Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Generic reduced-complexity MMSE channel estimation for OFDM and MC-CDMA

The performance of a decision-directed channel estimation scheme is analyzed in the context of both OFDM and MC-CDMA systems. A difficulty associated with the employment of the least squares (LS) approach to the problem of a posteriori channel estimation in the context of a MC-CDMA system is described and a suitable MMSE-based estimator is proposed instead. It is demonstrated that the computational complexity associated with the MMSE estimation method proposed is relatively high in comparison to that of the conventional LS technique. Thus a low-complexity version of the MMSE estimator is proposed. The MC-CDMA system using a low-complexity MMSE estimator proposed is shown to outperform the corresponding OFDM-based scheme.
The 5' ends of Hantaan virus (Bunyaviridae) RNAs suggest a prime-and-realign mechanism for the initiation of RNA synthesis

We examined the 5' ends of Hantaan virus (HTN) genomes and mRNAs to gain insight into the manner in which these chains were initiated. Like those of all members of the family Bunyaviridae described so far, the HTN mRNAs contained 5' terminal extensions that were heterogeneous in both length and sequence, presumably because HTN also "cap snatches" host mRNAs to initiate the viral mRNAs. Unexpectedly, however, almost all of the mRNAs contained a G residue at position -1, and a large fraction also lacked precisely one of the three UAG repeats at the termini. The genomes, on the other hand, commenced with a U residue at position +1, but only 5' monophosphates were found here, indicating that these chains may not have initiated with UTP at this position. Taken together, these unusual findings suggest a prime-and-realign mechanism of chain initiation in which mRNAs are initiated with a G-terminated host cell primer and genomes with GTP, not at the 3' end of the genome template but internally (opposite the template C at position +3), and after extension by one or a few nucleotides, the nascent chain realigns backwards by virtue of the terminal sequence repeats, before processive elongation takes place. For genome initiation, an endonuclease, perhaps that involved in cap snatching, is postulated to remove the 5' terminal extension of the genome, leaving the 5' pU at position +1.
A Robust Blob Detection and Delineation Method

This work presents a robust method to detect blob and fit its contour in image. Previous methods for blob detection and delineation were either liable to fail with outliers and noise or computationally expensive. By incorporating the prior information of the region-of-interest and introducing the concept of the kernel MSER, the modified MSER detection method can detect the unique blob which is the most stable region to represent the blob. For further processing, the constrained least squares method by incorporating pruning technique is used to fit the ellipse corresponding to the contour of the detected blob. With this proposed method, we can detect and fit blob with high accuracy. The experiments show the validity of the proposed method.
Pain and Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy Literature Summaries and Analyses

ABSTRACT Timely and important studies are reviewed and commentaries provided by leading palliative care clinicians. Symptoms, interventions, and treatment-related adverse events addressed in this issue are effective management of cancer pain; validity of multiple self-reported pain assessment scales in medically ill populations; sleep duration and mortality in older adults; depression and survival in metastatic breast cancer patients; safety and effectiveness of tanezumab for osteoarthritis pain of the knee; and plotting the functional trajectory of certain patients with end-stage renal disease.
Design of a Reliable Skin Paddle for the Fibula Osteocutaneous Flap: Perforator Anatomy Revisited

Background: Designing a reliable fibula flap skin paddle can be challenging because of the lack of information on precise perforator locations. The purpose of this study was to precisely map the perforators and provide a simple and reliable method for skin paddle design. Methods: Eighty consecutive patients undergoing free fibula flap reconstruction were included in this prospectively designed study. The location, size, and type of perforators were recorded intraoperatively and mapped on the line connecting the fibular head and lateral malleolus. Results: There were 46 male and 34 female patients with a total of 202 perforators. The average length of the fibular head and lateral malleolus line was 36.1 ± 3.4 cm (male patients, 38.2 ± 2.2 cm; female patients, 34.1 ± 2.7 cm). Two discrete groups of perforators could be identified. The proximal perforator was consistently found one-third the length and 1.5 cm posterior to the line. The majority of these perforators (84 percent) were musculocutaneous. The more clinically useful perforators to support a skin paddle are the distal ones over the third quarter of the fibula. One to three distal perforators were consistently present, grouped as perforators A, B, and C at points 0.51, 0.62, and 0.73 along the line, respectively. Perforators were approximately 3.5 cm apart and 2 cm posterior to the line, and the majority (96 percent) were septocutaneous. Conclusions: Using common anatomical landmarks, a reliable skin paddle can be designed with simplicity and confidence over the third quarter of the fibula. The proximal perforator can be useful as a second skin paddle for through-and-through reconstruction.
Sustainability assessment and comparison of waste management systems: The Cities of Sofia and Niš case studies

Sustainability assessment of a waste management system is a very complex problem for numerous reasons. Firstly, it is a problem of environmental assessment, economic viability and social acceptability, and also a choice of the most practical waste treatment technique, taking into account all the specific areas in which a waste management system is implemented. For these reasons, among others, it is very important to benchmark, cooperate and exchange experiences in areas with similar characteristics. In this study, a comparison of waste management scenarios in the Cities of Niš and Sofia was performed. Based on the amount and composition of municipal solid waste, and taking into account local specifics (economic conditions, social acceptance, etc.), different scenarios were developed: landfilling without energy recovery, landfilling with energy recovery, mechanical-biological treatment, anaerobic digestion with biogas utilization and incineration with energy recovery. Scenario ranking was done using multi-criteria analysis and 12 indicators were chosen as the criteria. The obtained results show that the most sustainable scenario in both case studies is the mechanical-biological treatment (recycling, composting and Refuse Derived Fuel production). Having in mind that this scenario is the current waste management system in Sofia, these results can help decision-makers in the City of Niš in choosing a successful and sustainable waste management system.
Effect of acute and long-term smoking on myocardial blood flow and flow reserve.

BACKGROUND Cigarette smoking is a major preventable risk factor for coronary artery disease and sudden cardiac death. However, the effect of acute and long-term cigarette smoking on coronary vasodilatory capacity and myocardial flow reserve has not been quantified in humans. METHODS AND RESULTS To examine the effect of short-term and long-term smoking, myocardial blood flow was quantified at rest and during dipyridamole-induced hyperemia (0.56 mg/kg) in 12 smokers (10 males and 2 females; mean age, 27 +/- 4 years) under baseline conditions (reflecting the effect of long-term smoking) and during short-term cigarette smoking with 13N ammonia, positron emission tomography, and a two-compartment model. Twelve sex- and age-matched nonsmokers served as control subjects. Smoking significantly increased the rate-pressure product at rest from 7525 +/- 1290 to 9160 +/- 1125 (P < .001 versus baseline), which was paralleled by a proportional increase in myocardial blood flow at rest (0.70 +/- 0.17 versus 0.88 +/- 0.17 mL.g-1.min-1; P < .05 versus baseline). In contrast, hyperemic blood flow declined from 2.23 +/- 0.35 at baseline (P = NS versus control) to 1.98 +/- 0.32 mL.g-1.min-1 during smoking (P < .01 versus baseline). Accordingly, the myocardial flow reserve declined from 3.36 +/- 0.83 in smokers at baseline to only 2.28 +/- 0.28 during smoking (P < .0001 versus baseline). Thus, myocardial blood flow and flow reserve were similar in young, long-term smokers and young, healthy nonsmokers. CONCLUSIONS Short-term smoking increases the coronary vasomotor tone during dipyridamole-induced hyperemia and markedly reduces the myocardial flow reserve. In contrast, long-term smoking does not attenuate the coronary vasodilatory capacity in young individuals with a relatively short smoking history. It might be speculated that the short-term reduction in the coronary vasodilatory capacity during smoking could lower the ischemic threshold in smokers with coronary artery disease and contribute to the increased risk for sudden cardiac death.
Development of knowledge about the appearance-reality distinction.

7 studies of the acquisition of knowledge about the appearance-reality distinction suggest the following course of development. Many 3-year-olds seem to possess little or no understanding of the distinction. They fail the simplest Appearance-Reality (AR) tasks and are unresponsive to efforts to teach them the distinction. Skill in solving simple AR tasks is highly correlated with skill in solving simple perceptual Perspective-taking (PT) tasks; this suggests the hypothesis that the ability to represent the selfsame stimulus in two different, seemingly incompatible ways may underlie both skills. Children of 6-7 years have acquired both skills but nevertheless find it very difficult to reflect on and talk about such appearance-reality concepts as "looks like," "really and truly," and "looks different from the way it really and truly is. " In contrast, children of 11-12 years, and to an even greater degree college students, possess a substantial body of rich, readily accessible, and explicit knowledge in this area.
Glial Cell–Derived Cytokines Attenuate the Breakdown of Vascular Integrity in Diabetic Retinopathy

The blood-retinal barrier (BRB) is a biological unit comprised of specialized capillary endothelial cells firmly connected by intercellular tight junctions and endothelium-surrounding glial cells. The BRB is essential for maintaining the retinal microenvironment and low permeability and is compromised in an early phase during the progression of diabetic retinopathy. Here, we demonstrate that retinoic acid receptor (RAR)α stimulants preferentially act on glial cells rather than endothelial cells, resulting in the enhanced expression of glial cell line–derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) through recruitment of the RARα-driven trans-acting coactivator to the 5′-flanking region of the gene promoter. Conversely, RARα decreases expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)/vascular permeability factor. These gene expression alterations causally limit vascular permeability by modulating the tight junction function of capillary endothelium in a paracrine manner in vitro. The phenotypic transformation of glial cells mediated by RARα is sufficient for significant reductions of vascular leakage in the diabetic retina, suggesting that RARα antagonizes the loss of tight junction integrity induced by diabetes. These findings reveal that glial cell–derived cytokines such as GDNF and VEGF regulate BRB function, implying that the glial cell can be a possible therapeutic target in diabetic retinopathy.
Analysis and design-optimization of LCC resonant inverter for high-frequency AC distributed power system

The analysis and design of an LCC resonant inverter for a 20 kHz AC distributed power system are presented. Several resonant converter topologies are assessed to determine their suitability for high efficiency power conversion, under resistive and reactive loads. Two LCC-resonant inverter designs were implemented. One with all switches operating with zero voltage switching (ZVS), and another with two switches operating with ZVS and two switches with zero current switching (ZCS). The experimental results are presented along with a performance comparison of the two versions. >
Analysis and design of energy-efficient data-dependent SRAM

Improving the energy efficiency of on-chip SRAM is a crucial task in memory-intensive system designs. This paper presents design considerations and architectural exploration for energy-efficient data-dependent SRAMs, in which the power consumption depends on the data stored in the bitcells. We further categorize the data-dependent SRAM designs into two broad types, i.e., distance-based SRAM and weight-based SRAM, and point out similarities of such data-dependent power consumption mechanism between the SRAM designs and bus termination techniques. Simulation results in a commercial 40nm CMOS technonology show that when more than 50%/25% of write/read data word are bit 1, the DD-8T SRAM is more energy-efficient than the 6T SRAM. And with XNOR encoded correlated image data, DD-8T SRAM shows both decreased write (1.4× to 2.4×) and read (1.64× to 1.85×) access energy compared to 6T SRAM.
Sorbitol-Fermenting Shiga Toxin-Producing Escherichia coli O157:H− Strains: Epidemiology, Phenotypic and Molecular Characteristics, and Microbiological Diagnosis

The significance of Shiga toxin (Stx)-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) O157:H7 as the major cause of hemorrhagic colitis and the hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS) worldwide has been well established (for reviews, see references 21, 31, 41, and 60). The recognition of this pathogen has been facilitated by the availability of classical microbiological diagnostic procedures that are based on the characteristic phenotypic feature of this pathogen, in particular, its inability to ferment sorbitol after overnight incubation (40). However, in addition to E. coli O157:H7, STEC strains of serotype O157:H− (nonmotile) which do ferment sorbitol rapidly have emerged as important causes of human diseases in continental Europe during the past decade (7, 8, 9–12, 16, 22, 27, 35, 39). Such strains are missed by diagnostic procedures recommended for the detection of E. coli O157:H7, and their significance in other parts of the world might thus be underestimated. This review summarizes the current knowledge on the significance of sorbitol-fermenting (SF) STEC O157:H− strains as causes of human diseases, the epidemiology of the infection, phenotypic and molecular characteristics of these pathogens, and strategies that are available for their microbiological diagnosis.
Contributions of 18 additional DNA sequence variations in the gene encoding apolipoprotein E to explaining variation in quantitative measures of lipid metabolism.

Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) is a major constituent of many lipoprotein particles. Previous genetic studies have focused on six genotypes defined by three alleles, denoted epsilon2, epsilon3, and epsilon4, encoded by two variable exonic sites that segregate in most populations. We have reported studies of the distribution of alleles of 20 biallelic variable sites in the gene encoding the ApoE molecule within and among samples, ascertained without regard to health, from each of three populations: African Americans from Jackson, Miss. ; Europeans from North Karelia, Finland; and non-Hispanic European Americans from Rochester, Minn. Here we ask (1) how much variation in blood levels of ApoE (lnApoE), of total cholesterol (TC), of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and of triglyceride (lnTG) is statistically explained by variation among APOE genotypes defined by the epsilon2, epsilon3, and epsilon4 alleles; (2) how much additional variation in these traits is explained by genotypes defined by combining the two variable sites that define these three alleles with one or more additional variable sites; and (3) what are the locations and relative allele frequencies of the sites that define multisite genotypes that significantly improve the statistical explanation of variation beyond that provided by the genotypes defined by the epsilon2, epsilon3, and epsilon4 alleles, separately for each of the six gender-population strata. This study establishes that the use of only genotypes defined by the epsilon2, epsilon3, and epsilon4 alleles gives an incomplete picture of the contribution that the variation in the APOE gene makes to the statistical explanation of interindividual variation in blood measurements of lipid metabolism. The addition of variable sites to the genotype definition significantly improved the ability to explain variation in lnApoE and in TC and resulted in the explanation of variation in HDL-C and in lnTG. The combination of additional sites that explained the greatest amount of trait variation was different for different traits and varied among the six gender-population strata. The role that noncoding variable sites play in the explanation of pleiotropic effects on different measures of lipid metabolism reveals that both regulatory and structural functional variation in the APOE gene influences measures of lipid metabolism. This study demonstrates that resequencing of the complete gene in a sample of >/=20 individuals and an evaluation of all combinations of the identified variable sites, separately for each population and interacting environmental context, may be necessary to fully characterize the impact that a gene has on variation in related traits of a metabolic system.
The effect of sunflower oil on the fatty acid composition of the milk of cows fed either a fat-depressing diet or grass silage.

Two experiments have been carried out in which different forms of sunflower oil were added to the diet of Ayrshire heifers. In experiment 1, the animals were given a fat-depressing diet of dried, ground grass cubes and flaked maize. When either free sunflower oil or milled, unextracted sunflower seeds were added to this diet, the yield of milk fat and of all fatty acids up to 16:1 was decreased and the yield of all 18-carbon fatty acids was slightly increased. When the sunflower oil was protected by encapsulation in formaldehyde-treated casein, the yield of milk fat was increased, that of the fatty acids up to 16:1 was decreased and that of all the 18-carbon fatty acids, and in particular, of the polyunsaturated fatty acids was increased. In experiment 2, the animals were given a basal diet of grass silage and concentrates to which increasing amounts of protected sunflower oil were added. This tended to increase the yield of milk fat and to reduce that of the fatty acids up to 16:1. The yield of all the 18-carbon fatty acids increased and, in particular, that of the polyunsaturated fatty acids increased progressively as more protected oil was added. It is concluded that it should be possible to produce a milk with any desired proportion of polyunsaturated fatty acids by adding a predetermined amount of protected oil to the diet of the cow.
Making Europe's Historical Newspapers Searchable

This paper provides a rare glimpse into the overall approach for the refinement, i.e. the enrichment of scanned historical newspapers with text and layout recognition, in the Europeana Newspapers project. Within three years, the project processed more than 10 million pages of historical newspapers from 12 national and major libraries to produce the largest open access and fully searchable text collection of digital historical newspapers in Europe. In this, a wide variety of legal, logistical, technical and other challenges were encountered. After introducing the background issues in newspaper digitization in Europe, the paper discusses the technical aspects of refinement in greater detail. It explains what decisions were taken in the design of the large-scale processing workflow to address these challenges, what were the results produced and what were identified as best practices.
Strigolactone biosynthesis and signaling in plant development

Strigolactones (SLs), first identified for their role in parasitic and symbiotic interactions in the rhizosphere, constitute the most recently discovered group of plant hormones. They are best known for their role in shoot branching but, more recently, roles for SLs in other aspects of plant development have emerged. In the last five years, insights into the SL biosynthetic pathway have also been revealed and several key components of the SL signaling pathway have been identified. Here, and in the accompanying poster, we summarize our current understanding of the SL pathway and discuss how this pathway regulates plant development. Summary: This poster article summarises how strigolactones – a recently discovered group of plant hormones – signal during plant development and regulate various aspects of plant morphogenesis.
Low prevalence of long-term breastfeeding among women with type 2 diabetes

Abstract Objective: To investigate the prevalence of long-term breastfeeding among women with type 2 diabetes compared to women with type 1 diabetes and to identify predictors of long-term breastfeeding for women with pre-gestational diabetes. Methods: In total, 149 women with diabetes were interviewed about long-term breastfeeding, defined as any breastfeeding 4 months postpartum. Results: Ninety-eight percent of the women aimed to breastfeed. At time of discharge, any breastfeeding was frequent for both groups of women (86% versus 93%, p = 0.17). However, 4 months postpartum, the 44 women with type 2 diabetes showed significantly lower prevalence of breastfeeding than the 105 women with type 1 diabetes (34% versus 61%, p < 0.01). Number of feedings in the first 24 h was an independent positive predictor, whereas pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) and smoking were independent negative predictors of long-term breastfeeding. Conclusion: The prevalence of long-term breastfeeding among women with type 2 diabetes was considerably lower than in women with type 1 diabetes. Number of feedings in the first 24 h was positive and BMI and smoking were negative predictors of long-term breastfeeding in women with pre-gestational diabetes.