Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cramér-Rao lower bound for A/D and D/A converters linearity testing

This paper reports the derivation of the Cramér-Rao lower bound for the estimation of the code transition levels of an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and of the output levels of a digital-to-analog converter (DAC). Numerical results for the estimation of the integral nonlinearity are given. The converters are tested by sampling many times, with the ADC, each dithered output level of the DAC. The general case is discussed in which the dithering signal is the sum of Gaussian noise and a sine wave. The parameters of ADC, DAC, noise and sine wave can be estimated at the same time.
Speech enhancement in vehicular environments as a front end for robust speech recogniser

The term “Speech Enhancement” refers to improving quality and intelligibility of the degraded speech. The current work focuses on three speech enhancement techniques. (1) Speech enhancement based subspace modelling using EVD (Eigen value decomposition). (2) Speech enhancement based subspace modelling using KLT (Karhunen Loeve transform). (3) Subspace modelling using KLT based on phoneme class analysis. Generally, subspace modelling involves decomposing noisy signal into two subspaces namely signal subspace (contains signal components + few noise components) and noise subspace (only noise components). In this regard, EVD based enhancement cancels noise subspace completely whereas, KLT based enhancement cancels both noise subspace and noise components in signal subspace. The phoneme based enhanced speech is obtained by suppressing the noise component at phone level. The comparison of these three enhancement techniques is evaluated for its quality using objective measures such as Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Quality (PESQ), for the speech affected by vehicular noises such as car, flight, train, white and babble, at −10 to 16dB SNR levels in steps of 2 dB. This enhanced speech is then assessed using an Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) system supported by hidden Markov model (HMM) technique.
LOGUS : compréhension de l'oral spontané. Présentation et évaluation des bases formelles de LOGUS

In spoken dialogue systems, natural language understanding is a difficult problem for which robust parsing methods are required. Most of the systems achieve very specific tasks: understanding is founded on detection ofkey-words or patterns in order to identify values of predetermined semantic frames. LOCUS, the understanding system we are presenting in this paper, uses logical formalisms, categorial grammars and conceptual graphs, outside their usual application field. The parsing is incremental; it builds a logical formula by gradually composing the recognized constituents of the sentence. The paper describes and compares the first two versions of LOGUS. Their evaluations yield promising results; they show the good robustness of the parsing and its quite good ability to reconstruct the meaning of the utterances. Future studies must be led in order to take into account the context more widely and to manage dialogue. comprehension automatique, parole spontanee, grammaire categorielle, graphe conceptuel
ES Cell Cycle Progression and Differentiation Require the Action of the Histone Methyltransferase Dot1L

Mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs) proliferate with rapid cell cycle kinetics but without loss of pluripotency. The histone methyltransferase Dot1L is responsible for methylation of histone H3 at lysine 79 (H3K79me). We investigated whether ESCs require Dot1L for proper stem cell behavior. ESCs deficient in Dot1L tolerate a nearly complete loss of H3K79 methylation without a substantial impact on proliferation or morphology. However, shortly after differentiation is induced, Dot1L‐deficient cells cease proliferating and arrest in G2/M‐phase of the cell cycle, with increased levels of aneuploidy. In addition, many aberrant mitotic spindles occur in Dot1L‐deficient cells. Surprisingly, these mitotic and cell cycle defects fail to trigger apoptosis, indicating that mouse ESCs lack stringent cell cycle checkpoint control during initial stages of differentiation. Transcriptome analysis indicates that Dot1L deficiency causes the misregulation of a select set of genes, including many with known roles in cell cycle control and cellular proliferation as well as markers of endoderm differentiation. The data indicate a requirement for Dot1L function for early stages of ESC differentiation where Dot1L is necessary for faithful execution of mitosis and proper transcription of many genes throughout the genome. STEM CELLS 2009;27:1538–1547
Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss and Hemodialysis

The etiology of sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) associated with renal failure and hemodialysis is controversial. Possible mechanisms include a shared antigenicity between the kidney and the labyrinths, osmotic alteration caused by hemodialysis, and the ototoxic effect of diuretics. We present 2 cases of SNHL associated with renal failure and its treatment. One patient was a 35-year-old man who developed profound SNHL after 5 sessions of hemodialysis, and the other was a 36-year-old woman who developed severe to profound SNHL after 7 sessions. It is our impression that both hearing losses might have been attributable to osmotic disequilibrium in the labyrinth or to an acute labyrinthine injury caused by contamination of the blood by the degraded product of an old cellulose acetate hemodialyzer membrane; the hemodialyzer had been in use for 15 years.
Food likes and dislikes.

I NTRODUCTIO N . 433 THE ORIGINS OF FOOD PREFERENC ES AND LIKES . 435 Biological Factors . 435 Cultural Factors. 437 Individual (Psychological) Factors . 437 Interaction o f Biological and Cultu ral Factors . 438 A TAXONOMY OF PREFERENC ES AND AVOIDANCES . 438 Sensory Affective Motivation. 439 Anticipated Consequences . 439 Ideational Motivation. 439 Alternative Taxonomies . 441 MECHANISMS OF ACQUIRED LIKES AND DISLIKES . 441 Distasteful versu s Dangerous Substances: Learning to Dislike Foods 442 Good-Tasting versus Beneficial Substances: Learning to Like Foods . 442 Acquired Likes for Initially Unpalatable Substances . 445 Disgusting versus Inappropriate Substances . 446 Summary and Evaluation . 446 THE TIME FRAME: LABILE AND STABLE LIKES . 447 The Influence of Physiological State on Likes . 447 Temporary Changes in Likes: Sensory-Specific Satiety 448 Relatively Stable Changes in Likes: Monotony . 449 The Influence of Context on Likes . 450 CONCLUS IONS . 451
Will steroidal aromatase inhibitors induce rheumatoid arthritis?

Aromatase inhibitors are used in advanced breast cancer treatment to cause an oestrogen deprivation. Such treatment can induce benign arthralgias.1,2 We describe a case of rheumatoid arthritis after treatment with aromatase inhibitors. A 64-year-old Caucasian woman, with a 3-year history of advanced right breast cancer (infiltrative ductal carcinoma classified as oestrogen-receptor positive; progesterone-receptor negative with positive lymph nodes; pT2pN1bM0) received treatment with tamoxifen (20 mg/day) for about 3 years. Cancer follow-up was normal and no side effects were reported. In November 2004, tamoxifen was switched to exemestane (25 mg/day) in accordance with studies showing better efficacy and good safety. A few days later, she developed arthralgias affecting the hips, shoulders, knees, wrists and hands associated with morning joint stiffness for 2 h. …
Human Cytomegalovirus Alters Localization of MHC Class II and Dendrite Morphology in Mature Langerhans Cells1

Hemopoietic stem cell-derived mature Langerhans-type dendritic cells (LC) are susceptible to productive infection by human CMV (HCMV). To investigate the impact of infection on this cell type, we examined HLA-DR biosynthesis and trafficking in mature LC cultures exposed to HCMV. We found decreased surface HLA-DR levels in viral Ag-positive as well as in Ag-negative mature LC. Inhibition of HLA-DR was independent of expression of unique short US2-US11 region gene products by HCMV. Indeed, exposure to UV-inactivated virus, but not to conditioned medium from infected cells, was sufficient to reduce HLA-DR on mature LC, implicating particle binding/penetration in this effect. Reduced surface levels reflected an altered distribution of HLA-DR because total cellular HLA-DR was not diminished. Accumulation of HLA-DR was not explained by altered cathepsin S activity. Mature, peptide-loaded HLA-DR molecules were retained within cells, as assessed by the proportion of SDS-stable HLA-DR dimers. A block in egress was implicated, as endocytosis of surface HLA-DR was not increased. Immunofluorescence microscopy corroborated the intracellular retention of HLA-DR and revealed markedly fewer HLA-DR-positive dendritic projections in infected mature LC. Unexpectedly, light microscopic analyses showed a dramatic loss of the dendrites themselves and immunofluorescence revealed that cytoskeletal elements crucial for the formation and maintenance of dendrites are disrupted in viral Ag-positive cells. Consistent with these dendrite effects, HCMV-infected mature LC exhibit markedly reduced chemotaxis in response to lymphoid chemokines. Thus, HCMV impedes MHC class II molecule trafficking, dendritic projections, and migration of mature LC. These changes likely contribute to the reduced activation of CD4+ T cells by HCMV-infected mature LC.
Optimization modeling of an integrated supply chain network

In this paper, we develop a novel multi-echelon joint inventory-location problem that considers location and inventory decisions simultaneously. The model deals with the distribution of a single commodity from a single manufacturer to a set of retailers through a set of sites where distribution centers can be located. The retailers face deterministic demand and hold working inventory. We assume single sourcing in which the entire demand of a given retailer is served by a single distribution center. The distribution centers order a single commodity from the manufacturer at regular intervals and distribute the product to the retailers. The distribution centers, also, hold working inventory representing product that has been ordered from the manufacturer but has not been yet requested by any of the retailers. Lateral supplies among the distribution centers are not allowed. The problem is formulated as a nonlinear mixed-integer program. Model validation and benefit of integration are demonstrated via a numerical study.
Distributed Models of Cognitive Processes: Applications to Learning and Memory a

computational level. They differ from computer programs, though, in three fundamental ways. ( I ) Processing is thought to emerge from the interactions of a large number of simple (abstract) computational elements called nodes, rather than through the activity of a single, central processing unit. (2) The knowledge that underlies processing in distributed models is thought to be stored in the strengths of the connections between the nodes, rather than in data structures or compiled computer code interpreted by the central processing unit. (3) Learning in distributed models amounts to changes in the strengths of connections between the nodes, rather than changing the contents of data structures or recompilation of the program. 'Supported by a grant from the Systems Development Foundation. The author is a recipient of a Research Scientist Career Development Award (MH 00385).
The Impact of Age at Seizure Onset on the Likelihood of Atypical Language Representation in Children with Intractable Epilepsy

Studies have suggested that early postnatal lesions are associated with a greater likelihood of atypical speech representation than lesions acquired later in life. Comparison groups have been defined differently across studies, with age typically being treated as a dichotomous (i.e., early versus late lesion onset) rather than continuous variable. Thus, little is known about the age at which children become less likely to exhibit atypical representation following a brain insult. This study examined the likelihood of typical versus atypical speech representation in children with intractable epilepsy (n = 75). Age of seizure onset was treated as a continuous variable to examine whether there was a naturally occurring cut-off point after which the rate of atypical speech representation decreased. A much higher proportion of children with seizure onset prior to the fifth year showed atypical speech representation as compared to children whose seizures began after 5 years of age.
Adult bone-marrow stem cells and their potential in medicine.

An area of research that today generates great optimism is the use of stem cells for therapy of human diseases. Much of the excitement centres on embryonic stem cells, but this approach remains controversial for ethical reasons; moreover, routine clinical application of this strategy is many years away. By contrast, haematopoietic stem cells from adult bone marrow are well characterized and have long been used therapeutically.1 An adult weighing 70 kg has a functional haematopoietic marrow volume of about 1.75 L and upon increased demands such as infection or haemorrhage it can increase sixfold.1,2 No moral controversy surrounds the use of these cells since they are either autologous or collected from a consenting donor. The potential applications of adult bone marrow cells have gained momentum with discoveries relating to the mesenchymal stem cell.
Title Crystalline Ni 3 C as both carbon source and catalyst forgraphene nucleation : A QM / MD study

Right This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Type Journal Article
Genes Involved in the Control of Cellular Proliferative Potential a

ABSTRACT: Evidence that control of cellular proliferative potential may be linked to telomere length, along with data indicating that other factors may also be involved, will be reviewed. According to the telomere hypothesis of senescence, the sequential loss of telomeric repeat DNA that occurs during the replication of normal somatic cells eventually dictates the onset of the permanently nonreplicative state known as senescence. Many immortalized cells express telomerase, a ribonucleoprotein enzyme that replaces the telomeric DNA that would otherwise be lost due to replication. However, some immortalized human cells may avoid telomeric shortening without using telomerase. The mechanism involved is currently unknown, but other eukaryotes are able to replace telomeric DNA through (1) recombination and copy switching or (2) retrotransposition. Human fibroblasts that lose p53 function proliferate a limited number of times beyond the population‐doubling level at which their normal counterparts become senescent. Lack of functional retinoblastoma (Rb) protein (or equivalent events, such as loss of p16INK4 function, resulting in abrogation of Rb regulatory activity) also permits a temporary extension of proliferative potential. The p53 and pRb effects are additive, indicating that they exert their control on proliferative potential separately. The temporary life span extension associated with loss of p53 and/or Rb pathway function is accompanied by continued telomere shortening. The proliferation arrest that eventually ensues in p53‐minus cells or in p53‐minus/Rb‐minus cells may be regarded as terminal proliferation arrest states serving as a backup to senescence. p53‐minus/Rb‐minus cells cannot proliferate further unless they acquire the ability to prevent telomeric shortening. Somatic cell hybridization and microcell‐mediated chromosome transfer experiments indicate that immortalization involves the loss of function of other, as yet unidentified, genes; some of these may normally repress telomerase expression in somatic cells.
Newly identified apolipoprotein AV gene predisposes to high plasma triglycerides in familial combined hyperlipidemia.

Familial combined hyperlipidemia (FCHL) is the commonest form of hereditary hyperlipidemia (1) (2). Its primary defect is increased secretion of hepatic triglyceride (TG)-rich apolipoprotein B (apo B)-containing particles (VLDL) (3) and impaired clearance of postprandial lipoproteins (4), which increases the number of circulating TG-rich lipoproteins. FCHL is present in up to 20% of survivors of myocardial infarction, and it is considered a significant genetic risk factor for developing cardiovascular disease (1) (5). The underlying genetic defect is unknown, although the disease has been linked to chromosomes 1 (6) and 11 (7). With regard to the latter, linkage has been identified in the AI-CIII-AIV cluster, encoded in chromosome 11q23-q24, which has been repeatedly associated with FCHL as a site involved in modulating expression of the disease (8) (9). This is in part explained by the role of apo C-III as a negative regulator of TG hydrolysis. Despite considerable effort, no functional variant has been detected that explains such modulatory action, and the search has been extended to the surrounding regions. In this context, the newly identified apo AV gene ( APOAV ) (10) (11), adjacent to the AI-CIII-AIV gene cluster and with a clear impact on TG metabolism in animals (10), becomes a candidate. Association of this gene with plasma TG concentrations has also been reported in humans (10). We have explored such an association in FCHL. According to the nomenclature and methodology used by Pennacchio et al. (10), single-nucleotide polymorphism C/T number 3 (SNP3; 1 is the common allele, 2 is the rare allele) was used as the genetic marker. Genotyping was performed with primers AV-1 (5′-GATTGATTCAAGATGCATTTAGGAC-3′) and AV-2 (5′-CCCCAGGAACTGGAGCGAAATT-3′), which forced a Mse I (New England …
An isolated bridgeless AC-DC converter with high power factor

This paper introduce a new isolated bridgeless AC to DC converter with power factor correction capability. This power factor correction (PFC) circuit is capable to perform the AC to DC conversion without the diode bridge rectifier and able to obtain low output voltage which is more suitable to most applications. The detail small signal and steady state analysis of the converter operated in discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) are presented using the current injected equivalent circuit approach (CIECA). The dynamic and steady state response at the input current and output voltage are included to verify the converter capability as a PFC circuit.
Novel Dual-Frequency Design of Circular Microstrip Antenna with Compact Operation

This article presents a new compact dual-frequency design of single-feed circular microstrip antennas with an offset circular slot placed close to the patch boundary. The obtained two operating frequencies are with orthogonal polarization planes and have a low frequency ratio of about 1.15 to 1.18. The two frequencies can also be much lower than the fundamental resonant frequency of a corresponding simple circular patch antenna without the offset slot. This behavior makes the proposed antenna with a reduced antenna size as compared to a simple circular patch antenna operated at either one of the two frequencies. Details of the antenna design and experimental results are presented.
Altering Grooming Decisions to Enhance p-Cycle Design Efficiency

In most prior work on survivable network design, lower level connection requirements are assumed to have already been "groomed" into a required set of lightpath demands. In this work, we show how grooming decisions can be directly integrated into an overall p-cycle network design for more efficiency. We use this new ability to understand how the number of grooming sites affects overall network efficiency and how grooming decisions can interact with the p-cycle protection strategy. In test case results a set of STM-1 demands are groomed into a set of STM-16 transport connections in a way that is jointly optimal considering both working path capacities and p-cycles formed to protect those paths. The study also compares different criteria for selecting grooming sites.
Real-Time Analysis of Students’ Activities on an E-Learning Platform based on Apache Spark

Real time analytics is the capacity to extract valuables insights from data that comes continuously from activities on the web or network sensors. It is largely used in web based business to drive decisions based on user’s experiences, such dynamic pricing and personalized advertising. Many universities have adopted web based learning in their learning process. They use data-mining techniques to better understand students’ behavior, and most of the tools developed are based on historical and stored data, and do not allow real time reactivity. Online activities of learners generate at high speed a huge amount of data in form of users’ interactions which have all characteristics to be considered as Big data. Deal with volume and velocity of these data in order to inform and enable decisions-makers to act at right time lead us to use new methods to capture E-Learning data, and process it in real time. This paper focuses on the design and implementation of modern and hybrid real time data pipeline architecture using Apache Flume to collect data, Apache Spark as an unified engine computation for performing analytics on students’ activities data and Apache Hive as a data warehouse for storing the processed data and for use by various reporting tools. To conceive this platform we conduct an experiment on Moodle database source.
Potentiating effects of honey on antioxidant properties of lemon-flavoured black tea

Health benefits including antioxidant potential of black tea (Camellia sinensis), lemon (Citrus limon) and honey bees (Apis mellifera) have been extensively reported. Nevertheless, nothing is reported about the effects of their concomitant use. Herein, those effects were evaluated in infusions of lemon-flavoured black tea with three different kinds of honey (light amber, amber and dark amber) from Lavandula stoechas, Erica sp. pl. and other indigenous floral species from north-east Portugal, a region with high amounts of this food product. Data obtained showed that the use of honey (dark amber>amber>light amber) potentiates the antioxidant activity of lemon-flavoured black tea, increasing the reducing power and lipid peroxidation inhibition properties, as also the antioxidant contents such as phenolics, flavonoids and organic acids including ascorbic acid.
Big data and HPC collocation: Using HPC idle resources for Big Data analytics

Executing Big Data workloads upon High Performance Computing (HPC) infrastractures has become an attractive way to improve their performances. However, the collocation of HPC and Big Data workloads is not an easy task, mainly because of their core concepts' differences. This paper focuses on the challenges related to the scheduling of both Big Data and HPC workloads on the same computing platform. In classic HPC workloads, the rigidity of jobs tends to create holes in the schedule: we can use those idle resources as a dynamic pool for Big Data workloads. We propose a new idea based on Resource and Job Management System's (RJMS) configuration, that makes HPC and Big Data systems to communicate through a simple prolog/epilog mechanism. It leverages the built-in resilience of Big Data frameworks, while minimizing the disturbance on HPC workloads. We present the first study of this approach, using the production RJMS middleware OAR and Hadoop YARN from the HPC and Big Data ecosystems respectively. Our new technique is evaluated with real experiments upon the Grid5000 platform. Our experiments validate our assumptions and show promising results. The system is capable of running an HPC workload with 70% cluster utilization, with a Big Data workload that fills the schedule holes to reach a full 100% utilization. We observe a penalty on the mean waiting time for HPC jobs of less than 17% and a Big Data effectiveness of more than 68% in average.