiments correlated cpeYZ activity to the phenotype of strains FdR1E1 and FdR1E4. The predicted CpeY and CpeZ proteins share significant sequence identity with the products of homologous cpeY and cpeZ genes reported for Pseudanabaena sp. strain PCC 7409 and Synechococcus sp. strain WH 8020, both of which synthesize phycoerythrin. The CpeY and CpeZ proteins belong to a family of structurally related cyanobacterial proteins that includes the subunits of the CpcE/CpcF phycocyanin alpha-subunit lyase of Synechococcus sp. strain PCC 7002 and the subunits of the PecE/PecF phycoerythrocyanin alpha-subunit lyase of Anabaena sp. strain PCC 7120. Phycobilisomes isolated from mutant strains FdR1E1 and FdR1E4 contained equal amounts of chromophorylated alpha and beta subunits of phycoerythrin at 46% of the levels of the parental strain FdR1. These results suggest that the cpeYZ gene products function in phycoerythrin synthesis, possibly as a lyase involved in the attachment of phycoerythrobilin to the alpha or beta subunit.
An information systems assessment framework for agile manufacturing

Turmoil in the business environment is driving manufacturing compa nies to become agile. Agility means the capability of operating profita bly in a competitive environment of continuous and unpredictable changes with information sys tems regarded as one of its main enablers. The research presented in this work f cuses on the assessment of information systems to support agile manufacturing. The a ssessment framework is constructed upon a series of competitive bases (six) and agil ity attributes (32) identified in the literature. Other issues included cover the char acte istics of the business environment and the evolution/development and infrastructure of inf rmation systems. The framework is validated through a survey research instrument and the responses analysed with statistical tests (descriptive statistic s, factor analysis, linear regression and reliability). The results of the statistical analysi s enabled us to determine the attributes identified as predictors for the set of questions linking formation systems and agile manufacturing. Due to the fuzzy nature of assessment of in f rmation systems, the complete framework can be presented as a hierarchy whe re techniques like AHP and fuzzy language sets are applicable. The findings will enable the researchers to clearly ident fy the trends adopted by manufacturing companies in the utilisation of information sys tem to gain competitive edge in support of the concept of agile manufacturing.
Dynamic Signaling in the Hog1 MAPK Pathway Relies on High Basal Signal Transduction

High intrinsic basal signaling in mitogen-activated protein kinase pathways ensures proper dynamic responses to environmental stimuli. Intrinsically Responsive Macia et al. found that when the activity of the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), Hog1, was inhibited, the phosphorylated form of this MAPK accumulated, suggesting that signaling occurs even in the absence of stress. The basal signaling was found to be held in check by a negative feedback loop that required the kinase activity of Hog1. A model of the system that included the basal signal and the negative feedback recapitulated the experimental data and suggested that intrinsic basal signaling poises the system to respond rapidly even to small changes in osmolarity. A similar basal activity was also detected for two additional yeast MAPKs, those involved in the pheromone response, suggesting that high basal signaling may be a common property of MAPK pathways. Appropriate regulation of the Hog1 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway is essential for cells to survive osmotic stress. Here, we show that the two sensing mechanisms upstream of Hog1 display different signaling properties. The Sho1 branch is an inducible nonbasal system, whereas the Sln1 branch shows high basal signaling that is restricted by a MAPK-mediated feedback mechanism. A two-dimensional mathematical model of the Snl1 branch, including high basal signaling and a Hog1-regulated negative feedback, shows that a system with basal signaling exhibits higher efficiency, with faster response times and higher sensitivity to variations in external signals, than would systems without basal signaling. Analysis of two other yeast MAPK pathways, the Fus3 and Kss1 signaling pathways, indicates that high intrinsic basal signaling may be a general property of MAPK pathways allowing rapid and sensitive responses to environmental changes.
The Impact of Virtual Experience and Informative Control on the Enhancement of Product Understanding

There is no doubt that this way of knowledge delivering affords flexible and instant learning. Thus, many instructors afford online material as hypertexts concerning a set of faces and rules for students to generate a basis to achieve a comprehensive understanding. This study borrowed the nature of e-learning and applied its applications to e-commerce to test if the ability of learning by doing is beneficial for users to better understand a product. In this situation, users were treated as learners and they were exposured to in a so-called “situated cognition”, which is called virtual experience in ecommerce field. Two laboratory experiments were conducted with 33 participants recruited. The first experiment was to compare the effects of level of interactivity, whereas the last was to compare the effects of affordance of informative control. Our findings indicated that except their perceptions of patronage intention, participants considered no difference in attitude toward the products been demonstrated and shopping enjoyment in a fully 3D-to-3D comparison. However, while providing informative control, participants had higher perceptions of attitude toward the products, shopping enjoyment and patronage intention than their counterparts who had not such support.
Placing dynamic content in caches with small population

This paper addresses a fundamental limitation for the adoption of caching for wireless access networks due to small population sizes. This shortcoming is due to two main challenges: making timely estimates of varying content popularity and inferring popular content from small samples. We propose a framework which alleviates such limitations. To timely estimate varying popularity in a context of a single cache we propose an Age-Based Threshold (ABT) policy which caches all contents requested more times than a threshold N (τ), where τ is the content age. We show that ABT is asymptotically hit rate optimal in the many contents regime, which allows us to obtain the first characterization of the optimal performance of a caching system in a dynamic context. We then address small sample sizes focusing on L local caches and one global cache. On the one hand we show that the global cache learns L times faster by aggregating all requests from local caches, which improves hit rates. On the other hand, aggregation washes out local characteristics of correlated traffic which penalizes hit rate. This motivates coordination mechanisms which combine global learning of popularity scores in clusters and Least-Recently-Used (LRU) policy with prefetching.
The Quant um Mind/ Classical Brain Problem 1

The quantum theory of mind allows a shift from the Mind/Brain metaphysical problem to the Quantum Mind/Classical Brain scientific problem: how could systematic and coherent quantum processes assumed to be the physical support of our conscious experiences occur in a macroscopic system as the brain? I discuss a solution based on a neurobiological model that attributes to quantum computation in intra-neuronal signal-transduction pathways the role of directly supporting phenomenal experience. In this model, quantum coherence is created or prepared by classical mechanisms as recurrent neuronal networks, oscillatory synchrony and gated membrane channels, thus avoiding common theoretical constraints for the existence of quantum communication and computation, as ultra-cold temperatures and quasi-isolation from the environment.
Identification of novel therapeutic targets for reentrant arrhythmias

By MICHELLE MJ NASSAL Cardiac reentrant arrhythmias are dependent upon two main components, slowed myocardial conduction and heterogeneous myocardial repolarization. Myocardial conduction is established by cellular excitability, primarily sodium current, and cell-to-cell communication, determined by gap junctions (GJ). Importantly, ischemia-induced cardiac GJ remodeling, mainly Cx43 the principal ventricular GJ protein, plays a causal role in determining myocardial conduction slowing and arrhythmogenesis. Ischemia induces Cx43 phosphorylation remodeling resulting in Cx43 lateralization away from the intercalated disc (ID), reduced conductance or increased degradation. Recently we found mild hypothermia (MH, 32°C) attenuates ischemia-induced conduction slowing and reduces arrhythmia susceptibility; however, the mechanism was unknown. MH may provide cardiac benefit by mitigating ischemia-induced Cx43 remodeling. The mechanisms by which MH may affect Cx43 remodeling to maintain GJ conductance and ultimately reduce arrhythmogenesis are unknown. Herein lies the rationale for the first part of this work. Specifically, determine the mechanistic role of Cx43 in determining MH preservation of conduction and potential ischemia-induced Cx43 phosphorylation remodeling. During ischemia, one of the most consistently altered Cx43 phosphorylation sites is serine 368 however the effects of S368 phosphorylation on myocardial conduction are conflicting. This
Size-resolved measurement of the mixing state of soot in the megacity Beijing, China: diurnal cycle, aging and parameterization

Abstract. Soot particles are the most efficient light absorbing aerosol species in the atmosphere, playing an important role as a driver of global warming. Their climate effects strongly depend on their mixing state, which significantly changes their light absorbing capability and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) activity. Therefore, knowledge about the mixing state of soot and its aging mechanism becomes an important topic in the atmospheric sciences. The size-resolved (30–320 nm diameter) mixing state of soot particles in polluted megacity air was measured at a suburban site (Yufa) during the CAREBeijing 2006 campaign in Beijing, using a volatility tandem differential mobility analyzer (VTDMA). Particles in this size range with non-volatile residuals at 300 °C were considered to be soot particles. On average, the number fraction of internally mixed soot in total soot particles (Fin), decreased from 0.80 to 0.57 when initial Dp increased from 30 to 320 nm. Further analysis reveals that: (1) Fin was well correlated with the aerosol hygroscopic mixing state measured by a CCN counter. More externally mixed soot particles were observed when particles showed more heterogeneous features with regard to hygroscopicity. (2) Fin had pronounced diurnal cycles. For particles in the accumulation mode (Dp at 100–320 nm), largest Fin were observed at noon time, with "apparent" turnover rates (kex → in) up to 7.8% h−1. (3) Fin was subject to competing effects of both aging and emissions. While aging increases Fin by converting externally mixed soot particles into internally mixed ones, emissions tend to reduce Fin by emitting more fresh and externally mixed soot particles. Similar competing effects were also found with air mass age indicators. (4) Under the estimated emission intensities, actual turnover rates of soot (kex → in) up to 20% h−1 were derived, which showed a pronounced diurnal cycle peaking around noon time. This result confirms that (soot) particles are undergoing fast aging/coating with the existing high levels of condensable vapors in the megacity Beijing. (5) Diurnal cycles of Fin were different between Aitken and accumulation mode particles, which could be explained by the faster growth of smaller Aitken mode particles into larger size bins. To improve the Fin prediction in regional/global models, we suggest parameterizing Fin by an air mass aging indicator, i.e., Fin = a + bx, where a and b are empirical coefficients determined from observations, and x is the value of an air mass age indicator. At the Yufa site in the North China Plain, fitted coefficients (a, b) were determined as (0.57, 0.21), (0.47, 0.21), and (0.52, 0.0088) for x (indicators) as [NOz]/[NOy], [E]/[X] ([ethylbenzene]/[m,p-xylene]) and ([IM] + [OM])/[EC] ([inorganic + organic matter]/[elemental carbon]), respectively. Such a parameterization consumes little additional computing time, but yields a more realistic description of Fin compared with the simple treatment of soot mixing state in regional/global models.
Spatial Variability of Landscape Pattern Change Following a Ponderosa Pine Wildfire in Northeastern New Mexico, USA

Forest fires have profound impacts on the spatial distribution of vegetation type and density. This research analyzes the impacts of the 2002 Ponil Fire in New Mexico on landscape patterns using a moving-window analysis of landscape metrics. Categorically derived landscape metrics and a measure of fire severity—the Normalized Burn Ratio—are used to produce a quantitative, spatial distribution of landscape change. While gross land-cover change summaries and landscape-metric changes indicate a more heterogeneous landscape following the fire, the moving-window approach demonstrates the oversimplification of landscape-scale metrics and summaries. The moving-window approach indicates that the majority of areas in the landscape were unchanged in mean patch size, whereas mean (and median) patch size increased according to landscape-level measures. Contrary to expectations, average patch density and richness were also nearly unchanged. The moving-window approach is particularly helpful in analyzing large fires with considerable variability in severity, allowing greater insight into the relationship between fire severity and landscape composition and structure in post-fire landscapes. The moving-window approach also can guide researchers and managers to specific areas of a landscape where large changes have occurred and where evidence for understanding the process driving that change is most likely to be found.
Identification of Genes Related to White and Black Plumage Formation by RNA-Seq from White and Black Feather Bulbs in Ducks

To elucidate the genes involved in the formation of white and black plumage in ducks, RNA from white and black feather bulbs of an F2 population were analyzed using RNA-Seq. A total of 2,642 expressed sequence tags showed significant differential expression between white and black feather bulbs. Among these tags, 186 matched 133 annotated genes that grouped into 94 pathways. A number of genes controlling melanogenesis showed differential expression between the two types of feather bulbs. This differential expression was confirmed by qPCR analysis and demonstrated that Tyr (Tyrosinase) and Tyrp1 (Tyrosinase-related protein-1) were expressed not in W-W (white feather bulb from white dorsal plumage) and W-WB (white feather bulb from white-black dorsal plumage) but in B-B (black feather bulb from black dorsal plumage) and B-WB (black feather bulb from white-black dorsal plumage) feather bulbs. Tyrp2 (Tyrosinase-related protein-2) gene did not show expression in the four types of feather bulbs but expressed in retina. C-kit (The tyrosine kinase receptor) expressed in all of the samples but the relative mRNA expression in B-B or B-WB was approximately 10 fold higher than that in W-W or W-WB. Additionally, only one of the two Mitf isoforms was associated with plumage color determination. Downregulation of c-Kit and Mitf in feather bulbs may be the cause of white plumage in the duck.
DSM from Theory to Practice

DSM is an exciting new technology with the potential to significantly improve data-rates, service stability and power consumption in DSL. Developing DSM from a theoretical technique into a commercial product is a challenging task and requires many practical issues to be addressed. This paper describes our experience in developing a DSM Level 2 prototype. By focusing on low complexity, practical algorithms, we have managed to achieve gains in data-rate of up to 120% and substantial reductions in power consumption. This was achieve in a real implementation on the Huawei SmartAX DSLAM using unmodified, standard compliant DSL chipsets. This demonstrates the substantial gains that DSM can achieve in real DSL systems.
Fluorescence ratiometric classifier for the detection of skin pathologies

Detection of pre-malignant lesions in skin could help in reducing the 5 year patient mortality rates and greatly advancing the quality of life. Current gold standard for the detection of skin pathologies is a tissue biopsy and followed by a series of steps before it is examined under a light microscope by a pathologist. The disadvantage with this method is its invasiveness. Light based biomedical point spectroscopic techniques offers an adjunct technique to invasive tissue pathology. In this context, we have implemented a simple multiplexed ratiometric approach (F470/F560 and F510/F580) based on fluorescence at two excitation wavelengths 378 nm and 445 nm respectively. The emission profile at these excitation wavelengths showed a shift towards the longer wavelengths for melanoma when compared with normal and nevus. At both excitation wavelengths, we observed an increased intensity ratios for normal, followed by nevus and melanoma. This intensity ratios provide a good diagnostic capability in differentiating normal, nevus and melanocytic skin lesions. This method could be applied in vivo because of the simplicity involved in discriminating normal and pathological skin tissues.
Gamma-irradiation effect: variation of photosynthetic activity of Euglena.

OBJECTIVE To study the effects of gamma-ray irradiation on carbon fixation (Specific production rate: SPR), CO2 utilization efficiency (CUE) and electron transfer rate (ETR) in the photosynthetic flagellate Euglena gracilis strain Z in a dose-response dependent manner. METHODS Euglena cells were cultured in an inorganic nutrient medium containing ammonium chloride or proteose peptone. Cells were exposed to gamma-ray at 5 doses (0, 100, 250, 350, 500 Gy for water). Five days after irradiation, three photosynthetic activities were measured. SPR, which is a carbon uptake rate per unit carbon mass, was determined by 13C tracer methodology. CUE was evaluated using a relation of carbon isotope fractionation in Calvin cycle. ETR in photosystem II (PS II) was measured by a chlorophyll fluorescence analysis. RESULTS Even at a dose of 500 Gy, 80% of ETR of the non-irradiated control (0 Gy) was sustained, while SPR and CUE were about half the level in the non-irradiated control at 500 Gy. Furthermore, the dose response of ETR was considerably different from the others. CONCLUSION Our findings suggest that not only PS II but also the Calvin cycle in the photosynthetic system is affected by gamma ray irradiation.
A class of probabilistic models for role engineering

Role Engineering is a security-critical task for systems using role-based access control (RBAC). Different role-mining approaches have been proposed that attempt to automatically infer appropriate roles from existing user-permission assignments. However, these approaches are mainly combinatorial and lack an underlying probabilistic model of the domain. We present the first probabilistic model for RBAC. Our model defines a general framework for expressing user permission assignments and can be specialized to different domains by limiting its degrees of freedom with appropriate constraints. For one practically important instance of this framework, we show how roles can be inferred from data using a state-of-the-art machine-learning algorithm. Experiments on both randomly generated and real-world data provide evidence that our approach not only creates meaningful roles but also identifies erroneous user-permission assignments in given data.
A new middleware architecture for RFID systems

1980 marked the start of a boom in radiofrequency identification (RFID) technology, initially associated with a growing need for traceability. In view of the technological progress and lower costs, RFID's area of application became much broader and, today, multiple business sectors take advantage of this technology. But in order to achieve the maximum benefits of RFID technology, the RFID information collected should be useful, for this it is necessary that we can collect it and deliver it in the best conditions for the whole applications that have need of its exploitation, for that a dedicated middleware solution is required to ensure the collection of RFID information and their integration in an information systems. The issues and key points of this integration as the description of the RFID technology will be summarized in the present paper, with a new middleware architecture. We focuses mainly on components, and design of our middleware MedRFID, solution developed in our Lab, and which integrates mobility and provides extensibility, scalability, abstraction, ease of deployment and compatibility with IATA standards and EPCglobal standards.