Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Succinylome Analysis Reveals the Involvement of Lysine Succinylation in the Extreme Resistance of Deinococcus radiodurans

Increasing evidence shows that the succinylation of lysine residues mainly regulates enzymes involved in the carbon metabolism pathway, in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. Deinococcus radiodurans is one of the most radioresistant organisms on earth and is famous for its robust resistance. A major goal in the current study of protein succinylation is to explore its function in D. radiodurans. High‐resolution LC–MS/MS is used for qualitative proteomics to perform a global succinylation analysis of D. radiodurans and 492 succinylation sites in 270 proteins are identified. These proteins are involved in a variety of biological processes and pathways. It is found that the enzymes involved in nucleic acid binding/processing are enriched in D. radiodurans compared with their previously reported levels in other bacteria. The mutagenesis studies confirm that succinylation regulates the enzymatic activities of species‐specific proteins PprI and DdrB, which belong to the radiation–desiccation response regulon. Together, these results provide insight into the role of lysine succinylation in the extreme resistance of D. radiodurans.
Modular engineering of targeted dual-drug nano-assembles for cancer chemo-immunotherapy.

Combination of chemotherapeutics and immunomodulators can generate synergistic anticancer efficacy, exerting efficient chemo-immunotherapy for cancer treatment. Nanoparticulate delivery system holds great promise to promote synergistic anticancer efficacy for the co-delivery of drugs. However, it remains challenges to precisely co-encapsulate and deliver combinational drugs at designed ratio due to the difference of compatibility between drugs and nanocarriers. In this study, co-assembled nanoparticles of lipophilic prodrugs (LPs) were designed to co-deliver chemotherapeutics and immunomodulators for cancer treatment. Such nano-assemblies (NAs) could act as a platform to ratiometrically co-encapsulate chemotherapeutics and immunomodulators. Based on this method, NAs formed by the self-assembly of iRGD peptide derivatives, paclitaxel (PTX) LPs and imiquimod (R837) LPs were demonstrated to target tumor at unified pharmacokinetics, further inducing the effective tumor inhibition and tumor recurrence prevention. This work provided an alternative to prepare chemo-immunotherapeutic NAs with advantages of ratiometric drug co-encapsulation and unified pharmacokinetics, which may advance the future cancer chemo-immunotherapy.
Design, methodology, and preliminary results of the follow-up of a population-based cohort study in rural area of northern China: Handan Eye Study

Abstract Background: Handan Eye Study (HES), a large population-based cohort study in rural area of northern China, was one of the few studies focusing on the major eye diseases of rural Chinese population. The aim of this study was to introduce the design, methodology and to assess the data quality of the follow-up phase of HES. Methods: All participants were recruited in Yongnian county of Handan city between 2012 and 2013. Main outcomes were measured by visual quality scales and ocular examinations. We performed the Chi-square test to make comparison of categorical data among groups, One-way analysis of variance and Kruskal-Wallis test was applied to make comparison of continuous data among groups, a post-hoc test was done to make further pairwise comparison. Inter-class correlation coefficients (ICCs) and Kappa coefficients were used to evaluate the consistency between different operators. Logistic regression was used to explore the influence factors of death, odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were used to estimate the effect size of each influence factor. Results: The follow-up rate was 85.3%. Subjects were classified into three groups: the follow-up group (n = 5394), the loss to follow-up group (n = 929), and the dead group (n = 507), comparison of their baseline information was done. Compared with the other two groups, age of the dead group (66.52 ± 10.31 years) was the oldest (Z = 651.293, P < 0.001), male proportion was the highest (59.0%) (χ2 = 42.351, P < 0.001), only 65.9% of the dead finished middle school education (Z = 205.354, P < 0.001). The marriage percentage, body mass index (BMI), best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), and intra-ocular pressure of the dead group was the lowest either. Spherical equivalent error (SER) of the dead group was the highest. Besides, history of smoking, hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease were more common in the dead group. Multivariate analysis showed that age (OR = 1.901, 95% CI: 1.074–1.108), gender (OR = 0.317, 95% CI: 0.224–0.448), and BCVA (OR = 0.282, 95% CI: 0.158–0.503) were associated with death. While between the follow-up group and the loss to follow-up group, there was only difference on age, gender, BMI, systolic blood pressure and SER. The Cronbach coefficients of all scales used in the follow-up were ≥0.63 and the cumulative variances were ≥0.61, indicating good reliability and validity. The ICCs and Kappa coefficients between different operators were ≥0.69. Conclusions: HES has a high follow-up rate and a low risk of loss to follow-up bias. Age, gender, and BCVA are influence factors of death. Specifically, male subjects are at a higher risk of death than female, age is a risk factor of death while BCVA is a protective factor for death.
Caffeic Acid Genotoxicity: Correlation of the Pig‐a Assay with Regulatory Genetic Toxicology In Vivo Endpoints

Caffeic acid is found in variety of fruits and vegetables. It is considered as possible human carcinogen (Group 2B). It is negative in Ames and mouse micronucleus (MN), but positive in mouse lymphoma and chromosomal aberration assays. The objective of this study was to evaluate the in vivo genotoxicity of caffeic acid using three different endpoints: in vivo MN, Pig‐a, and comet assay. Two sets of six rats per group were administered vehicle (0.5% hydroxypropyl methylcellulose), 500, 1,000, or 2,000 mg/kg/day of caffeic acid for three consecutive days via oral gavage. One set of animals was used for the Pig‐a and MN assay and the other set was used for the comet assay. N‐Ethyl N‐Nitrosourea was used as positive control for the Pig‐a and MN assay, and ethyl methanesulfonate for the comet assay. From one set of animals, peripheral blood was collected on Days −1, 14, and 30 for the Pig‐a assay and on Day 4 for the MN assay. The other set of animals was euthanized 3 hr after the last dose; liver and blood were collected for the comet assay. A statistically significant increase in the MN frequency was observed at 2,000 mg/kg/day. No increase in the red blood cells (RBCCD59‐) or reticulocytes (RETCD59‐) Pig‐a mutant frequencies was observed on Days 14 or 30. No increase in DNA strand breaks was observed in the peripheral blood or liver in the comet assay. Environ. Mol. Mutagen. 2019. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Identifying Physically Demanding Tasks Performed by the Royal Australian Navy for the Development of a Physical Employment Standard.

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to determine an appropriate method to characterize Royal Australian Navy intermittent intensity tasks. METHOD Sixteen personnel performed four scenarios: (1) storing: repeatedly handle a 10 to 15 kg crate; (2) firefighting: walk 45 m wearing protective equipment and fighting a fire; (3) and (4) toxic hazard response: casualty evacuation tasks wearing protective equipment. Heart rate and oxygen consumption ((Equation is included in full-text article.)) were measured continuously. Mean and peak values and time spent in incremental zones were calculated. RESULTS Scenario 2 elicited the highest oxygen cost (18.1 L, mean (Equation is included in full-text article.)1.5 L.min, time >2.5 L.min: 0.8%), yet scenario 4 elicited the highest mean (Equation is included in full-text article.)(1.8 L.min, oxygen cost 14.4 L), and participants spent a greater duration >2.5 L.min(Equation is included in full-text article.)(23.3% or 1 minute 55 seconds). CONCLUSIONS A small difference (0.3 L.min) was observed between scenarios 2 and 4 for mean (Equation is included in full-text article.), yet (Equation is included in full-text article.)>2.5 L.min demonstrated scenario 4 had a higher metabolic demand.
Incremental Cost-Effectiveness of Aspiration Therapy vs Bariatric Surgery and No Treatment for Morbid Obesity.

INTRODUCTION Despite its recent approval by the US Food and Drug Administration and Health Canada, aspiration therapy-one of the latest weight loss treatments-remains controversial. Critics have expressed concerns that the therapy could lead to bulimia and other binge eating disorders. Meanwhile, proponents argue that the therapy is less invasive, reversible, and cheaper than bariatric surgery. Cost-effectiveness of this therapy, however, is not yet established. METHODS We developed a Markov model to estimate the incremental cost-effectiveness of aspiration therapy relative to 2 most common bariatric surgery procedures (gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy) and no treatment over a lifetime horizon. Costs were estimated from the health system's perspective using US data. Effectiveness was measured in terms of quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs). RESULTS Despite being a cheaper procedure than bariatric surgery, aspiration therapy costs more than bariatric surgery in the long term because of its high maintenance costs (i.e., periodic replacement of device parts). It also yields lower QALYs than bariatric surgery because of its smaller weight loss effects. Thus, the therapy is dominated by bariatric surgery. In particular, compared with gastric bypass, it costs US$5,318 more and yields 1.31 fewer QALYs. However, aspiration therapy is cost-effective relative to no treatment with an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of US$17,532 per QALY gained. DISCUSSION Given its high lifetime costs and its modest weight loss effects, aspiration therapy is not cost-effective relative to bariatric surgery. However, it is a cost-effective treatment option for patients who lack access to bariatric surgery.
Internet of Things (IoT) using LoRa technology

LoRa is the new communication technology under the Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN). It emphasizes on the long-range communication with the high receiving sensitivity ability which allows it to work under the noise interference or noise floor effectively. The range of communication has become the critical part on most of the IoT system, especially in Wi- Fi and Bluetooth-based IoT system. With the emergence of LoRa technology, further improvements to applications of the Internet of Things (IoT) can be realized. By using a single receiver in the LoRa network, it is able to handle many nodes at multiple locations within the area, unlike Wi-Fi-based system which needs to have many access points to increase the coverage area. The combination of LoRa and Wi-Fi technology reduces the cost of deployment of the IoT system. In this paper, the actual deployment of IoT system using LoRa technology with the combination of Wi-Fi technology. Besides, this paper presents the performance and the actual coverage area of the LoRa network in both the indoor and outdoor condition. For the indoor condition, a different set of LoRa parameter including Spreading Factor and Bandwidth is tested at different locations. As a result, the quality of the LoRa network does not only depend on the distance from the gateway but also the effect of path loss due to the structural element. Moreover, a single LoRa gateway located at the middle floor of the building is able to handle the LoRa end-devices at any location within the campus with Spreading Factor of 9. A better indoor coverage can be improved by adding an additional LoRa gateway in the campus. While for the outdoor condition, the maximum coverage area in the LoRa network for Spreading Factor of 12 is 330 meters with an indoor gateway deployment.
An Evaluation of SiGe HBT Operation at Cryogenic Temperatures

The paper deals with silicon-germanium heterojunction transistor’s operation under cryogenic conditions. Evaluating methodology was demonstrated with simple tool set. Families of output and input I-V characteristics in common emitter mode were measured at room and liquid nitrogen temperatures. Some cryogenic effects were observed and discussed, namely: 1) increasing of turn-on voltage due to freezing of major carriers in emitter with cooling, 2) enhancement of current gain due to bandgap difference of Si emitter and SiGe base even at LNT, 3) reducing of breakdown voltage due to more pronounced avalanche multiplication, 4) early voltage decreasing because of neutral base recombination, 5) improvement of power dissipation and reducing of self-heating effect. Despite of these effects, SiGe HBTs save their robust operation at cryogenic temperatures that confirms the capability of used IC technology process for LNT applications.
Jitter-Aware Target Impedance

A new concept of target impedance which directly correlates the I/O buffer output jitter with the power distribution network (PDN) design is proposed. Jitter-ware target impedance is derived from the time domain waveform of power voltage ripple and the maximum allowable jitter assuming the single stage buffer as a RC network, which is then applied to the PDN design given a certain jitter specification. From HSPICE simulation of transient switching current, PDN impedance and power voltage ripple, it is shown that the proposed jitter-aware target impedance successfully correlates power supply induced jitter (PSIJ) and PDN impedance parameters with a simple analytical expression.
Study on rigidity, flexibility, resilience and tenacity of anti-interference ability of wireless communication system

In view of all kinds of man-made interference faced by wireless communication system, this paper discusses the anti-interference ability from the angle of rigidity, flexibility, resilience and tenacity (referred to as "four characteristics"). Firstly, the concept of four characteristics in materials science and application of engineering or system is analyzed. Then the concept of four characteristics of anti-interference ability of wireless communication system is given, and the key technologies of realizing "four characteristics" of anti-interference ability under the complex electromagnetic environment are analyzed at last.
Measurement-Based Automatic Extraction of FET Parasitic Network by Linear Regression

A fully automatic procedure for the empirical extraction of field-effect transistors (FETs) parasitic network is proposed. By exploiting a grid search approach combined with linear regression, the identification requires Y-parameter measurements at a very few (even just one) bias points. The method is verified in simulation and applied to measurements of a 250-nm GaN high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT).
Joint Detection and the AoA Estimation of Noncoherent Signals in Multi-Element Antennas

In this paper, we investigate two schemes of a joint detection and signal wavefront estimation for noncoherent signals. Both the developed schemes are based on the GLR (Generalized Likelihood Ratio) method. The first scheme does not exploit assumptions about the shape of signal wavefront. That leads to the known max lambda test, which uses maximum eigenvalue of a sample correlation matrix of signals in multi-element antenna as a decision statistics. The second scheme uses a priori information about the plane shape of the useful signal wavefront. A three-stage procedure of angle-of-arrival (AoA) estimation for signals with plane wavefront is proposed. This procedure allows to avoid ambiguities in the signal phases measurement on the antenna elements, and is applicable for antenna arrays with arbitrary known geometry. The numerical simulations have been done for comparative analysis of the characteristics of the developed joint detection-estimation algorithms. It was shown that the second scheme provides ldB-2dB depending on the number of antenna elements) in comparison with the max lambda test.
COSTA: Cost-aware Service Caching and Task Offloading Assignment in Mobile-Edge Computing

This paper considers a Mobile-Edge Computing (MEC) enabled wireless network where the MEC-enabled Base Station (MBSs) can host application services and execute computation tasks corresponding to these services when they are offloaded from resource-constrained mobile users. We aim at addressing the joint problem of service caching—the provisioning of application services and their related libraries/database at the MBSs—and task-offloading assignment in a densely-deployed network where each user can exploit the degrees of freedom in offloading different portions of its computation task to multiple nearby MBSs. Firstly, an offloading cost model is introduced to capture the user energy consumption, the service caching cost, and the cloud usage cost. The underlying problem is then formulated as a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) problem, which is shown to be NP-hard. Given the intractability of the problem, we exploit local-search techniques to design a polynomial-time iterative algorithm, named COSTA. We prove that COSTA produces a locally optimal solution with cost of at most a constant approximation ratio compared to the optimum. Trace-driven simulations using the workload records from a Google cluster show that COSTA can significantly reduce the offloading cost over competing schemes while achieving a very small optimality gap.
Studying Effects of Missing Data for Clinical TOF PET

Up to recently, accounting for missing data in PET reconstruction has been used to rescue (remove artifacts and restore quantitation on) studies when a few block detectors were out of specification. Initially developed for data acquired in step-and-shoot (S&S) mode on interleaved bed positions, this concept is extended for data acquired in Continuous Bed Motion (CBM) mode. Total-body imaging could be achieved either using CBM over a FOV covering the whole patient in several passes. When fast dynamic information is required, extending the axial FOV of the scanner is preferred despite its prohibitive cost. In that context, sparse detector configurations (with many missing blocks or even missing rings) could be proposed (investigated) which offer a very long axial FOV at the cost of a decreased sensitivity. It should be noted that missing data correction is possible without time of flight (TOF). Since images reconstructed with TOF have lower statistical variations and improved lesion detectability compared to those from non-TOF PET, we take advantage of the good TOF timing resolution (215 ps) of the Biograph Vision PET scanner to study imaging geometries populated with sparse detector configurations. These configurations were evaluated using data from both phantoms and clinical patient studies acquired in both S&S and CBM modes. Recent improvements in SiPM based hardware and electronics have resulted in improving the TOF timing resolution to 215 picoseconds. In CBM mode, all virtual lines of response (LOR) have some sensitivity, as the missing LOR, not measured due to the sparse imaging geometry, were acquired by other blocks as the bed is moving. Hence, a sparse configuration acquiring in CBM mode was found to provide more accurate results compared to S&S mode. One drawback of using a sparse detector configuration is an increase in the scan time needed to acquire the same number of counts as that of a complete configuration. The closed form equations to calculate the increase in scan time needed to compensate for the lower sensitivity, tracer decay and patient size were derived.
Simulation of Planar Nanowire Growth Based on AIIIBV Semiconductors

The scheme of planar GaAs nanowires growth according to the vapor-liquid-solid mechanism on the base of Monte Carlo simulation was proposed. The influence of substrate orientation and the properties of surface passivation layer on planar nanocrystal morphology was investigated. The film-mask optimal characteristics were found to ensure the stability of planar nanowire growth on the GaAs(111)A surface.
Molecular Dynamics Range-Limited Force Evaluation Optimized for FPGAs

FPGA Molecular Dynamics was much studied from 2004-2010. Due to limited chip resources of that era, and the inherent variety and complexity of tasks comprising Molecular Dynamics simulations (MD), those FPGA accelerators relied on host or embedded processors to organize and pre-process input and output data. This introduced long latency for data movement between simulation iterations and, as technology advanced, drastically limited performance. Current generation FPGAs are equipped not only with abundant on-chip resources, but also have hardware support for floating point operations; these advances provide an opportunity for creating self-contained MD simulation systems on a single device. In this paper, we demonstrate such a system based on the range-limited force, which comprises 90% of the flops in a typical MD simulation. It features online particle-pair generation, hundreds of force evaluation pipelines, motion update, and particle data migration. We integrate into OpenMM and find that, for a representative dataset (liquid argon with 20K atoms), we can achieve a simulation throughput of 1.4us/day with a single FPGA, more than twice the performance of a comparable generation GPU. The bulk of the work presented here explores the design of an independent MD range-limited force evaluation system tailored for modern FPGAs without data exchange with any off-chip devices. The primary contributions are the designs of the new features, the methods for coupling those features into an integrated system, and, especially, the analysis of the most likely mappings among particles/cells, on-chip memories (BRAMs), and on-chip compute units (pipelines).
A Methodology for Phase-frequency Detectors Testing Based on Xilinx FPGA

A methodology for phase and phase-frequency detector testing is developed and implemented on Xilinx FPGA programmable logic device. Several test setups and circuits for phase-to-amplitude response testing are proposed in this article. The circuits for test signals generation are discussed. The output pulses of the tested phase detectors are converted to a digital value in order to obtain the phase-to-amplitude response of the examined detectors. The variations of the circuits for the different phase detectors testing is discussed.
Programmable Ion-Sensing Using Oscillator-Based ISFET Architectures

This paper presents two novel oscillator-based architectures for scalable, programmable, and robust ion sensing using CMOS-based ISFETs. These architectures encode the measured ion concentration in the time domain, generating a pulse width modulated (PWM) signal with a chemically controlled duty cycle. Each architecture is developed for different scenarios and applications. First, the Sawtooth Oscillator front-end addresses the need for robustness and compensation on safety-critical diagnostic platforms. On the other hand, the chemically controlled ring oscillation (CCRO) is ideal for portable point-of-care (PoC) devices, where low power and node scalability are key factors on the system’s feasibility, consuming 655 nW during operation. Fabricated in standard CMOS AMS <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.35~\mu m$ </tex-math></inline-formula> process, these architectures leverage on the benefits of differential measurements to remain insensitive to temperature, obtaining a relative thermal sensitivity error of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.0021\%/K$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.0022\%/K$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, respectively, becoming ideal front-ends for the next generation of Lab-on-Chip platforms.