Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multimodale Mensch-Roboter-Interaktion für Ambient Assisted Living

In dieser Arbeit werden nonverbale Aspekte in der Mensch-Roboter-Interaktion und bildbasierte Objektverfolgungsmethoden fur Ambient Assisted Living untersucht. Zunachst werden Methoden zur Erkennung von Gesten und Mimik entwickelt, dabei werden verschiedene Verfahren aus der Mustererkennung eingesetzt. Graphische Modelle werden in dieser Arbeit zur Gestaltung des bildbasierten Verfolgungsprozesses von Objekten verwendet. Ein Spieleszenario auf einem Roboter greift die entwickelten Methoden auf.
An SGK1 site in WNK4 regulates Na+ channel and K+ channel activity and has implications for aldosterone signaling and K+ homeostasis

The steroid hormone aldosterone is secreted both in the setting of intravascular volume depletion and hyperkalemia, raising the question of how the kidney maximizes NaCl reabsorption in the former state while maximizing K+ secretion in the latter. Mutations in WNK4 cause pseudohypoaldosteronism type II (PHAII), a disease featuring increased renal NaCl reabsorption and impaired K+ secretion. PHAII-mutant WNK4 achieves these effects by increasing activity of the Na-Cl cotransporter (NCC) and the Na+ channel ENaC while concurrently inhibiting the renal outer medullary K+ channel (ROMK). We now describe a functional state for WNK4 that promotes increased, rather than decreased, K+ secretion. We show that WNK4 is phosphorylated by SGK1, a mediator of aldosterone signaling. Whereas wild-type WNK4 inhibits the activity of both ENaC and ROMK, a WNK4 mutation that mimics phosphorylation at the SGK1 site (WNK4S1169D) alleviates inhibition of both channels. The net result of these effects in the kidney would be increased K+ secretion, because of both increased electrogenic Na+ reabsorption and increased apical membrane K+ permeability. Thus, modification at the PHAII and SGK1 sites in WNK4 impart opposite effects on K+ secretion, decreasing or increasing ROMK activity and net K+ secretion, respectively. This functional state for WNK4 would thus promote the desired physiologic response to hyperkalemia, and the fact that it is induced downstream of aldosterone signaling implicates WNK4 in the physiologic response to aldosterone with hyperkalemia. Together, the different states of WNK4 allow the kidney to provide distinct and appropriate integrated responses to intravascular volume depletion and hyperkalemia.
Heritability of GFR and albuminuria in Caucasians with type 2 diabetes mellitus.

BACKGROUND Elevated urinary albumin excretion and decreased glomerular filtration rate (GFR) are risk factors for cardiovascular death and end-stage renal disease in individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM). METHODS To determine the extent of familial aggregation of GFR and urine albumin-creatinine ratio (ACR), we calculated heritability (h2) estimates by using a variance component approach. RESULTS Among 662 participants with DM from 310 families (422 DM-concordant sibling pairs), 51.8% (n = 343) were women, mean age was 62.3 +/- 9.2 (SD) years (median, 62.6 years), diabetes duration was 10.8 +/- 7.6 years (median, 9 years), GFR was 67.6 +/- 19.0 mL/min (median, 64.7 mL/min), and urine ACR was 139.7 +/- 631.4 mg/g (median, 13.1 mg/g). Estimated h2 of GFR was 0.75 +/- 0.10 (P < 0.0001) after adjusting for age, sex, mean arterial blood pressure, medications, and hemoglobin A(1c) level. These covariates accounted for only 2% of the total phenotypic variation in log GFR. Similarly, estimated h2 of ACR was 0.46 +/- 0.12 (P < 0.0001) when adjusting for these covariates, with covariates contributing only 9% of phenotypic variation. CONCLUSION These data provide strong evidence that among Caucasians with type 2 diabetes, GFR and urine ACR show strong familiality, suggesting that genetic factors exhibit significant influences. Given their biological and clinical importance and the similarity of these estimates with other cardiovascular disease- and DM-related traits, efforts to map genes that influence GFR and urine ACR levels should have increased importance.
Spatial and temporal variability in snow accumulation at the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide over recent centuries

mean annual accumulation rates of 0.200, 0.204, and 0.221 mweq a 1 , respectively. Small-scale spatial variability (SSV) was determined using an analysis of variance of accumulation in the ice core array, thereby quantifying the uncertainty in individual accumulation records. Results indicate that the spatial variability was 0.030 mweq a 1 ,o r approximately 15% of the average annual accumulation. An accumulation record representative of the WAIS Divide local area over recent centuries was developed using a principal component analysis to identify the coherent accumulation signal. The WAIS Divide local record exhibited 14% interannual variability (1 standard deviation of the mean) with the SSV reduced to 0.017 mweq a 1 . Correlations of the WAIS Divide local accumulation record with atmospheric indices (e.g., Antarctic Oscillation) exhibited periods when the records oscillate in and out of phase. Thus, reconstructing local and global atmospheric indices from WAIS Divide accumulation records over recent centuries may prove problematic.
Overview of mRNA Expression Profiling Using DNA Microarrays

DNA microarray technology allows simultaneous measurement of the mRNA levels of thousands of genes. This powerful technology has applications in addressing many biological questions that were not approachable previously; however, the enormous size of microarray data sets leads to issues of experimental design and statistical analysis that are unfamiliar to many molecular biologists. The type of array used, the design of the biological experiment, the number of experimental replicates, and the statistical method for data analysis should all be chosen based on the scientific goals of the investigator. This overview presents a discussion of the relative merits and limitations of various methods with respect to some common applications of microarray experiments. Curr. Protoc. Mol. Biol. 85:22.4. 1‐22.4. 13. © 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Recrystallized silicon thin-film solar cells on zircon ceramics

This work describes the processing of recrystallized silicon thin-film solar cells and its typical defects. Zircon (ZrSiO4) ceramic substrates of technical grade with potential production costs of <; 20 €/m2 were used. Those substrates were encapsulated in crystalline silicon carbide, deposited by atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition (APCVD). The active silicon layers were also formed using APCVD. Zone-melting recrystallization (ZMR) was used to enlarge Si grains. Si films crystallized on SiC show characteristic Σ3 twin grain boundaries parallel to the growth direction. The Si crystals achieve widths up to several mm and lengths of several cm. Solar cells made from such material achieved open circuit voltages up to 566 mV on zircon and up to 600 mV on equally processed mc-Si.
New video discarding policies for improving UDP performance over wired/wireless networks

Multimedia communication over wired and wireless networks becomes a compulsory need for many recent applications. To effectively react to the tremendous demand of video streaming over the Internet, videos are usually compressed by utilizing spatial and temporal redundancy. It is noteworthy to mention that compressing videos may degrade their quality if it is not investigated properly. In other words, as a consequence of exploiting redundancies, frame dependencies emanate, which make discarding frames, because of occupying the whole capacity of network elements, have severe implications on the video quality. Furthermore, transmitting videos over capacity‐limited links owing to error‐prone channels, power constraints and bandwidth variations will severely affect the video quality. Additionally, as the current coding schemes are characterized by being able to afford high compression efficiency, sensitivity to packet losses becomes untolerated. Therefore, insuring the perceived quality of the delivered videos to be always high in spite of aforementioned challenges is the primary focus of current researchers. In this paper, we propose efficient and novel video discarding policies that mainly aim to reduce the number of frames being lost through substitution of those frames that are very difficult or even impossible to decode at the receiver side. This is accomplished by controlling and maintaining the buffer occupancy of network elements. Our proposed policies are evaluated in terms of frameput, rate of non‐decodable frames, peak signal‐to‐noise ratio, structural similarity index and average buffer occupancy. Our proposed policies behave very well and achieve a remarkable enhancement over what is closely connected in the literature. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Managing project interdependencies in IT/IS project portfolios: a review of managerial issues

Adequately managing project interdependencies among diverse and simultaneous projects is deemed critical for successful implementation of project portfolios. The challenge is significant because it may entail managing a complex network of project interdependencies that keeps changing over time. The present study investigates the managerial challenges that may undermine effective management of project interdependencies in IT/IS project portfolios. The investigation is based on evidence from reviewing relevant literature and documented studies associated with managing project interdependencies. The main contribution of this study is to discuss three managerial challenges of project interdependencies in project portfolios. We discuss the challenges from three perspectives: types of interdependencies; patterns of interaction in interdependencies; and cost/benefit impact of project interdependencies.
A Vertex-Arc-United Bidirectional Adjustment Algorithm in Lifetime Optimization of Sensor Networks

Sensor networks are highly constrained by limited energy. It is reasonable to take energy efficient protocols to prolong the network lifetime, because communications consume the most energy. In addition, the influx of traffic is a main characteristic that distinguish sensor networks from others e.g. Internet and Manet. Therefore, optimal traffic distribution will maximize the lifetime of sensor networks. In this paper, we formalize the lifetime maximizing problem to a multi-source multi-sink flow-maximizing problem on a directed graph with arc and vertex capacity powers and propose a polynomial method to solve it
Overview of mobile agents and security

Mobile agent technology is an emerging concept that becomes a new exciting field in computer science and being applied to a number of applications areas like: mobile computing, e-commerce, information retrieval, network management and telecommunications. The power of these agents in solving complex problems is due to many characteristics. They can achieve their goals in a flexible way by using interaction with other agents on the network. However, the security issue is an obstacle to the expansion of this technology. A mobile agent can be target of several types of attacks because it moves from one network to another and from one system to another, which may not be secure. This paper aims first, in sections I and II, to describe the principal concepts of mobile agents and give a comparison between the mobile agent model and other models. Section III presents different aspects related to mobile agents security, and presents some related works. Section IV studies the use of mobile agents to enhance different systems security. Finally, the paper is concluded in Section V.
The newer penicillins

The discovery of penicillin was like the opening of a new territory. Clinicians rushed in and began to mine the gold on the surface until no new ore was to be found. Then they moved on to fields where other antibiotics were being discovered. Meanwhile, chemists were exploring beneath the surface by changing the penicillin molecule. In the past 2 years, they have found gold in such depth to keep the clinicians busy for a long time. Thus we are poised at the start of a new gold rush, and we need a map of the penicillins to find the way. But the map that I shall spread is crude and incomplete because clinical explorations have been meager. It took some time and a number of teams of research workers to find the structural formula of penicillin, but finally the one shown in Fig. 1 was agreed upon. The first changes were made in the salts, as shown on the right of Fig, 1. These were found to affect the solubility of the antibiotic. The soluble sodium and potassium salts are the ones most frequently used for intravenous therapy or direct instillation. The procaine salt delays absorption from an intramuscular site for a day or two, the benzathine salt for 2 to 4 weeks.
CIRCADIAN CHARACTERISTICS OF CORTICOSTERONE SECRETION IN REDBACKED VOLES (CLETHRIONOMYS GAPPERI)

To provide necessary background for study of stress response in redbacked voles (Clethrionomys gapperi), the circadian and ultradian rhythm in corticosterone release was characterized. Animals were maintained under a 16h light, 8h dark cycle. A total of 55 males and 46 females provided 101 independent blood samples over a 6-month span. Samples were obtained at 1h to 2h intervals during the light and at 2h intervals during the dark. Using edited data (5 values beyond the upper 95% limit were removed), a significant time effect was found by analysis of variance (ANOVA) for both sexes at P <. 001. The composite single cosine best describing the circadian waveform for each sex consisted of three components (24h, 12h, and 6h), each significant at P <. 05 (overall model P <. 001). The 24h mean (mesor) was about 60% higher in females than males (646 ng/mL vs. 412 ng/mL, P =. 01), with amplitudes of 429 and 298 ng/mL being proportional (66% vs. 72%) to the respective mesor. The predictable range of change within a 24h span (determined by the double amplitude of a 24h + 12h + 6h cosine model) was large: It was more than 1600 ng/mL for females and more than 900 ng/mL for males. Highest values were found during the dark phase, with the 24h acrophase located at 2h into the dark span for both sexes. With the caveat of fewer samples obtained during dark than during light, the actual peak values for females occurred at 2h and for males at 6h into the 8h dark span. These results provide baseline information about the circadian time structure for serum corticosterone in red-backed voles under normal light-dark, lowstress conditions. (Chronobiology International 18(6) 933–945, 2001)
Identification of genetic variants in the human indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO1) gene, which have altered enzyme activity

Objectives Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO), a rate-limiting enzyme in tryptophan catabolism, is a key regulator of immune tolerance. We identified genetic variations in the IDO1 gene and evaluated their functional activities using in-vitro transfection studies. Methods We resequenced the exons and the intron/exon borders of the IDO1 gene in 96 samples from the Coriell DNA Repository. To determine the functional effects of the coding variations that were predicted to have functional consequences, we expressed three of the variant cDNAs in COS-7 and HEK293 cells and determined their enzyme activity. Results Seventeen variants were identified; three were nonsynonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms (Ala4Thr, Arg77His, Leu197Ile) and one was a 9 bp deletion in exon 7. Compared with the wild-type protein, the Arg77His and the 9 bp deletion resulted in significantly reduced protein expression and in nearly complete loss of enzyme activity. The allelic frequencies of these two functional variants were approximately 1% and were exclusively observed in the African-American samples. Conclusion We conclude that there are naturally occurring polymorphisms that render the human IDO1 gene nonfunctional and should result in reduced IDO activity in affected individuals.
Analyse de la dynamique de certains modèles proie-prédateur et applications

Cette these est consacree a l’etude de la dynamique de quelques problemes de proie-predateur de type Leslie-Gower avec des systemes d’equations differentielles ordinaires et des equations de reaction-diffusion. L’objectif principal est de faire l’analyse mathematique, la simulation numerique des modeles construits. La these est divisee en trois parties : La premiere partie est consacree a un systeme proie-predateur avec recolte de proie, le modele est donne par un systeme d’equation differentielle ordinaire. Le but de cette partie est d’etudier l’impact de la recolte sur le comportement du systeme. Dans la deuxieme partie, nous introduisons la dimension spatiale dans le modele dynamique considere sans recolte, modelisant une chaine alimentaire de deux especes avec diffusion sur un domaine circulaire et une fonction de reponse de Holling type II. Nous effectuons une analyse theorique complete de la dynamique spatio-temporelle du modele construit ainsi que l’etude du systeme sur le domaine circulaire. Une etude mathematique similaire est menee dans le cadre de la reponse fonctionnelle de Benddington-DeAngelis. Nous etudions, aussi le comportement qualitatif d’une chaine alimentaire de trois especes avec une reponse fonctionnelle de Holling type II. Dans la derniere partie, nous introduisons des termes de diffusions croisees dans le modele dynamique considere dans le but d’avoir l’effet de ce dernier sur le comportement du systeme.
Solid-state NMR structures of integral membrane proteins

Abstract Solid-state NMR is unique for its ability to obtain three-dimensional structures and to measure atomic-resolution structural and dynamic information for membrane proteins in native lipid bilayers. An increasing number and complexity of integral membrane protein structures have been determined by solid-state NMR using two main methods. Oriented sample solid-state NMR uses macroscopically aligned lipid bilayers to obtain orientational restraints that define secondary structure and global fold of embedded peptides and proteins and their orientation and topology in lipid bilayers. Magic angle spinning (MAS) solid-state NMR uses unoriented rapidly spinning samples to obtain distance and torsion angle restraints that define tertiary structure and helix packing arrangements. Details of all current protein structures are described, highlighting developments in experimental strategy and other technological advancements. Some structures originate from combining solid- and solution-state NMR information and some have used solid-state NMR to refine X-ray crystal structures. Solid-state NMR has also validated the structures of proteins determined in different membrane mimetics by solution-state NMR and X-ray crystallography and is therefore complementary to other structural biology techniques. By continuing efforts in identifying membrane protein targets and developing expression, isotope labelling and sample preparation strategies, probe technology, NMR experiments, calculation and modelling methods and combination with other techniques, it should be feasible to determine the structures of many more membrane proteins of biological and biomedical importance using solid-state NMR. This will provide three-dimensional structures and atomic-resolution structural information for characterising ligand and drug interactions, dynamics and molecular mechanisms of membrane proteins under physiological lipid bilayer conditions.
Min-max certainty equivalence principle and differential games

This paper presents a version of the certainty equivalence principle, usable for nonlinear, variable end-time, partial observation zero-sum differential games, which states that under the unicity of the solution to the auxiliary problem, optimal controllers can be derived from the solution of the related perfect observation game. An example is provided where in one region, the new extended result holds, giving an optimal control and in another region, the unicity condition is not met, leading indeed to a non-certainty equivalent optimal controller.
Intracranial stenosis in Chinese patients with acute stroke

We studied 100 consecutive acute stroke patients in a Chinese population with transcranial Doppler and CT. Twenty patients had intracerebral hemorrhage and 14 patients did not have adequate temporal windows for transcranial Doppler examination. Among the remaining 66 patients, 22 patients (33%) had intracranial occlusive diseases and 3 (6%) had extracranial carotid stenosis. Our data showed that intracranial occlusive disease is the most commonly found vascular lesion in our acute stroke patients.
E.coli PhoE porin has an opposite voltage‐dependence to the homologous OmpF

We used patch clamp analysis to compare the electrophysiological behavior of two related porins from Escherichia coli, the anion‐specific PhoE and the cation‐selective OmpF. Outer membrane fractions were obtained from strains expressing just one of these porin types, and the channels were reconstituted into liposomes without prior purification. We show that the orientation of the reconstituted channels is not random and is the same for both PhoE and OmpF. Like cation‐selective porins, PhoE shows fast and slow gating to closed levels of various amplitudes, testifying that the channels visit multiple functional states and behave as cooperative entities. The voltage‐dependence of PhoE closure is asymmetric, but strikingly, occurs at voltages of inverse polarity from those promoting closures of OmpC and OmpF. Both slow kinetics and inverse voltage‐dependence are removed when 70 amino acids from the N–terminal of OmpF are introduced into the homologous region of PhoE. This novel observation regarding the voltage‐dependence of the two channel types, along with published results on PhoE and OmpF mutants, allows us to propose a molecular mechanism for voltage sensing and sensor charge movements in bacterial porins. It also offers new cues on the possible physiological relevance in bacteria of this common form of channel modulation.
A 100-GbE reverse gearbox IC in 40nm CMOS for supporting legacy 10- and 40-GbE standards

This paper presents the industry's first low-power 100-Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) multi-link gearbox (MLG) IC, which facilitates transport of independent 10-GbE and 40-GbE signals to 4×25G physical layers implementing 100GBASE-R. The IC consumes only 1.37-W while implementing complicated reverse gearbox functionality. The measured TX jitter from the 25-Gb/s lane is 1.6-psrms, and the recovered clock jitter is 0.5-psrms. The measured RX input sensitivity for a BER 10-12 is 42-mVppd. The proposed gearbox IC, fabricated in a 40nm CMOS process, occupies 3.7×3.4-mm2. The power consumption of RX and TX in 25G interfaces are 47-mW and 51-mW, respectively, and those of a 10G interfaces are 24-mW and 25-mW, respectively. Gearbox functionalities are verified with embedded self-test logics.