Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DOA estimation for long-distance underwater acoustic sources based on signal self-nulling

The direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation for the long-distance underwater acoustic sources usually suffers from low levels of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and insufficient snapshot data. Therefore, a novel signal self-nulling based DOA estimation algorithm is proposed. First, assume that the angular sector, where the desired signal is located, is known. Then, the beampattern of the minimum variance distortionless response beamformer in this angular sector is circularly mapped onto a unit circle. Finally, the pseudo spatial spectrum is constructed by integrating the circular mapping beampattern over the whole circle. Computer simulations show that the proposed DOA estimation algorithm can produce a sharper spectrum peak around the true DOA and therefore, achieve better DOA estimation precision with low levels of SNRs and small snapshot numbers. The underwater experiment also demonstrates the superiority of the proposed DOA estimation algorithm over other existing methods for the long-distance underwater acoustic sources.
The Scrutinized-Firm Effect, Portfolio Rebalancing, Stock Return Seasonality, and the Pervasiveness of the January Effect in Canada

This article examines whether seasonality is present in the excess returns of low risk Canadian firms in safe industries for a sample of firms that are highly scrutinized and visible and uses such tests as the foundation to empirically test competing explanations of stock market seasonality, namely, the tax-loss selling hypothesis and the gamesmanship hypothesis. The tests cover the period 1980 to 1998. For a sample of highly scrutinized and visible firms strong seasonality in excess returns is reported. However, the firms in our sample have unusually low excess returns in January and returns adjust upwards over the remainder of the year. The results hold even after we control for various risk differences among the stocks of our sample. Further, this article’s findings imply that the January effect is not as pervasive across risk classes and industry sectors as earlier studies using aggregate data have shown it to be. The disaggregated data of this study provide evidence in support of the gamesmanship hypothesis, but not the tax-loss selling hypothesis. Whenever a January effect is observed, the last quarter of the year tends to be weak for those companies in our sample that experienced a strong January. The opposite is true when a January effect is not evident, as the gamesmanship hypothesis would predict.
A non-isolated high step-up DC-DC converter with soft switching using coupled inductor

Photovoltaics are important kinds of renewable energies. In this paper a new high step-up DC-DC converter is proposed based on coupled inductor as a voltage booster. The secondary side of coupled inductor is connected to the switches to increase voltage gain and improve soft switching operation. Due to Special structure of the converter, smaller diodes and capacitors can be used. The operation modes of proposed converter are discussed, the voltage gain of converter is calculated and required conditions for soft switching is presented. Then a modified voltage gain is proposed which is applicable in a wide switching frequency range, up to resonant frequency and also is applicable to a wide range of recent proposed converters. The modified Voltage gain is used to demonstrate the dependency of different parameters on the voltage gain, such as capacitor, leakage inductance, duty cycle and switching frequency. Simulation results are presented to validate the characteristics of the proposed converter and finally the main features of the converter is reviewed in conclusion.
Outcomes of vertebroplasty compared with kyphoplasty: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background and purpose Many studies demonstrate that both kyphoplasty and vertebroplasty are superior to conservative therapy in the treatment of osteoporotic vertebral body compression fractures. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies comparing the outcomes of vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty, which included prospective non-randomized, retrospective comparative, and randomized studies. Materials and methods We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Web of Science databases for studies of kyphoplasty versus vertebroplasty from 1 January 1990 to 30 November 2014 and compared the following outcomes: procedure characteristics, pain and disability improvement, complications and anatomic outcomes. A subgroup analysis was performed comparing pain outcomes based on the risk of bias. Results 29 studies enrolling 2838 patients (1384 kyphoplasty and 1454 vertebroplasty) were included. 16 prospective non-randomized studies, 10 retrospective comparative studies, and 3 randomized controlled studies were included. No significant differences were found in mean pain scores between the two groups postoperatively (2.9±1.5 kyphoplasty vs 2.9±1.7 vertebroplasty, p=0.39) and at 12 months (2.7±1.8 kyphoplasty vs 3.2±1.8 vertebroplasty, p=0.64). No significant differences were found in disability postoperatively (34.7±7.1 kyphoplasty group vs 36.3±7.8 vertebroplasty group, p=0.74) or at 12 months (28.3±16 kyphoplasty group vs 29.6±13.9 vertebroplasty group, p=0.70). Kyphoplasty was associated with lower odds of new fractures (p=0.06), less extraosseous cement leakage (p<0.01), and greater reduction in kyphotic angle (p<0.01). Conclusions No significant difference was found between vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty in short- and long-term pain and disability outcomes. Further studies are needed to better determine if any particular subgroups of patients would benefit more from vertebroplasty or kyphoplasty in the treatment of vertebral body compression fractures.
Energetics of aliphatic deletions in protein cores

Although core residues can sometimes be replaced by shorter ones without introducing significant changes in protein structure, the energetic consequences are typically large and destabilizing. Many efforts have been devoted to understand and predict changes in stability from analysis of the environment of mutated residues, but the relationships proposed for individual proteins have often failed to describe additional data. We report here 17 apoflavodoxin large‐to‐small mutations that cause overall protein destabilizations of 0.6–3.9 kcal.mol−1. By comparing two‐state urea and three‐state thermal unfolding data, the overall destabilizations observed are partitioned into effects on the N‐to‐I and on the I‐to‐U equilibria. In all cases, the equilibrium intermediate exerts a “buffering” effect that reduces the impact of the overall destabilization on the N‐to‐I equilibrium. The performance of several structure‐energetics relationships, proposed to explain the energetics of hydrophobic shortening mutations, has been evaluated by using an apoflavodoxin data set consisting of 14 mutations involving branching‐conservative aliphatic side‐chain shortenings and a larger data set, including similar mutations implemented in seven model proteins. Our analysis shows that the stability changes observed for any of the different types of mutations (LA, IA, IV, and VA) in either data set are best explained by a combination of differential hydrophobicity and of the calculated volume of the modeled cavity (as previously observed for LA and IA mutations in lysozyme T4). In contrast, sequence conservation within the flavodoxin family, which is a good predictor for charge‐reversal stabilizing mutations, does not perform so well for aliphatic shortening ones.
Myopia of Selection: Does Organizational Adaptation Limit the Efficacy of Population Selection?

This paper develops and tests a model of the effectiveness of selection processes in eliminating less fit organizations from a population when organizations are undergoing adaptive change. Stable organizational traits, such as a search strategy or routine, do not imply that an organization's performance will remain stable over time or that cross-sectional differences in performance will persist. These properties create the possibility that population-level selection processes will be inefficient in that organizations with potentially superior long-run performance will be selected out. We theorize that organizational-level adaptation often results in fluctuations in current performance across time. These fluctuations may attenuate the degree to which current performance differences among organizations are indicative of future performance. As a consequence, search strategies that generate systematically different performance trajectories, even if they share a common long-run outcome, will generate differing survival rates. These ideas are explored using a formal simulation model employing the framework of NK performance landscapes. Our central finding is that selection may be systematically prone to errors and that these selection errors are endogenous to, and differ markedly across, firms' search strategies.
Expression of estrogen receptor (ER-alpha and ER-beta) mRNA in human prostate cancer.

OBJECTIVE The distribution of the two estrogen receptors (ER-alpha, ER-beta) in human prostate tissue have not been fully clarified, so the present study investigated the mRNA expression of the receptors to explain the broad spectrum of estrogen activity in prostate cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS Four human prostate cancer cell lines (LNCap, JCA-1, DU-145 and PC-3) and 24 pairs of untreated prostate cancer tissue and noncancerous tissue from resected prostate glands were subjected to RT-PCR testing. RESULTS Both LNCap and JCA-1 expressed the mRNA of both receptors, but DU-145 and PC-3 only expressed ER-beta mRNA. In the human prostate tissue samples, 20 of the 24 prostate cancer tissues expressed ER-alpha, and 23 of the 24 expressed ER-beta. Of the 24 noncancer tissues, 14 expressed ER-alpha mRNA and 17 expressed ER-beta mRNA. The incidence of ER-beta mRNA expression between the paired cancer and noncancer tissues was statistically significantly different (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS A higher incidence of ER-beta mRNA expression in untreated prostate cancer tissues was observed. Furthermore, the absence of ER-alpha mRNA and the presence of ER-beta mRNA expression in hormone-independent and/or untreated prostate cancer cells leads to a tentative speculation of the mechanism of the hormone refractory feature of prostate cancer.
Specific central nervous system recruitment of HLA‐G+ regulatory T cells in multiple sclerosis

We have recently described a novel population of natural regulatory T cells (Treg) that are characterized by the expression of HLA‐G and may be found at sites of tissue inflammation (HLA‐Gpos Treg). Here we studied the role of these cells in multiple sclerosis (MS), a prototypic autoimmune inflammatory disorder of the central nervous system (CNS).
Evaluation of T-lymphocytes in esophageal mucosal biopsies.

We previously demonstrated that in esophageal mucosal biopsies, intraepithelial cells with irregular nuclear contours (CINC) as well as mononuclear cells with round nuclei are T-lymphocytes and we suggested that they may be an independent marker of esophagitis. To investigate this hypothesis, we evaluated Hematoxylin and eosin-stained biopsy specimens from 201 consecutive patients (115 female, 86 male; mean age: 52 years) that showed either no accepted features of esophagitis (n = 122) or changes typical of esophageal reflux (n = 79). The number of intraepithelial CINC and mononuclear cells in the most densely populated high power field were counted. Twenty-two of these biopsies were also stained with UCHL-1 (T-lymphocyte marker) and L-26 (B-lymphocyte marker). All medical records were reviewed to determine clinical and endoscopic findings of esophagitis, which were then compared with the histologic results for correlations. The immunohistochemical results confirmed that the majority (> 95%) of CINC and mononuclear cells were T-lymphocytes, and the sum of CINC and mononuclear cells represents best the number of T-lymphocytes. The number of T-lymphocytes was significantly correlated with that of eosinophils (R = 0.24, P = 0.0008) but not with neutrophils (R = 0.069, P = 0.33). They were greater in number, although not significantly so, in the specimens with histologic evidence of esophagitis than those without (12.7 +/- 8.9 versus 11.3 +/- 7.7, P = 0.23). (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Lack of association of serotonin-2A receptor gene polymorphism (T102C) with suicidal ideation and suicide.

Serotonergic dysfunction has been implicated in the pathophysiology of affective disorders and suicidality. Especially the density of the 5-HT2A receptor was claimed as being increased in suicidality, proposed as an adaptive upregulation due to reduced serotonergic transmission. Recent studies have shown an association of allele C of the 5-HT2A-T102C polymorphism with suicidal ideation in patients with major depression. The purpose of this study was to test whether this proposed marker indicates susceptibility not only to suicidal ideation in depressed patients but also to suicidality as a syndrome. We investigated the 5-HT2A-T102C polymorphism in 131 suicide victims with unknown underlying psychiatric diagnoses, 84 patients with major depression with or without suicidal ideation, and 125 healthy controls. We were unable to find any association of genotype or allele frequencies to major depression, suicidal ideation, or suicide as a syndrome. Thus, our results suggest that this polymorphism may not commonly be involved in the susceptibility to suicidality. Am. J. Med. Genet. (Neuropsychiatr. Genet.) 96:831-835, 2000.
Reconfigurable terahertz plasmonics and metamaterials using graphene

We discuss recent work on graphene-based reconfigurable terahertz metamaterials. In particular two approaches towards constructing reconfigurable metamaterials are analyzed and compared, namely: (i) graphene only plasmonic structures, and (ii) graphene-metal hybrid metamaterials. Whereas in the first type of structures graphene has two simultaneous roles: (a) as a plasmonic medium, therefore defining the terahertz structural response of the metamaterial, and (b) as a reconfigurable medium, thus inducing changes in the metamaterial terahertz response, in the second type of structures the terahertz response is set primarily by the metallic pattern and graphene has just the role of constituting a reconfigurable medium. It is observed that whereas relaxation time is the most important parameter affecting the quality of the terahertz response in plasmonic metamaterials, for the analyzed graphene-metal hybrid metamaterial geometries, the conductivity swing in graphene is the main parameter affecting the terahertz response of the device.
Binding of prostate-specific membrane antigen to dendritic cells: a critical step in vaccine preparation.

BACKGROUND AIMS Dendritic cell (DC)-based vaccines hold promise as a safe therapy for prostate cancer (PCa), and prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) fulfils the requirements for a tumor-associated antigen (TAA) to be clinically effective. We evaluated the actual binding of selected HLA-A2-restricted PSMA peptides to HLA class I molecules on ex vivo-generated mature (m) DC. METHODS mDC were generated from peripheral monocytes of HLA-A2 normal donors. The PSMA peptides PSMA(711) (ALFDIESKV), PSMA(27) (VLAGGFFLL) and PSMA(663) (MMNDQLMFL) were selected based on computer-assisted prediction programs, documented CTL epitope activity or previous use in clinical trials. The model cell line T2 and the clinical grade (CD83+ CCR7+) mDC were pulsed with fluorescein (FL)-conjugated peptides and an anti-HLA-A2 monoclonal antibody (MAb) and analyzed. RESULTS Flow cytometry analysis showed best binding efficiency to be by PSMA(27.) Confocal microscopy confirmed coincident fluorescence emission of HLA-A2 MAb and FL-PSMA(27). Virtual co-localization of PSMA(27) and HLA class I molecules was supported further by fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) analysis. The clinical relevance of our findings has to be validated in vivo. CONCLUSIONS The present report is the first to score selected PSMA peptides based on their detectable binding to mDC. It identifies PSMA(27) as the choice candidate among other PSMA peptides and it should be included in developing DC vaccine protocols for HLA-A2 PCa patients.
Insulin‐like growth factor I: Action and receptor characterization in human prostate cancer cell lines

The role of insulin‐like growth factor I (IGF‐I) in the growth and development of prostate cancer was studied using established human prostate cancer cell lines. Under steroid and growth factor‐free culture conditions, IGF‐I significantly stimulated the androgen‐independent cell lines PC‐3 and DU‐145 to incorporate [3H]thymidine into DNA, while the androgen‐dependent cell line, LNCaP, was not affected. However, in the presence of dihydrotestosterone (DHT), DNA synthesis of LNCaP cells was stimulated by IGF‐1 in a dose‐dependent manner. None of the cell lines tested secreted an immunoreactive level of IGF‐I into their conditioned medium. Characterization of receptors by ligand binding assays revealed that all prostate cancer cell lines tested express specific binding sites for IGF‐I with similar dissociation constants (0.23–0.39 nM). Crosslinking studies supported the suggestion that 1251‐IGF‐I was bound to a receptor on these cells. The IGF‐I receptor concentrations of androgen‐independent cell lines were significantly higher than those of the androgen‐dependent cell line. Androgen appeared to affect neither the expression of IGF‐1 receptors nor the secretion of IGF‐I. The results suggest that IGF‐I may play an important role in stimulating the growth and progression of prostate cancer. © 1993 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Role of Interionic Processes in the Efficiency and Operation of Erbium-Doped Fluoride Fiber Lasers

Great increase in the output power of erbium-doped fluoride fiber lasers has recently been achieved, but the predicted high slope efficiency was not observed. We conduct an investigation into the possible underlying reasons, based on the newly available spectroscopic data, and our measurements on the running fiber laser are compared against computer simulation. The results indicate that interionic processes in the present fibers are much weaker than previously expected and only allow for an operation with 15-30% efficiency where the excited-state absorption is shown to have an important contribution.
Progress and Prospects for the Development of Computer-Generated Actors for Military Simulation: Part 1-Introduction and Background

The development of computer-generated synthetic environments, also calleddistributed virtual environments, for military simulation relies heavily upon computer-generated actors (CGAs) to provide accurate behaviors at reasonable cost so that the synthetic environments are useful, affordable, complex, and realistic. Unfortunately, the pace of synthetic environment development and the level of desired CGA performance continue to rise at a much faster rate than CGA capability improvements. This insatiable demand for realism in CGAs for synthetic environments arises from the growing understanding of the significant role that modeling and simulation can play in a variety of venues. These uses include training, analysis, procurement decisions, mission rehearsal, doctrine development, force-level and task-level training, information assurance, cyberwarfare, force structure analysis, sustainability analysis, life cycle costs analysis, material management, infrastructure analysis, and many others. In these and other uses of military synthetic environments, computer-generated actors play a central role because they have the potential to increase the realism of the environment while also reducing the cost of operating the environment. The progress made in addressing the technical challenges that must be overcome to realize effective and realistic CGAs for military simulation environments and the technical areas that should be the focus of future work are the subject of this series of papers, which survey the technologies and progress made in the construction and use of CGAs. In this, the first installment in the series of three papers, we introduce the topic of computer-generated actors and issues related to their performance and fidelity and other background information for this research area as related to military simulation. We also discuss CGA reasoning system techniques and architectures.
Adaptation of Lactobacillus plantarum IMDO 130201, a Wheat Sourdough Isolate, to Growth in Wheat Sourdough Simulation Medium at Different pH Values through Differential Gene Expression

ABSTRACT Sourdough is a very competitive and challenging environment for microorganisms. Usually, a stable microbiota composed of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and yeasts dominates this ecosystem. Although sourdough is rich in carbohydrates, thus providing an ideal environment for microorganisms to grow, its low pH presents a particular challenge. The nature of the adaptation to this low pH was investigated for Lactobacillus plantarum IMDO 130201, an isolate from a laboratory wheat sourdough fermentation. Batch fermentations were carried out in wheat sourdough simulation medium, and total RNA was isolated from mid-exponential-growth-phase cultures, followed by differential gene expression analysis using a LAB functional gene microarray. At low pH values, an increased expression of genes involved in peptide and amino acid metabolism was found as well as that of genes involved in plantaricin production and lipoteichoic acid biosynthesis. The results highlight cellular mechanisms that allow L. plantarum to function at a low environmental pH.
A Parallel and Distributed Analysis Pipeline for Performance Tree Evaluation

Performance Trees are a unifying framework for the specification of performance queries involving measures and requirements. This paper describes an evaluation environment for Performance Trees comprising a client-side Performance Query Editor, incorporated as a module of the PIPE2 Petri net tool, and a cluster-based server-side evaluation engine. The latter combines the capabilities of a number of parallel and distributed analysis tools.
Nonsingular terminal sliding mode control of uncertain two-link flexible manipulators

This paper proposes a nonsingular terminal sliding mode control for a two-link flexible manipulator. The flexible robotic system is decomposed into an input-output subsystem and an internal subsystem. A novel inverse dynamics nonsingular terminal sliding mode controller is designed to make the input-output subsystem converge to its equilibrium point in finite time. In order to achieve good performance of zero dynamics of the system, six parameters of the controller are optimized by a genetic algorithm. Furthermore, a bounded convergence region is obtained using Lyapunov stability theory to guarantee the stability of the zero dynamic subsystem with uncertain parameters, which leads to asymptotical stability of the whole flexible manipulator system. Simulation results are presented to validate the design.