Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Carrier load balancing and packet scheduling for multi-carrier systems

Abstract-In this paper we focus on resource allocation for next generation wireless communication systems with aggregation of multiple Component Carriers (CCs), i.e., how to assign the CCs to each user, and how to multiplex multiple users in each CC. We first investigate two carrier load balancing methods for allocating the CCs to the users- Round Robin (RR) and Mobile Hashing (MH) balancing by means of a simple theoretical formulation, as well as system level simulations. At Layer-2 we propose a simple cross-CC packet scheduling algorithm that improves the coverage performance and the resource allocation fairness among users, as compared to independent scheduling per CC. The Long Term Evolution (LTE)-Advanced is selected for the case study of a multi-carrier system. In such a system, RR provides better performance than MH balancing, and the proposed simple scheduling algorithm is shown to be effective in providing up to 90% coverage gain with no loss of the overall cell throughput, as compared to independent scheduling per CC.
Influence of isometric exercise on blood flow and sweating in glabrous and nonglabrous human skin.

The distribution of the reflex effects of isometric exercise on cutaneous vasomotor and sudomotor function is not clear. We examined the effects of isometric exercise by different muscle masses on skin blood flow (SkBF) and sweat rate (SR) in nonglabrous skin and in glabrous skin. The latter contains arteriovenous anastomoses (AVAs), which cause large fluctuations in SkBF. SkBF was measured by laser-Doppler flowmetry (LDF) and reported as cutaneous vascular conductance (CVC; LDF/mean arterial pressure). SR was measured by capacitance hygrometry. LDF and SR were measured at the sole, palm, forearm, and ventral leg during separate bouts of isometric handgrip (IHG) and isometric leg extension (ILE). CVC and its standard deviation decreased significantly during IHG and ILE in the palm and sole (P < 0.05) but not in the forearm or leg (P > 0.05). Only palmar SR increased significantly during IHG and ILE (P < 0.05). We conclude that the major reflex influences of isometric exercise on the skin include AVAs and palmar sweat glands and that this is true for both arm and leg exercise.
Approximating Optimal Behavioural Strategies Down to Rules-of-Thumb: Energy Reserve Changes in Pairs of Social Foragers

Functional explanations of behaviour often propose optimal strategies for organisms to follow. These ‘best’ strategies could be difficult to perform given biological constraints such as neural architecture and physiological constraints. Instead, simple heuristics or ‘rules-of-thumb’ that approximate these optimal strategies may instead be performed. From a modelling perspective, rules-of-thumb are also useful tools for considering how group behaviour is shaped by the behaviours of individuals. Using simple rules-of-thumb reduces the complexity of these models, but care needs to be taken to use rules that are biologically relevant. Here, we investigate the similarity between the outputs of a two-player dynamic foraging game (which generated optimal but complex solutions) and a computational simulation of the behaviours of the two members of a foraging pair, who instead followed a rule-of-thumb approximation of the game's output. The original game generated complex results, and we demonstrate here that the simulations following the much-simplified rules-of-thumb also generate complex results, suggesting that the rule-of-thumb was sufficient to make some of the model outcomes unpredictable. There was some agreement between both modelling techniques, but some differences arose – particularly when pair members were not identical in how they gained and lost energy. We argue that exploring how rules-of-thumb perform in comparison to their optimal counterparts is an important exercise for biologically validating the output of agent-based models of group behaviour.
Using Bayesian Networks for Daily Activity Prediction

In spite of the significant work that has been done to discover and recognize activities in the smart home research, less attention has been paid to predict the future activities that the resident is likely to perform. An activity prediction module can play a major role in design of a smart home. For instance, by taking advantage of an activity prediction module, a smart home can learn context-aware rules to prompt individuals to initiate important activities. In this paper, we propose an activity prediction approach using Bayesian networks. We propose a novel two-step inference process to predict the next activity features and then to predict the next activity label. We also propose an approach to predict the start time of the next activity which is based on modeling the relative start time of the predicted activity using the continuous normal distribution and outlier detection. We evaluate our proposed models using real data collected from two smart home apartments.
Material Behavior of an Ultra-High-Performance Concrete Forming Die for Sheet Metal Hydroforming

New sheet metal forming technique and low cost forming die development has resulted from economic requirements and an increasing number of part variants. To form detailed and uniform sheet metal contours in the range of elastic material behavior of the die material, these dies have to withstand approximate pressures of 100 MPa (14.50 ksi) for sheet metal hydroforming. A promising approach to cost-efficient die production is ultra high performance concrete (UHPC) use, particularly for high pressure sheet metal hydroforming. Uniaxial and triaxial compressive stress state stress-strain behavior was investigated through experimentation at various ages for a fine grained UHPC. Three concrete cylinder confinements were additionally tested to achieve a multiaxial stress state. After fabrication of a forming tool prototype, its performance was analyzed in applying a fluid pressure up to 90 MPa (13.05 ksi). The formed sheet shape accuracy and ultimate prototype load were examined. There was also determination of the friction coefficient between sheet metal and concrete. Forming tests have demonstrated that the investigated UHPC can be successfully used as sheet metal hydroforming die material.
Modified Huang-Wang's Convertible Nominative Signature Scheme

At ACISP 2004, Huang and Wang first introduced the concept of convertible nominative signatures and also proposed a concrete scheme. However, it was pointed out by many works that Huang-Wang's scheme is in fact not a nominative signature. In this paper, we first present a security model for convertible nominative signatures. The properties of unforgeability, invisibility, non-impersonation and non-repudiation in the setting of convertible nominative signatures are defined formally. Then we modify Huang-Wang's scheme into a secure one. Formal proofs are provided to show that the modified Huang-Wang's scheme satisfies all the security properties under some conventional assumptions in the random oracle model.
Vascular smooth muscle cell calcification is mediated by regulated exosome secretion.

RATIONALE Matrix vesicles (MVs), secreted by vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs), form the first nidus for mineralization and fetuin-A, a potent circulating inhibitor of calcification, is specifically loaded into MVs. However, the processes of fetuin-A intracellular trafficking and MV biogenesis are poorly understood. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study is to investigate the regulation, and role, of MV biogenesis in VSMC calcification. METHODS AND RESULTS Alexa488-labeled fetuin-A was internalized by human VSMCs, trafficked via the endosomal system, and exocytosed from multivesicular bodies via exosome release. VSMC-derived exosomes were enriched with the tetraspanins CD9, CD63, and CD81, and their release was regulated by sphingomyelin phosphodiesterase 3. Comparative proteomics showed that VSMC-derived exosomes were compositionally similar to exosomes from other cell sources but also shared components with osteoblast-derived MVs including calcium-binding and extracellular matrix proteins. Elevated extracellular calcium was found to induce sphingomyelin phosphodiesterase 3 expression and the secretion of calcifying exosomes from VSMCs in vitro, and chemical inhibition of sphingomyelin phosphodiesterase 3 prevented VSMC calcification. In vivo, multivesicular bodies containing exosomes were observed in vessels from chronic kidney disease patients on dialysis, and CD63 was found to colocalize with calcification. Importantly, factors such as tumor necrosis factor-α and platelet derived growth factor-BB were also found to increase exosome production, leading to increased calcification of VSMCs in response to calcifying conditions. CONCLUSIONS This study identifies MVs as exosomes and shows that factors that can increase exosome release can promote vascular calcification in response to environmental calcium stress. Modulation of the exosome release pathway may be as a novel therapeutic target for prevention.
The Rise of Electronic Health Record Adoption Among Family Physicians

PURPOSE Realizing the benefits of adopting electronic health records (EHRs) in large measure depends heavily on clinicians and providers’ uptake and meaningful use of the technology. This study examines EHR adoption among family physicians using 2 different data sources, compares family physicians with other office-based medical specialists, assesses variation in EHR adoption among family physicians across states, and shows the possibility for data sharing among various medical boards and federal agencies in monitoring and guiding EHR adoption. METHOD We undertook a secondary analysis of American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) administrative data (2005–2011) and data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) (2001–2011). RESULTS The EHR adoption rate by family physicians reached 68% nationally in 2011. NAMCS family physician adoption rates and ABFM adoption rates (2005–2011) were similar. Family physicians are adopting EHRs at a higher rate than other office-based physicians as a group; however, significant state-level variation exists, indicating geographical gaps in EHR adoption. CONCLUSION Two independent data sets yielded convergent results, showing that adoption of EHRs by family physicians has doubled since 2005, exceeds other office-based physicians as a group, and is likely to surpass 80% by 2013. Adoption varies at a state level. Further monitoring of trends in EHR adoption and characterizing their capacities are important to achieve comprehensive data exchange necessary for better, affordable health care.
Tissue responses to ischemia: local and remote responses for preserving perfusion of ischemic muscle.

The sequence of biological events that permits an organism to maintain tissue viability in the face of acute or chronic ischemia constitutes a fundamental survival response. Among mammalian species, this response may be best exemplified by the Israeli mole-rat (1), a creature that lives only in Egypt, Israel, and Syria. What is fascinating about this animal is that its entire life is spent underground in subterranean burrows at decidedly low oxygen tensions; accordingly, its tissues have been shown to be highly vascularized, and the vascular density is associated with upregulated endogenous expression of VEGF. Among supraterranean species confronted with tissue ischemia localized to cardiac or skeletal muscle, at least two options are available. The first is to reduce demand for tissue oxygenation. This may be accomplished by “biochemical splinting,” in which metabolic functions are converted from primarily aerobic to predominantly anaerobic. In the extreme, reduced blood flow may be associated with literal splinting, that is impaired wall motion characteristic of hibernating myocardium (2). Alternatively, “behavioral splinting” may be employed. For cardiac muscle, this may be achieved by reduced activity and, if necessary, pharmacologic therapies that reduce myocardial wall stress. For skeletal muscle, pharmacologic interventions are so limited that reduced levels of activity constitute the typical response to claudication. These adjustments, however, are necessary only if natural reparative mechanisms have failed to address the problem of ischemia successfully by restoring blood flow to the affected muscle group. Our current notions concerning the means by which this is achieved, as well as the factors that may selectively obviate this adaptive response, are the subject of this Perspective.
The inflammatory response to lymph node cells from adjuvant‐diseased rats. Relative contributions of donor and recipient cell populations

The aetiology of the polyarthritic syndrome induced in rats by the injection of Freund's complete adjuvant (FCA) into the paw or tail, remains unclear, despite the widespread use of the condition as a model of rheumatoid arthritis (Pearson and Chang, 1978). One of the major manifestations of the disease is the formation of a pannus of proliferating synovial cells within joints, containing a very marked lymphocytic infiltrate (Jones and Ward, 1963; Burstein and Waksman, 1964). Since the arthritis can be passively transferred into norma1 recipient rats with lymph node or spleen cells it has been suggested that the articular lesions are the result of a cell-mediated immune reaction to the disseminated mycobacteria present in the adjuvant (Waksman and Wennersten, 1963; Pearson and Wood, 1964). Other authors have provided evidence for a cell-mediated immune response to an endogenous antigen in this disease (Berry et al., 1973). In support of a role of cell-mediated immunity, we have recently shown that lymph node cells from rats sensitised with FCA stimulate granulation tissue growth around sponges implanted subcutaneously in normal recipient Lewis rats (Parnham et al., 1979). Inhibition of DNA synthesis in the lymph node cells prevented the subsequent stimulation of granuloma formation. We now present further data on the effects of lymph node cells from FCA-and incomplete adjuvant-(F1A)-treated rats on the inflammatory response to sponges implanted into normal recipient Lewis rats.
Constant execution time multiple human detectors regardless of target number increase based on CHLAC

This paper proposes the constant execution time multiple human detection system. The human detection from video sequence is important in a monitoring camera system and a robot vision. It is important not to change execution time in human detection system regardless number of persons. In this paper, the feature amount of an image was calculated by using Cubic Higher-Order Local Auto Correlation (CHLAC) in video sequence. CHLAC has position invariability and additivity. The proposed method can recognize a person and the other incoming things. We verify the human detection rate and the execution time by the number of persons. We show the system do not change the execution time in multiple human detectors.
Video Retrieval Based on Tracked Features Quantization

In this paper, we present an image retrieval method based on feature tracking. Feature tracks are summarized into a compact discreet value and used for video indexing purpose. As opposed to existing space-time features, we do not make any assumption on the motion visible on the indexed videos. As a result, given an example query, our system is able to retrieve related videos from a large database. We evaluated our system with the copy detection benchmark MUSCLE-VCD-2007. We also ran retrieval experiment on hours of TV broadcast.
TerraVision II: Visualizing Massive Terrain Databases in VRML

To disseminate 3D maps and spatial data over the Web, we designed massive terrain data sets accessible through either a VRML browser or the customized TerraVision II browser. Although not required to view the content, TerraVision II lets the user perform specialized browser level optimizations that offer increased efficiency and seamless interaction with the terrain data. We designed our framework to simplify terrain data maintenance and to let users dynamically select particular sets of geo-referenced data. Our implementation uses Java scripting to extend VRML's base functionality and the External Authoring Interface to offer application-specific management of the virtual geographic environment.
Consulting private health care providers aggravates treatment delay in urban South African tuberculosis patients.

SETTING An urban primary health care facility in Khayelitsha, South Africa. OBJECTIVES To determine the difference in total tuberculosis (TB) treatment delay in patients who initially seek care at National TB Control Programme (NTP) facilities after the onset of TB-related symptoms, compared to patients who initially seek care from non-NTP health care practitioners (HCP); and to describe the relative contributions of diagnostic, treatment initiation, patient and health system (HS) delay. DESIGN A cross-sectional study of adult TB patients treated by the NTP. RESULTS A total of 210 patients (median age 31 years) were enrolled from May to December 2009: 46% were male, and 58% were human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected. The median duration of total delay was 31 days, diagnostic delay 26, treatment initiation delay 0, patient delay 8 and HS delay 17 days. Initial visit to a non-NTP HCP was independently associated with total (P = 0.007), HS (P = 0.014) and diagnostic delays (P = 0.012). HIV infection was an independent risk factor for total (P = 0.047) and HS delay (P = 0.021); 27% of patients reported first going to a non-NTP HCP. CONCLUSION Initial care sought from non-NTP HCP was the main determinant of total, HS and diagnostic delays. Engagement and education of private HCPs is recommended.
Holy smartphones and tablets, Batman!: mobile interaction's dynamic duo

It is becoming increasingly more common for people to own botha smartphone and a tablet, providing a design opportunity to leverage the combination of these two formfactors. Our work aims to explore this by: a) defining the design space of distributed input and output solutions that rely on and benefit from phone--tablet collaboration, both physically and digitally; andb) reveal the idiosyncrasies of each particular device combination via interactive prototypes. Our research provides actionable insight in this emerging area by defining a design space, suggesting a developer's framework and implementing prototypical applicationsin such areas as distributed information display, distributed control and various configurations of these. For each of these, we present several example techniques and demonstrate an application that combinessuch techniques.
High-efficiency DC-DC converter for fuel cell applications: Performance and dynamic modeling

In this paper a new current-fed full bridge DC-DC converter configuration for fuel cell applications is presented, which uses an active clamp and a voltage doubler to achieve a very high efficiency with a low turns ratio transformer. A comparison is made in this paper between a number of current-fed converter topologies, and it is shown that the proposed converter outperforms other topologies in terms of efficiency and component utilization. The periodic steady state operation is analyzed in detail; state-space averaging is then used to determine the small signal equations and derive transfer functions. A closed loop controller has been designed, and co-simulation of Orcad and Matlab using the SLPS interface has demonstrated excellent dynamic response of closed loop system.
Spatial Signal Attenuation Model of Active RFID Tags

How to achieve desired accuracy of RFID localization is challenging for high dynamic and sparse environments, especially for anisotropic RFID tags. We introduce a new method of measuring location of the active RFID tags in three-dimension space to improve localization accuracy. This research (i) provides directional signal-distribution models for both horizontal and vertical orientation of anisotropic active RFID tags, (ii) improves an attenuation model of RF signal with transmitting distance for real applications and (iii) deduces a spatial signal attenuation model of an active RFID tag (SSAM). The accuracy of the model is less than 4 dB for more than probability 50% based on the experimental results, location accuracy is up to 1 meter in 400 m2 experimental field.
The Effect of Implementing a Boundary Element Cohesive Zone Model with Unloading-Reloading Hysteresis on Bulk Material Response

The effect of hysteretic material behavior on vibration characteristics of damaged structures is an important class of problems in nondestructive evaluation. The present work attempts to contribute to this field by considering a cohesive or smeared crack subjected to axial loading with a linear softening cohesive traction displacement model and unloadingreloading hysteresis. Irreversible unloading is assumed towards the direction of the origin for the cohesive traction displacement law. Hysteresis is modeled by assuming that reloading occurs in the direction of the monotonic cohesive envelope but at a slope less than the slope of the preceding unloading line. Direct boundary element method is used to obtain bulk hysteretic material response due to cyclic, monotonic, quasistatic loading. These results serve as input into existing nonlinear models for vibration signatures.
TOPICAL REVIEW: Computational studies of grain boundaries in covalent materials

Computational studies of energetics, atomic and electronic structures and various properties of grain boundaries in covalent materials such as semiconductors and covalent ceramics are reviewed. For coincidence tilt boundaries, atomic and electronic structures were investigated intensively by using various computational schemes such as many-body interatomic potentials, tight-binding method and first-principles method. Computational results were compared with experimental results using recent novel techniques of electron microscopy such as high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, atomic-resolution Z-contrast imaging and electron energy-loss spectroscopy. Such collaboration clarified the detailed nature of coincidence tilt boundaries constructed by structural units. The behaviour of dopants at semiconductor grain boundaries was also investigated by such collaboration. Computations of twist boundaries provided insight into the nature of disordered configurations at general grain boundaries, which should strongly affect the properties of polycrystalline semiconductors and structural ceramics. Recent computational studies dealt with the basic mechanical properties of grain boundaries in covalent materials, where the behaviour of interfacial bonds plays an essential role.