Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Accelerated frequency domain adaptive filter using modified DFT pair and its application to noise canceling

The frequency domain adaptive filter (FDAF) converges faster than the time domain adaptive filter (TDAF) even when an input signal is colored since the input autocorrelation matrix is approximately diagonalized by using the discrete Fourier transform (DFT). The FDAF using the modified DFT pair (MDFTP) has been proposed to enable DFT operation in nonblock processing. This paper presents the introduction of the spectral error method into the FDAF using the MDFTP to accelerate its convergence speed. The effectiveness is examined through computer simulation in the adaptive line enhancer (ALE). Furthermore, it is applied to a noise canceling system for speech signals. The system based on the ALE requires one microphone; therefore, it is suitable for miniaturizing portable electronic equipment. The ability of noise canceling is confirmed through computer simulation using a speech signal.
Serum resistin levels and cardiovascular events in patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention.

AIM Resistin is an adipocytokine that may link inflammation and atherosclerosis.We studied the associations of resistin levels with cardiovascular events and restenosis. METHODS We measured pre-procedural serum resistin levels in 140 patients with coronary artery disease undergoing elective percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), of whom 97 had a stent. Restenosis was defined as > 50% stenosis at follow-up angiography. Patients were followed for 3 years for major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE). RESULTS At 8±6 months after PCI, reangiography was performed in 94 (67%) patients, of whom 42 had restenosis. Between 42 patients with restenosis and 52 without restenosis, resistin (4.5±2.6 vs. 4.5±2.5 ng/mL) and Creactive protein (CRP) (median 0.70 vs. 0.70 mg/L) levels did not differ. During 3-year follow-up, MACE occurred in 24 patients (1 death, 21 unstable angina, 2 stroke). Compared with 116 patients without MACE, 24 with MACE had higher resistin (5.4±2.4 vs. 4.3±2.5 ng/mL) and CRP (1.30 vs. 0.60 mg/L) levels (p< 0.05). Patients with MACE more often had resistin >4.0 ng/mL than without MACE (75% vs. 35%, p< 0.001). Resistin correlated with CRP levels (r= 0.31). To clarify the association between MACE and resistin, patients were divided into 2 groups by resistin levels. Kaplan-Meier analysis showed a lower event-free survival rate in patients with resistin > 4.0 ng/mL than without it (p< 0.001). On multivariate analysis, resistin, but not CRP, was an independent predictor of MACE. The hazard ratio for MACE was 3.6 (95%CI=1.4-9.2) for resistin > 4.0 ng/mL. CONCLUSION Serum resistin levels were found to be associated with further cardiovascular events in patients undergoing PCI.
A review of factors affecting total factor productivity in the ‎manufacturing industries in province

Since productivity is the strategy that its increase has been discussed as the key to economic growth and development in recent decades, the increase in the productivity of manufacturing firms, especially in the labor force and human capital can lead to economic growth, and improvement in the economic situation of people. Therefore, considering the importance of the issue, this study is trying to examine the factors influencing total factor productivity in the manufacturing industries of Kermanshah province using panel data model in the period of 1989-2011. The findings show that the use of labor force leads to improved total factor productivity and the move toward technology and technology-based activities do not benefit the society or improve total factor productivity.
Effects of varying carbohydrate content of diet in patients with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus.

OBJECTIVE To study effects of variation in carbohydrate content of diet on glycemia and plasma lipoproteins in patients with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM). DESIGN A four-center randomized crossover trial. SETTING Outpatient and inpatient evaluation in metabolic units. PATIENTS Forty-two NIDDM patients receiving glipizide therapy. INTERVENTIONS A high-carbohydrate diet containing 55% of the total energy as carbohydrates and 30% as fats was compared with a high-monounsaturated-fat diet containing 40% carbohydrates and 45% fats. The amounts of saturated fats, polyunsaturated fats, cholesterol, sucrose, and protein were similar. The study diets, prepared in metabolic kitchens, were provided as the sole nutrients to subjects for 6 weeks each. To assess longer-term effects, a subgroup of 21 patients continued the diet they received second for an additional 8 weeks. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Fasting plasma glucose, insulin, lipoproteins, and glycosylated hemoglobin concentrations. Twenty-four-hour profiles of glucose, insulin, and triglyceride levels. RESULTS The site of study as well as the diet order did not affect the results. Compared with the high-monounsaturated-fat diet, the high-carbohydrate diet increased fasting plasma triglyceride levels and very low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels by 24% (P < .0001) and 23% (P = .0001), respectively, and increased daylong plasma triglyceride, glucose, and insulin values by 10% (P = .03), 12% (P < .0001), and 9% (P = .02), respectively. Plasma total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels remained unchanged. The effects of both diets on plasma glucose, insulin, and triglyceride levels persisted for 14 weeks. CONCLUSIONS In NIDDM patients, high-carbohydrate diets compared with high-monounsaturated-fat diets caused persistent deterioration of glycemic control and accentuation of hyperinsulinemia, as well as increased plasma triglyceride and very-low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, which may not be desirable.
Innate resistance to Trypanosoma congolense infections: differential production of nitric oxide by macrophages from susceptible BALB/c and resistant C57Bl/6 mice.

BALB/c and C57B1/6 mice differ in resistance to Trypanosoma congolense infections. Evidence suggests that macrophages play a central role in the resistance to trypanosomiasis. Nitric oxide (NO) produced by macrophages in response to various stimuli or pathogens is one of the important arms of nonspecific immunity. We investigated the production of NO by the peritoneal macrophages and bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDM) from trypanosome-resistant C57B1/6 and -susceptible BALB/c mice following stimulation with T. congolense whole cell extract (WCE) or following phagocytosis of T. congolense mediated by anti-variant surface glycoprotein (VSG) antibodies of IgM or IgG2a isotype. C57B1/6 peritoneal macrophages as well as BMDM produced significantly more NO than similar BALB/c macrophages in response to T. congolense lysate and IFN-gamma. In both BALB/c and C57B1/6 BMDM cultures, phagocytosis of T. congolense mediated by anti-VSG antibodies of IgG2a isotype in the presence of IFNgamma induced two- to ninefold more NO than phagocytosis mediated by IgM antibodies and C57B1/6 BMDM produced significantly higher amounts of NO than BALB/c BMDM under these conditions. NO produced by BMDM was found to exert trypanostatic effect on T. congolense in vitro, but was not found to influence the in vivo infectivity of these treated parasites under the conditions used in this study.
Protein Interactions at the Tight Junction

Defining how the molecular constituents of the tight junction interact is a prerequisite to understanding tight junction physiology. We utilized in vitro binding assays with purified recombinant proteins and immunoprecipitation analyses to define interactions between ZO-1, ZO-2, ZO-3, occludin, and the actin cytoskeleton. Actin cosedimentation studies showed that ZO-2, ZO-3, and occludin all interact directly with F-actin in vitro, indicating that actin is engaged in multiple interactions at the tight junction. Low speed sedimentation analyses demonstrated that neither ZO-2, ZO-3, nor occludin act as F-actin cross-linking proteins, and further evidence indicates that these proteins do not bind to actin filament ends. The binding interactions of ZO-2, ZO-3, and occludin were corroborated in vivo by immunofluorescence colocalization experiments which showed that all three proteins colocalized with actin aggregates at cell borders in cytochalasin D-treated Madin-Darby canine kidney cells. Exploration of other tight junction protein interactions demonstrated that ZO-2 binds directly to both ZO-1 and occludin. Contrary to previous beliefs, our immunoprecipitation results indicate that ZO-1, ZO-2, and ZO-3 existin situ primarily as independent ZO-1·ZO-2 and ZO-1·ZO-3 complexes rather than a trimeric ZO-1·ZO-2·ZO-3 grouping. These studies elucidate direct binding interactions among tight junction-associated proteins, giving insight into their organization as a multimolecular structure.
Challenging the User-Avatar Dichotomy in Avatar Customization Research

The work presented here represents an Actor-Network Theory (ANT) approach to the study of self-representation in games. Though the development of a novel analytical framework we aim to challenge the anthropocentric approach that is all too common to identity work in favour of an ANT approach. We argue that self-representation studies must break free of the user-avatar dichotomy in order to reveal how other factors, such as design practices, socioeconomic factors, digital and offline cultures, as well as researchers' own lived experiences and assumptions affect self-representational practices.
A 45nm 37.3GOPS/W heterogeneous multi-core SoC

We develop a heterogeneous multi-core SoC for applications, such as digital TV systems with IP networks (IP-TV) including image recognition and database search. Figure 5.3. 1 shows the chip features. This SoC is capable of decoding 1080i audio/video data using a part of SoC (one general-purpose CPU core, video processing unit called VPU5 and sound processing unit called SPU) [1]. Four dynamically reconfigurable processors called FE [2] are integrated and have a total theoretical performance of 41.5GOPS and power consumption of 0.76W. Two 1024-way matrix-processors called MX-2 [3] are integrated and have a total theoretical performance of 36.9GOPS and power consumption of 1.10W. Overall, the performance per watt of our SoC is 37.3GOPS/W at 1.15V, the highest among comparable processors [4–6] excluding special-purpose codecs. The operation granularity of the CPU, FE and MX-2 are 32bit, 16bit, and 4bit respectively, and thus we can assign the appropriate processor for each task in an effective manner. A heterogeneous multi-core approach is one of the most promising approaches to attain high performance with low frequency, or low power, for consumer electronics application and scientific applications, compared to homogeneous multi-core SoCs [4]. For example, for image-recognition application in the IP-TV system, the FEs are assigned to calculate optical flow operation [7] of VGA (640×480) size video data at 15fps, which requires 0.62GOPS. The MX-2s are used for face detection and calculation of the feature quantity of the VGA video data at 15fps, which requires 30.6GOPS. In addition, general-purpose CPU cores are used for database search using the results of the above operations, which requires further enhancement of CPU. The automatic parallelization compilers analyze parallelism of the data flow, generate coarse grain tasks, schedule tasks to minimize execution time considering data transfer overhead for general-purpose CPU and FE.
Efficacy of UV Irradiation in Inactivating Cryptosporidiumparvum Oocysts

ABSTRACT To evaluate the effectiveness of UV irradiation in inactivating Cryptosporidium parvum oocysts, the animal infectivities and excystation abilities of oocysts that had been exposed to various UV doses were determined. Infectivity decreased exponentially as the UV dose increased, and the required dose for a 2-log10 reduction in infectivity (99% inactivation) was approximately 1.0 mWs/cm2 at 20°C. However, C. parvum oocysts exhibited high resistance to UV irradiation, requiring an extremely high dose of 230 mWs/cm2 for a 2-log10 reduction in excystation, which was used to assess viability. Moreover, the excystation ability exhibited only slight decreases at UV doses below 100 mWs/cm2. Thus, UV treatment resulted in oocysts that were able to excyst but not infect. The effects of temperature and UV intensity on the UV dose requirement were also studied. The results showed that for every 10°C reduction in water temperature, the increase in the UV irradiation dose required for a 2-log10 reduction in infectivity was only 7%, and for every 10-fold increase in intensity, the dose increase was only 8%. In addition, the potential of oocysts to recover infectivity and to repair UV-induced injury (pyrimidine dimers) in DNA by photoreactivation and dark repair was investigated. There was no recovery in infectivity following treatment by fluorescent-light irradiation or storage in darkness. In contrast, UV-induced pyrimidine dimers in the DNA were apparently repaired by both photoreactivation and dark repair, as determined by endonuclease-sensitive site assay. However, the recovery rate was different in each process. Given these results, the effects of UV irradiation on C. parvum oocysts as determined by animal infectivity can conclusively be considered irreversible.
Design of Soft-Charging Switched-Capacitor DC–DC Converters Using Stage Outphasing and Multiphase Soft-Charging

In this paper, two techniques, called stage-outphasing (SO) and multiphase soft-charging (MSC), are introduced, which make use of the advanced multiphasing concept to soft-charge charge transfers between flying capacitors. As such, the charge sharing losses of fully integrated switched-capacitor (SC) converters are reduced, leading to better capacitance utilization, higher efficiency, and higher power density. Furthermore, when used in combination with the Dickson converter, the relative improvement gets better with increasing voltage conversion ratio (VCR), making them an excellent choice to reduce power delivery network-induced losses in modern microchips. The impact of the proposed techniques on the performance is discussed. A 3:1 Dickson SC converter is realized, which implements SO and MSC and achieves a state-of-the-art 1.1-W/mm2 power density and 82% efficiency combination using common capacitor technologies. Finally, two figures of merit for monolithic SC dc-dc converters are proposed that include the VCR and power density, to allow fair comparison of the converter’s performance to the literature.
Pharmacokinetics and Safety of Sunitinib Malate in Subjects With Impaired Renal Function

This phase I, open‐label, single‐dose study evaluates the effects of severe renal impairment and end‐stage renal disease (ESRD) requiring hemodialysis on the pharmacokinetics, safety, and tolerability of sunitinib and its primary active metabolite, SU12662. Subjects with normal renal function (creatinine clearance > 80 mL/min), severe renal impairment (creatinine clearance < 30 mL/min), and ESRD requiring hemodialysis receive a single dose of sunitinib 50 mg. Serial blood samples are collected for quantification of plasma concentrations using a validated liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry assay. Safety is monitored. Twenty‐four subjects complete the study. Pharmacokinetics in subjects with severe renal impairment appear similar to those with normal renal function. Plasma exposure to sunitinib and SU12662 appears lower in subjects with ESRD compared with subjects with normal renal function or severe renal impairment. Single‐dose sunitinib 50 mg is well tolerated regardless of renal function. The currently approved starting dose of sunitinib 50 mg on Schedule 4/2 is expected to be appropriate for patients with renal impairment; any subsequent dose modifications should be based on patients' ability to tolerate treatment.
Analysis of threshold based queue with MMPP arrival process

Access to large web content hosted all over the world by users of Internet is contributing massively in the form of congestion to the Internet traffic. Various approaches have been adopted to solve the quality of service (QoS) issues in Internet traffic particularly the problem of congestion. To provide guaranteed QoS for Internet applications researchers are facing challenges to develop performance evaluation techniques to device novel efficient mechanisms to control the congestion caused by increasing Internet traffic. This paper provides an overview of various approaches to congestion avoidance and congestion control of Internet traffic. It emphasizes mainly on the active queue management (AQM) scheme for congestion control at routers. The analysis will specifically focus on the analysis of a threshold based queue with bursty external traffic modeled by continous time Markov modulated Poisson process (CT-MMPP). Numerical experiments have been carried out to show the impact of thresholds on various performance metrics.
Frog virus 3 requires RNA polymerase II for its replication

The involvement of host cell RNA polymerase II in the replication of frog virus 3 (FV 3) was examined in alpha-amanitin-sensitive or -resistant Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells in the presence and absence of alpha-amanitin. In the presence of alpha-amanitin, FV 3 replicated normally in resistant CHO cells but failed to do so in sensitive CHO cells. Synthesis of virus-specific RNAs and proteins was inhibited in sensitive cells infected in the presence of alpha-amanitin, but in alpha-amanitin-resistant cells, as expected, virus-specific protein synthesis and, by implication, virus-specific RNA synthesis were not affected by the presence of the drug. Inhibition of FV 3 replication was maximum when alpha-amanitin was added to sensitive CHO cells before virus adsorption, but the drug had no effect on virus replication if added after the adsorption. These data indicate that host RNA polymerase II was required for early transcription of the FV 3 genome and confirm a nuclear requirement for FV 3 RNA synthesis (R. Goorha et al., Virology 82:34-52, 1978).
The influence of the pattern of mandibular invasion on recurrence and survival in oral squamous cell carcinoma

Controversy exists over the predictive value of the presence and pattern of tumor invasion of the mandible in oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). Many authors have questioned increasing the classification of small tumors to T4 on the basis of mandibular invasion alone. There are little data on the influence of the pattern of invasion on prognosis.
Efficient Floater Portfolio Construction in a Rising Interest Rate Regime

In this article, we have investigated risk factor exposures such as size, the value, low risk, and momentum in the universe of 2,588 US dollar denominated investment grade floaters inclusive of rated structured products and plain-vanilla corporate bonds and developed the market-friendly trading policies in a rising interest rate environment. To the best of our understanding, this paper is the first risk factor approach to develop the floater investment strategy. on the topics of dynamic asset allocation, implied volatilities, volatility entropy indicators within the framework of portfolio management, various topics of hedge funds, the securitized commercial mortgage loan products and the embedded implications to the cross-border tax planning issues.
Green Innovation, Managerial Concern and Firm Performance: An Empirical Study

Extant literature, while often suggesting a positive link between green innovation and firm performance, is inconclusive. Moreover, the possibly moderating role of management has not been sufficiently considered. Using a unique dataset sampling 188 manufacturing firms in China, we examine how managerial concern (for green issues) moderates the relationship between green innovation and firm performance. We find that green process innovation and green product innovation both significantly (positively) predict firm performance, when not considering managerial concern for the environment. Once managerial concern is included, we observe that it compounds the positive effect of green process innovation on firm performance – but not product innovation, which no longer explains significant unique variance in firm performance. The findings hold various implications for future research and business policy. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment
An enhanced adaptive re-clustering protocol in wireless sensor network

Wireless sensor networks are composed of a large number of sensor nodes with limited energy resources. One critical issue in wireless sensor networks is how to gather sensed information in an energy efficient way since the energy is limited. The clustering algorithm is a technique used to reduce energy consumption. It can improve the scalability and lifetime of wireless sensor network. In this paper we propose a enhance adaptive re-clustering protocol (EARP) for wireless sensor network. In EARP the cluster heads and next heads are elected based on residual energy of each node, transfer power, sleep and awake scheme and the average energy of each cluster. The simulation results show that EARP achieves longer lifetime and more data messages transmissions than current important clustering protocol in wireless sensor networks.
Sparsity constrained born inversion for breast cancer detection

Ultrasound has been successfully used for detecting and characterizing small breast lesions. To improve the image quality, an imaging method known as Born inversion (BI) in combination with compressive sensing (CS) theory has been studied. BI is an iterative method which is simple and computationally efficient. However, due to the ill-posedness of the inverse problem, the resulting image will diverge from the correct solution after several iterations. In this work, we use CS ideas to (1) regularize the inversion process and (2) reduce the number of unknowns by restricting the solution of the BI method to be sparse in a wavelet domain. The sparse BI method estimates a contrast function by minimizing a cost functional given by the mean square error between the measured and modeled data. To regularize the inverse problem and to include sparseness, an extra penalty term is added to this cost functional. This penalty term defines the set of coefficients of the estimated image in the wavelet transform domain whose L0-norm is minimal. A solution for the sparse BI method is found by using an iterative algorithm, which at each iteration first estimates a contrast function image using the conjugate gradient solution, then computes the wavelet transform of the estimated image and finally selects the wavelets with the largest coefficients. The sparse BI method has been tested successfully on noise-free and noisy synthetic data set representing a tomographic scan of a cancerous breast. Experimental results show that the sparse Born inversion method remains convergent as the number of iterations increases, in comparison to conventional BI method.