Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Chortle: a technology mapping program for lookup table-based field programmable gate arrays

An algorithm is described for technology mapping of combinational logic into field programmable gate arrays that use lookup table memories to realize combinational functions. It is difficult to map into lookup tables using previous techniques because a single lookup table can perform a large number of logic functions and prior approaches require each function to be instantiated separately in a library. The new algorithm, implemented in a program called Chortle, uses the fact that a K-input lookup table can implement any Boolean function of K inputs and so does not require a library-based approach. Chortle takes advantage of this complete functionality to evaluate all possible decompositions of the input Boolean network nodes. It can determine the optimal (in area) mapping for fanout-free trees of combinational logic. In comparison with the MIS II technology mapper, on MCNC-89 LOGIC Synthesis benchmarks Chortle achieves superior results in significantly less time. <<ETX>>
The RING Heterodimer BRCA1-BARD1 Is a Ubiquitin Ligase Inactivated by a Breast Cancer-derived Mutation*

BRCA1-BARD1 constitutes a heterodimeric RING finger complex associated through its N-terminal regions. Here we demonstrate that the BRCA1-BARD1 heterodimeric RING finger complex contains significant ubiquitin ligase activity that can be disrupted by a breast cancer-derived RING finger mutation in BRCA1. Whereas individually BRCA1 and BARD1 have very low ubiquitin ligase activities in vitro, BRCA1 combined with BARD1 exhibits dramatically higher activity. Bacterially purified RING finger domains comprising residues 1–304 of BRCA1 and residues 25–189 of BARD1 are capable of polymerizing ubiquitin. The steady-state level of transfected BRCA1 in vivo was increased by co-transfection of BARD1, and reciprocally that of transfected BARD1 was increased by BRCA1 in a dose-dependent manner. The breast cancer-derived BARD1-interaction-deficient mutant, BRCA1C61G, does not exhibit ubiquitin ligase activity in vitro. These results suggest that the BRCA1-BARD1 complex contains a ubiquitin ligase activity that is important in prevention of breast and ovarian cancer development.
Anxiolytic intervention preference of dental practitioners in the Savannah, Chatham County area: a pilot study.

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to identify preferred anxiolytic interventions (AI) employed by dental practitioners in the Savannah, Chatham County area. METHODS A questionnaire was developed to test dental practitioner preferences of 11 AIs shown to reduce anxiety in dental patients. The sample consisted of dental hygienists, dental assistants and dentists, randomly selected via the telephone book. A total of 305 surveys were distributed. Prior to voluntary completion of the questionnaire, respondents received oral and written instructions regarding the purpose of the study. RESULTS A 43% return rate (n=131) was achieved. Results from analysis with the Median and Kruskal-Wallis tests suggested that the most commonly used AI was ambient background music (n=109, 83.2%). The second most commonly used AI was having literature available for patients to read (n=99, 75.6%), followed by providing a way for the patient to inform their provider of their anxiety (n=88, 67.2%), the use of pharmaceutical agents (n=79, 60.3%) and decorating the walls (n=68, 51.9%). CONCLUSION It is important for dental professionals to employ interventions and management techniques that may reduce dental anxiety.
Design and Implementation of Smart Irrigation System Based on LoRa

Water resource: one of the most important natural resource problem to be paid more attention in the world in 21st Century. Irrigation method in traditional agriculture has low utilization of water resource. With the development of Internet of Things(IoT), smart irrigation system has became a new trend in the field of agricultural irrigation. This paper proposes a LoRa- based smart irrigation system. In this system, the irrigation node is mainly composed of LoRa communication module, solenoid valve and hydroelectric generator. The irrigation node sends data to cloud through LoRa gateways via wireless transmission. The system can be controlled remotely by mobile applications. Experimental results show that both transmission distance and energy consumption in the proposed system are reliable the proposed system are reliable.
Planning Text for Advisory Dialogues: Capturing Intentional and Rhetorical Information

To participate in a dialogue a system must be capable of reasoning about its own previous utterances. Follow-up questions must be interpreted in the context of the ongoing conversation, and the system's previous contributions form part of this context. Furthermore, if a system is to be able to clarify misunderstood explanations or to elaborate on prior explanations, it must understand what it has conveyed in prior explanations. Previous approaches to generating multisentential texts have relied solely on rhetorical structuring techniques. In this paper, we argue that, to handle explanation dialogues successfully, a discourse model must include information about the intended effect of individual parts of the text on the hearer, as well as how the parts relate to one another rhetorically. We present a text planner that records this information and show how the resulting structure is used to respond appropriately to a follow-up question.
On Hierarchical Cooperation Formation in Mobile Infostation Networks

Mobile infostation networks which achieve content distribution by exploiting the opportunistic contact among mobile users (MUs) and access points (APs) have attracted a lot of attention in the last few years. It is found that cooperation either between APs or MUs has a great impact on the network performance. However, in most of the existing works wherever cooperation is involved, cooperation among the APs or MUs is discussed independently, while few of them has jointly taken both levels of cooperation into account. In this paper, we propose a more general framework which allows two levels of cooperation. The benefit as well as the cost of such hierarchical cooperation are taken into consideration. With properly defined payoffs of both APs and MUs, each AP may gain more benefit by strategically forming coalition with other APs, while the MUs can also choose to cooperate with one another to further maximize their payoffs. To obtain the optimal structure of two-level cooperation, an implementable distributed algorithm is proposed. Through extensive numerical experiments, our scheme shows the high effectiveness in achieving the stable cooperation structure, and the impact of different system parameters is also extensively investigated.
Do Misperceptions about Demand Matter? Theory and Evidence

We assess theoretically and empirically the consequences of demand misperceptions. In a New Keynesian model with dispersed information, agents receive noisy signals about both supply and demand. Firms and consumers have an asymmetric access to information, so aggregate misperceptions of demand by the supply side can drive economic fluctuations. The model’s predictions are used to identify empirically fundamental and noise shocks on supply and demand. We exploit survey nowcast errors on both GDP growth and inflation, fundamental and noise shocks affecting the errors with opposite signs. We show that demand-related noise shocks have a negative effect on output and contribute substantially to business cycles. Additionally, monetary policy plays a key role in the transmission of demand noise.
PhD Progress Report VII : Extending Probabilistic Roadmaps for Unknown Obstacles

1.1 Review of MDP model formulation The major theme of my research since last autumn has been in the development of the MDP formulation of PRM route graphs with uncertain edges. In the last progress report (Kneebone 2007, section 2) details were given on how a PRM graph with uncertain edges (where the agent does not know a priori if they are traversable) could be represented as either an MDP or POMDP (Kaelbling et al. 1996) model. Each modelled the agent's belief about edge traversability as a probability distribution over possible combinations of occluded edges. The exact form of this distribution depended upon the model. As was noted in the previous report, the POMDP formulation has little practical value due to the time complexity of current methods of solving them. Attempting to solve (produce policies for) anything except trivial examples created POMDP models that are intractable on current hardware. The method itself does not scale well with graph size irrespective of hardware. The other main idea introduced was that of 'clustering' edges in the PRM graph to allow the probability distribution over specific graph edges to become dependent on each other. Briefly, if two edges are close the same obstacle in the environment then it is reasonable to assume there is some amount of dependence between them. Exploiting this allows to the agent to infer information about edges it hasn't directly received an observation of. If the agent receives a " blocked " observation for one of a pair of edges that it knows are perfectly dependent, then it can infer that the second edge is blocked. As was discussed, the hindrance to this approach is that the number of elements required to represent the probability distribution over dependent edges is an exponential function of the number of edges present (specifically 2 n). This is due to each additional uncertain edge doubling the number of possible worlds that could be the true state. If two or more edges are far away from each other, or near different obstacles in the graph, then it becomes unlikely they will be dependent on each other. By clustering these edges into different groups, their probabilities are calculated independently. Considering the probabilities over different clusters independently greatly reduces the number of variables required to record the agent's entire belief state-the set of probability distributions over all uncertain edges in the graph. For a graph of …
Web Page Clustering Using a Fuzzy Logic Based Representation and Self-Organizing Maps

This article introduces and evaluates a fuzzy logic based representation for HTML document clustering using Self-Organizing Maps. This representation is built on heuristic combinations of criteria by means of a fuzzy rules system and based on the HTML markup. We evaluate the model using different feature vector sizes. Experimental results show an improvement in clustering quality when the fuzzy logic-based model is used instead of the vector space model with traditional term weighting functions in a standard benchmark dataset.
Increased Isolation Frequency of Toxigenic Vibrio cholerae O1 from Environmental Monitoring Sites in Haiti

Since the identification of the first cholera case in 2010, the disease has spread in epidemic form throughout the island nation of Haiti; as of 2014, about 700,000 cholera cases have been reported, with over 8,000 deaths. While case numbers have declined, the more fundamental question of whether the causative bacterium, Vibrio cholerae has established an environmental reservoir in the surface waters of Haiti remains to be elucidated. In a previous study conducted between April 2012 and March 2013, we reported the isolation of toxigenic V. cholerae O1 from surface waters in the Ouest Department. After a second year of surveillance (April 2013 to March 2014) using identical methodology, we observed a more than five-fold increase in the number of water samples containing culturable V. cholerae O1 compared to the previous year (1.7% vs 8.6%), with double the number of sites having at least one positive sample (58% vs 20%). Both seasonal water temperatures and precipitation were significantly related to the frequency of isolation. Our data suggest that toxigenic V. cholerae O1 are becoming more common in surface waters in Haiti; while the basis for this increase is uncertain, our findings raise concerns that environmental reservoirs are being established.
Preparation and Evaluation of Rifampicin and Co-trimoxazole-loaded Nanocarrier against Brucella melitensis Infection

Background: Brucellosis or Malta fever is a contagious infection common between human and domestic animals. Many antibiotics are used for brucellosis treatment, but they are not efficient and put heavy burden on society. Co-trimoxazole and rifampicin are two candidates for brucellosis treatment. In this study, we aimed to enhance the efficacy of these antibiotics using designed nanoparticles. Methods: Different concentrations of co-trimoxazole and rifampicin were used for loading onto a nanostructure of synthesized monomethoxy poly(ethylene glycol)-oleate (mPEG-OA). The solubility, cytotoxicity, and efficacy of these nano-packed antibiotics on Brucella-infected murine phagocytic cells were examined, as compared with free antibiotics. Then the release nanoparticles was increased approximately 3.5 and 1.5fold, respectively, which is considerable in comparison with free insoluble ones. Results: Despite acceptable loading percentage, the application of co-trimoxazole-loaded nanoparticle on Brucella-infected J774A.1 murine macrophage-like cells did not lead to reduction in the number of bacteria; however, the efficacy of rifampicin on Brucella-infected murine phagocytic cells enhanced. Conclusion: In the current study, the efficacy of rifampicin on reducing the number of Brucella melitensis increased by the novel synthesized nanostructure. In contrast, since co-trimoxazole efficacy did not enhance by loading onto nanoparticles, the co-trimoxazole inefficiency is most likely not due to its low penetration or insolubility, and probably there are other factors that remain to be clarified in the future investigations.
On OFDM and SC-FDE Transmissions in Millimeter Wave Channels with Beamforming

The air interface for millimeter wave (mmWave) communications must be designed by properly taking into account the specific characteristics of the wireless channel at higher frequencies. In this work, we start by considering a channel model recently proposed in the literature for mmWave communications in outdoor urban scenarios. First, on top of this channel model we implement a sectorized beamforming model necessary to compensate the large path-loss at mmWave range and study how channel statistics, namely, delay spread and angle spread, are influenced by employing different beamwidths. Subsequently, adopting this beamforming model in the mmWave channel, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and single carrier frequency domain equalization (SC-FDE) systems are compared. Extensive link level simulations are performed by considering different beamwidths, line-of-sight (LOS) coverage and channel coding. Numerical results show that SC-FDE using minimum mean square error (MMSE) equalization performs close to OFDM in coded systems. However, SC-FDE might be beneficial in practice due to much lower peak to average power ratio (PAPR) than OFDM.
Filter bank common spatial patterns in mental workload estimation

EEG-based workload estimation technology provides a real time means of assessing mental workload. Such technology can effectively enhance the performance of the human-machine interaction and the learning process. When designing workload estimation algorithms, a crucial signal processing component is the feature extraction step. Despite several studies on this field, the spatial properties of the EEG signals were mostly neglected. Since EEG inherently has a poor spacial resolution, features extracted individually from each EEG channel may not be sufficiently efficient. This problem becomes more pronounced when we use low-cost but convenient EEG sensors with limited stability which is the case in practical scenarios. To address this issue, in this paper, we introduce a filter bank common spatial patterns algorithm combined with a feature selection method to extract spatio-spectral features discriminating different mental workload levels. To evaluate the proposed algorithm, we carry out a comparative analysis between two representative types of working memory tasks using data recorded from an Emotiv EPOC headset which is a mobile low-cost EEG recording device. The experimental results showed that the proposed spatial filtering algorithm outperformed the state-of-the algorithms in terms of the classification accuracy.
Dissemination of Macrolide-Resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae Isolates Containing Both erm(B) and mef(A) in South Korea

ABSTRACT Macrolide resistance was detected in 64 of 77 (83.1%) Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates from South Korea. Seven (10.9%) isolates contained only mef(A), 32 (50%) contained only erm(B), and 25 (39.1%) contained mef(A) and erm(B). Nineteen isolates containing mef(A) and erm(B) belonged to serotype 19F, and seven isolates were identical to the Taiwan19F-14 clone.
Overview of the types of battery models

A review of the literature about the types of battery models was presented. Development of the research on battery models was reviewed. Various types of battery models were described, and the characteristics of these battery models were discussed. Moreover, advantages and the problems need to be solved on battery models were summarized. Finally, the paper calls for an efficient model of the battery which can accurately monitor the performance of the battery and other critical battery parameters like State of Charge, State of Health, Time to Run, etc.
Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia and buttonhole cannulation: long-term safety and efficacy of mupirocin prophylaxis.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Buttonhole (constant-site) cannulation (BHC) continues to gain popularity with home and in-center dialysis programs worldwide. However, long-term safety data are lacking. This paper reports the authors' single-center experience with Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia (SAB) and the efficacy of topical mupirocin prophylaxis (MP). DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS This study was a retrospective prepost comparison of SAB rates after establishing MP. Fifty-six consecutive patients on home nocturnal hemodialysis via arteriovenous fistulae, mean age 51.5 +/- 10.6 years, 38% women, and vintage 44.5 +/- 34.5 months were observed for a total of 93.4 (pre-MP) and 193.5 (post-MP) patient-years. RESULTS Ten episodes of SAB were observed, with metastatic complications in four cases, including pneumonia (n = 2), septic arthritis, and a fatal C3 epidural abscess. When analyzed by observation period, the odds ratio (OR) for SAB before versus after the introduction of MP was 6.4 [95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.3 to 32.3; P = 0.02]. Two SAB episodes occurred after the MP started. Both patients had discontinued the MP for 3 weeks (nonadherent) preceding infection; hence, no SAB episodes were observed on treatment. In an as-treated analysis, the OR for SAB in the absence of MP was 35.3 (95% CI = 2.0 to 626.7; P = 0.01). CONCLUSIONS BHC is associated with a significant risk of SAB with metastatic complications. In this prepost comparison of SAB rates, no infections were observed with MP. While awaiting more definitive studies, this simple intervention should be considered for patients using BHC.
A New CMOS Analog Front End for RFID Tags

This paper presents a new CMOS integrated analog front-end circuit for 13.56-MHz radio-frequency identification tags. The proposed analog front end consists of a novel CMOS rectified voltage multiplier, a voltage regulator, and a new frequency-shift keying (FSK) demodulator. The proposed single-stage rectifier employing only a PMOS/NMOS pass transistor, an inverter, and one capacitor gets minimal active area and enhances the power conversion efficiency. Moreover, a new technique is used in the proposed FSK demodulator, which includes the data recovery circuit, the multiplexer, the shift register, the phase frequency detector, and the charge-pump circuit. The analog front end has been fabricated in a CMOS 0.35-mum 2P4M technology. The demodulator circuit supports a data rate of 10 kb/s to 1 Mb/s. The power consumption is as low as 0.96 mW, and the chip area without pads is only 0.74 mm times 0.43 mm. Experimental results show that the proposed analog front end works well and confirms the theoretical analysis.
Dynamic changes in arterial waveform derived variables and fluid responsiveness in mechanically ventilated patients: A systematic review of the literature*

Objectives:A systematic review of the literature to determine the ability of dynamic changes in arterial waveform-derived variables to predict fluid responsiveness and compare these with static indices of fluid responsiveness. The assessment of a patient's intravascular volume is one of the most difficult tasks in critical care medicine. Conventional static hemodynamic variables have proven unreliable as predictors of volume responsiveness. Dynamic changes in systolic pressure, pulse pressure, and stroke volume in patients undergoing mechanical ventilation have emerged as useful techniques to assess volume responsiveness. Data Sources:MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Register of Controlled Trials and citation review of relevant primary and review articles. Study Selection:Clinical studies that evaluated the association between stroke volume variation, pulse pressure variation, and/or stroke volume variation and the change in stroke volume/cardiac index after a fluid or positive end-expiratory pressure challenge. Data Extraction and Synthesis:Data were abstracted on study design, study size, study setting, patient population, and the correlation coefficient and/or receiver operating characteristic between the baseline systolic pressure variation, stroke volume variation, and/or pulse pressure variation and the change in stroke index/cardiac index after a fluid challenge. When reported, the receiver operating characteristic of the central venous pressure, global end-diastolic volume index, and left ventricular end-diastolic area index were also recorded. Meta-analytic techniques were used to summarize the data. Twenty-nine studies (which enrolled 685 patients) met our inclusion criteria. Overall, 56% of patients responded to a fluid challenge. The pooled correlation coefficients between the baseline pulse pressure variation, stroke volume variation, systolic pressure variation, and the change in stroke/cardiac index were 0.78, 0.72, and 0.72, respectively. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curves were 0.94, 0.84, and 0.86, respectively, compared with 0.55 for the central venous pressure, 0.56 for the global end-diastolic volume index, and 0.64 for the left ventricular end-diastolic area index. The mean threshold values were 12.5 ± 1.6% for the pulse pressure variation and 11.6 ± 1.9% for the stroke volume variation. The sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic odds ratio were 0.89, 0.88, and 59.86 for the pulse pressure variation and 0.82, 0.86, and 27.34 for the stroke volume variation, respectively. Conclusions:Dynamic changes of arterial waveform-derived variables during mechanical ventilation are highly accurate in predicting volume responsiveness in critically ill patients with an accuracy greater than that of traditional static indices of volume responsiveness. This technique, however, is limited to patients who receive controlled ventilation and who are not breathing spontaneously.