Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
miRNA‐125b regulates TNF‐α production in CD14+ neonatal monocytes via post‐transcriptional regulation

Neonates, although deficient in cell immunity, frequently reveal sepsis with augmented proinflammatory reactions. Here, we found that neonatal monocytes produced significantly higher TNF‐α mRNA and protein than adult monocytes. Assessment of the transcriptional factor found no significant difference of NF‐κB p65 level between neonatal and adult monocytes. Addition of Act D to access the half‐life of TNF‐α mRNA revealed no significant difference of the LPS‐induced TNF‐α mRNA half‐life between them, whereas CHX increased neonatal TNF‐α mRNA significantly. This suggests that a post‐transcriptional mechanism involves the augmentation of TNF‐α production by neonatal monocytes. To examine whether miRNA was involved in the post‐transcriptional regulation, differential displays of miRNA array between neonatal and adult MNCs were performed, along with the discovery of hsa‐miR‐103, hsa‐miR‐125b, hsa‐miR‐130a, hsa‐miR‐454‐3p, and hsa‐miR‐542‐3p, which were greater than a twofold decrease or increase after LPS treatment for 4 h. The functional validation identified that miR‐125b decreased significantly in association with higher TNF‐α expression by neonatal monocytes after LPS stimulation. Transfection of the miR‐125b precursor into neonatal monocytes significantly repressed the TNF‐α mRNA and protein expression, suggesting that miR‐125b negatively regulates TNF‐α expression in neonatal monocytes. Modulation of miRNA expression may be used to regulate TNF‐α production in newborns with altered proinflammatory reactions.
Atrial fibrillation: classification, pathophysiology, mechanisms and drug treatment

The prevalence of atrial fibrillation (AF), already the most common sustained cardiac arrhythmia, is constantly rising, even after adjusting for age and presence of structural heart disease. AF increases the risk of stroke sixfold and is associated with a twofold increase in mortality, which remains above 1.5-fold after adjusting for co-morbidity, predominantly caused by cerebrovascular events, progressive ventricular dysfunction, and increased coronary mortality. The adverse haemodynamic effects of AF are well described and relate not only to loss of atrial contraction, but also to the accompanying rapidity and irregularity of ventricular contraction. Although AF may be asymptomatic, up to two thirds of patients report that the arrhythmia is disruptive to their lives. Finally, the treatment of AF and its associated complications creates a significant and increasing economic burden. This article focuses predominantly on the pathophysiology of the arrhythmia and its pharmacological treatment. Anticoagulation for prevention of thromboembolism, a fundamental principle in the management of this arrhythmia, electrical cardioversion, percutaneous ablation techniques, and surgery for AF are not discussed in any detail. AF may be classified based on aetiology, depending on whether it occurs without identifiable aetiology in patients with a structurally normal heart (lone AF), or whether it complicates hypertensive, valvar, or other structural heart disease. A classification system based on the temporal pattern of the arrhythmia has been recently recommended.1 Patients presenting to medical attention may have a first detected episode of AF or, if previous episodes have been documented, recurrent arrhythmia. Episodes themselves may be paroxysmal , if they terminate spontaneously, usually within seven days, or persistent if the arrhythmia continues requiring electrical or pharmacological cardioversion for termination. AF that cannot be successfully terminated by cardioversion, and longstanding (> 1 year) AF, where cardioversion is not indicated or has not been attempted, is termed permanent (fig 1). …
Optimizing the Threshold-Value for Counter-Based Broadcast Scheme in MANETs

Broadcasting is a fundamental and frequently used operation in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). Flooding, the process in which each node retransmits every uniquely received packet exactly once is the simplest and most commonly used mechanism for broadcasting in MANETs. Despite its simplicity, it can result in high redundancy, contention and co llision, collectively known as broadcast storm problem. Counter-based broadcasting scheme has been proposed to overcome the broadcast storm problem in MANET. It relies on a threshold value to decide whether or not to forward a broadca st packet. The selection of an optimal counter threshold-value of this scheme is critical to improving saved rebroadcast w ithout degrading reachability. Previous research work has focused on determining the best counter threshold-value based on low traffic injection conditions. In this paper, we investigate the best counter threshold value for optimal performance over a wide range of standard metrics in various network traffi c injection rates. Simulation results reveal new insights in th e performance of the counter-based broadcasting scheme and demonstrate its sensitivity to the selected threshold-values. These results are useful for optimally setting the counter threshold- value when designing efficient counter-based broadcasting schemes.
A new cosmological mass limit on thermal relic axions

Observations of the cosmological large-scale structure provide well-established neutrino mass limits. We extend this argument to thermal relic axions. We calculate the axion thermal freeze-out temperature and thus their cosmological abundance on the basis of their interaction with pions. For hadronic axions we find a new mass limit ma<1.05 eV (95% CL), corresponding to a limit on the axion decay constant of fa>5.7 × 106 GeV. For other models this constraint is significantly weakened only if the axion–pion coupling is strongly suppressed. For comparison we note that the same approach leads to eV (95% CL) for neutrinos.
Toolbox In Vitro Assays of Vesicular Transport

Movement of proteins and lipids between the various compartments of eukaryotic cells is fundamental to the maintenance of cellular homeostasis, and an understanding of the molecular mechanisms that govern these processes remains a key goal of cell biological research. This aim has been greatly facilitated by the development of assays that recapitulate specific events in vitro. In the following article we provide an overview of some of the currently used assays that measure the movement of proteins within the exocytic and endocytic pathways, and provide a starting point for those wishing to establish their own systems to study other vesicular transport steps.
A DNS Reflection Method for Global Traffic Management

An edge network deployment consists of many (tens to a few hundred) satellite data centers. To optimize enduser perceived performance, a Global Traffic Management (GTM) solution needs to continuously monitor the performance between the users and the data centers, in order to dynamically select the "best" data center for each user. Though widely adopted in practice, GTM solutions based on active measurement techniques suffer from limited probing reachability. In this paper, we propose a novel DNS reflection method, which uses the GTM DNS traffic itself to measure the performance between an arbitrary end-user and the data centers. From these measurements, the best data center can be selected for the user. We have implemented and deployed a prototype system involving 17 geographically distributed locations within the Microsoft global data center network infrastructure. Our evaluation of the prototype shows that the DNS reflection method is extremely accurate and suitable for GTM. In particular, at the 95 percentile, the measured latency is 6 ms away from Ping, and the selected data center is 2 ms away from the ground-truth best.
How Should Oxygen Supplementation Be Guided by Pulse Oximetry in Children: Do We Know the Level?

Supplemental oxygen is one of the most commonly prescribed therapies to children in hospital, but one of the least studied therapeutics. This review considers oxygen from a range of perspectives; discovery and early use; estimation of oxygenation in the human body—both clinically and by medical device; the effects of illness on oxygen utilization; the cellular consequences of low oxygen; and finally, how clinical studies currently inform our approach to targeting supplementing oxygen in those with lower than normal oxygen saturation.
Synthesis and Microstructure Characterization of Gd- and Sc-Co-Doped BaTiO3 Nanopowders via Sol-Gel Method

The effects of rare-earth ions Sc3+ and Gd3+ on phase transition, microstructure and dielectric properties were investigated systematically. Gd-and Sc-co-doped nanopowders were synthesized via one-step sol-gel method. After xerogel was calcined at 800 °C for 2h, (1x)BaTiO3-xGdScO3 (0 x 0.06) nanopowders with narrow particle distribution was obtained. The nanopowders were then pressed into pellets and sintered at 1300~1450 °C respectively. The results indicated that the dielectric peaks of samples were broadened since double doping restrained the grain growth of BaTiO3 ceramics. For x = 0.06, pellets sintered at different temperatures can obtain a low curie temperature of 25 °C. Meanwhile, accompanied by an increasing sintering temperature, the dielectric loss of samples decreased gradually, achieving a optimal value of 1.1%.
Please Scroll down for Article Journal of Location Based Services Neogeography and the Nature of Geographic Expertise Neogeography and the Nature of Geographic Expertise

This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution , reselling , loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. NeoGeography has been defined as a blurring of the distinctions between producer, communicator and consumer of geographic information. The relationship between professional and amateur varies across disciplines. The subject matter of geography is familiar to everyone, and the acquisition and compilation of geographic data have become vastly easier as technology has advanced. The authority of traditional mapping agencies can be attributed to their specifications, production mechanisms and programs for quality control. Very different mechanisms work to ensure the quality of data volunteered by amateurs. Academic geographers are concerned with the extraction of knowledge from geographic data using a combination of analytic tools and accumulated theory. The definition of NeoGeography implies a misunderstanding of this role of the professional, but English lacks a basis for a better term. 1. Introduction Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) defines NeoGeography as 'the usage of geographical techniques and tools. for personal and community activities. by a non-expert group. ' This is rather different from the definition proposed by Rana and Joliveau (in press), who argue that the transition from traditional geography to NeoGeography is characterised by a blurring of the traditional roles of subject, producer, communicator and consumer of geographic information: 'In other words, the old geography involves a prescribed role/interaction between the four main components, namely the audience, the information, the presenter and the subject, which are common to most standard practises of learning. In NeoGeography, there are, however, no such boundaries on roles, ownership and interactions of these four components. ' In this article I first explore this second definition, and what it implies about the various kinds of expertise employed in the enterprise of creating geographic information. I then distinguish between these kinds of expertise and those employed …
Collaborative High-Accuracy Localization in Mobile Multipath Environments

We study the problem of high-accuracy localization of mobile nodes in a multipath-rich environment where submeter accuracy values are required. We employ a peer-to-peer framework where nodes can get pairwise multipath-degraded ranging estimates in local neighborhoods, with the multipath noise correlated across time. The challenge is to enable high-accuracy positioning under severe multipath conditions when the fraction of received signals corrupted by multiple paths is significant. Our contributions are twofold. We provide a practical distributed localization algorithm by invoking an analytical graphical model framework based on particle filtering, and we validate its potential for high-accuracy localization through simulations. In a practical dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) mobile simulation setup, we show that the algorithm can achieve errors of <; 1 m 90% of the time, even when the fraction of line-of-sight (LOS) signals is less than 35%. We also address design questions such as “how many anchors and what fraction of LOS measurements are needed to achieve a specified target accuracy? ” by showing that the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) for localization can be expressed as a product of two factors: a scalar function that depends only on the parameters of the noise distribution and a matrix that depends only on the geometry of node locations and the underlying connectivity graph. A simplified expression is obtained that provides an insightful understanding of the bound and that helps deduce the scaling behavior of the estimation error as a function of the number of agents and anchors in the network.
Monitoring of the Damage in Stone Blocks by Means of Non-Destructive Methods

This paper deals with the damage assessment in stone blocks dismantled from a historic bridge construction. Nonlinear ultrasonic spectroscopy and impact echo methods were used for evaluating the stone block integrity structure. Harmonic analysis of the sample response on well defined ultrasonic excitation was used in the case of nonlinear ultrasonic method application. The amplitude dependent spectral changes of the probing signals were measured in the damaged blocks. Measurement results showed that the analysis of amplitude dependent spectral changes is a promising method for the damage assessment in structures. The Impact-Echo method is a technique for detecting defects in material structure such as stone blocks. It is based on monitoring the propagation of elastic waves from a short-duration mechanical impact. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the technique and to discuss the important parameters involved in this type of testing. The impact echo method is used to generate low-frequency stress waves from 500 Hz to 50 kHz that propagate into the structure and are reflected by defects and external surfaces.
System reconstruction from higher order spectra slices

We consider the problem of system reconstruction from higher order spectra (HOS) slices. We establish that the impulse response of a complex system can be reconstructed up to a scalar and a shift based on any pair of HOS slices, as long as the distance between the two slices satisfies a certain condition. One slice is sufficient for the reconstruction in the case of a real system. We propose a cepstrum-based method for system reconstruction. We also propose a new method for the reconstruction of the system Fourier phase based on the phase of any odd-indexed bispectrum slice. Being able to choose the slices to be used in the reconstruction allows us to avoid bispectrum regions dominated by noise.
Digital Circuit Synthesis Using Universal Set of CMOS MVL Gates

The synthesis of digital circuits is generally performed in two level logic switching algebra. But if we increase the representation domain from two level logic (N=2) to N>2 then the design of Multiple Valued Logic (MVL) digital circuits is possible. Interconnections play an important role in deep sub-micron designs as they affects power and area. Due to the requirement of interconnections the design of binary logic is limited. In modern SoC designs,the interconnection is becoming a major problem which can be solved using MVL interconnection. Thus reduction in the area along with advantage of being able to easily interface with traditional binary logic circuits are the benefits of MVL digital circuits. A universal set of MVL CMOS gates can be used to synthesize and implement any MVL digital circuit. The lack of existing integrated circuits to implement the universal set of MVL gates is one of the major drawbacks. To overcome this issue, the design and implementation of a universal set of Integrated Circuits gates using CMOS 180nm technology is proposed which includes: Maximum (MAX), extended AND operatorseAND1, eAND2, eAND3, Successor (SUC) to synthesize any MVL circuit. The proposed gates allows designing of any MVL digital circuit by utilizing the knowledge coming from the binary circuits and extending it for the synthesis of MVL digital circuit. Keywords—Multiple valued logic, SoC
A Randomized Trial of Stylets for Intubating Newborn Infants

OBJECTIVE: Endotracheal intubation of newborn infants is a common and potentially lifesaving procedure but a skill that trainees find difficult. Despite widespread use, no data are available on whether the use of a stylet (introducer) improves success rates. We aimed to determine whether pediatric trainees were more successful at neonatal orotracheal intubation when a stylet was used. METHODS: An unblinded randomized controlled trial conducted between July 2006 and January 2009 at a tertiary perinatal center, the Royal Women’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia. Eligible participants were newborn infants in the delivery room or NICU requiring endotracheal intubation for respiratory support. Infants were intubated by pediatric residents or fellows. Infants were randomized to have the procedure performed by using either an endotracheal tube alone or with a stylet. Successful intubation at the first attempt assessed by colorimetric detection of expired carbon dioxide was the primary outcome. RESULTS: Three hundred two intubations were performed in 232 infants (residents performed 75%, fellows 25%). Intubation was successful in 57% of the stylet group and 53% of the no stylet group (P = .47); odds ratio 1.18 (95% confidence interval 0.75–1.86). There were no differences in the duration of attempts or in the rate of upper airway trauma between the 2 groups. These results were consistent across subgroups of infants based on birth weight, gestational age, and site of intubation (delivery room or NICU). CONCLUSIONS: Using an endotracheal stylet did not significantly improve the success rate of pediatric trainees at neonatal orotracheal intubation.
Tuning nanoscopic water layers on hydrophobic and hydrophilic surfaces with laser light.

The evolutional function of ordered interfacial water near solid surfaces was postulated by Szent-Györgyi: "Life actually, may have started with building these water structures. " Here we report their tunability with laser light on both hydrophobic and hydrophilic surfaces. On the former, the light caused their depletion--on the latter, an increase in fluidity--as measured by atomic force acoustic microscopy. Interfacial water layers play a key role in cellular recognition. Their tunability promises to revolutionize various fields in biomedical engineering and life sciences.
Intelligent Handwritten Digit Recognition using Artificial Neural Network

The aim of this paper is to implement a Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) Neural Network to recognize and predict handwritten digits from 0 to 9. A dataset of 5000 samples were obtained from MNIST. The dataset was trained using gradient descent back-propagation algorithm and further tested using the feed-forward algorithm. The system performance is observed by varying the number of hidden units and the number of iterations. The performance was thereafter compared to obtain the network with the optimal parameters. The proposed system predicts the handwritten digits with an overall accuracy of 99.32%.
Private Data Analytics on Biomedical Sensing Data via Distributed Computation

Advances in biomedical sensors and mobile communication technologies have fostered the rapid growth of mobile health (mHealth) applications in the past years. Users generate a high volume of biomedical data during health monitoring, which can be used by the mHealth server for training predictive models for disease diagnosis and treatment. However, the biomedical sensing data raise serious privacy concerns because they reveal sensitive information such as health status and lifestyles of the sensed subjects. This paper proposes and experimentally studies a scheme that keeps the training samples private while enabling accurate construction of predictive models. We specifically consider logistic regression models which are widely used for predicting dichotomous outcomes in healthcare, and decompose the logistic regression problem into small subproblems over two types of distributed sensing data, i.e., horizontally partitioned data and vertically partitioned data. The subproblems are solved using individual private data, and thus mHealth users can keep their private data locally and only upload (encrypted) intermediate results to the mHealth server for model training. Experimental results based on real datasets show that our scheme is highly efficient and scalable to a large number of mHealth users.
Sketch‐to‐Design: Context‐Based Part Assembly

Designing 3D objects from scratch is difficult, especially when the user intent is fuzzy and lacks a clear target form. We facilitate design by providing reference and inspiration from existing model contexts. We rethink model design as navigating through different possible combinations of part assemblies based on a large collection of pre‐segmented 3D models. We propose an interactive sketch‐to‐design system, where the user sketches prominent features of parts to combine. The sketched strokes are analysed individually, and more importantly, in context with the other parts to generate relevant shape suggestions via adesign galleryinterface. As a modelling session progresses and more parts get selected, contextual cues become increasingly dominant, and the model quickly converges to a final form. As a key enabler, we use pre‐learned part‐based contextual information to allow the user to quickly explore different combinations of parts. Our experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach for efficiently designing new variations from existing shape collections.
Camera Motion Estimation Using Particle Filters

In this paper a novel algorithm for estimating the parametric form of the camera motion is proposed. A novel stochastic vector field model is presented which can handle smooth motion patterns derived from long periods of stable camera movement and also can cope with rapid motion changes and periods where camera remains still. A set of rules for robust and online updating of the model parameters is also proposed, based on the Expectation Maximization algorithm. Finally, we fit this model in a particle filters framework, in order to predict the future camera motion based on current and prior knowledge. Camera Motion Estimation, Vector Field Model, Particle Filtering, Expectation Maximization Algorithm.