Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Concatenated space-time coding

A serially concatenated space-time encoder is proposed that can utilize the high capacities available for large-dimensional multiple-transmitter, multiple-receiver wireless systems under fading conditions. For sufficiently long block lengths, it satisfies the code state complexity lower bounds and the rank criterion required for maximal diversity. A 3-stage iterative decoding structure, treating the modulator and channel stages as an additional encoder in serial concatenation, is presented. Its decoding complexity is non-exponential in the number of antennas or the transmission bit rate and it also provides a performance gain compared to the traditional, 2-stage exponential-complexity decoding.
Constructive Empiricism: Epistemology and the Philosophy of Science

Acknowledgements Arguments Concerning Constructive Empiricism Epistemic Voluntarism: Rationality, Inference and Empiricism Against Epistemic Voluntarism: Musgrave, Modality and Mathematics On the Nature and Norms of Acceptance and Belief Conclusion: What is this Thing Called 'Constructive Empiricism'? Endnotes References Index
Ropivacaine: Is it a good choice for spinal anesthesia?

457 Ropivacaine, a long-acting amide local anesthetic agent, is a pure S(−) enantiomer of propivacaine. It has reduced potential for cardiotoxicity and neurotoxicity and is thus safer than the racemic preparation, bupivacaine. [1] Ropivacaine has lower lipid solubility than bupivacaine, which is responsible for its lower penetration into myelinated motor fibers and thus lesser motor blockade with greater sensorymotor differentiation. [1]
A software-defined firewall bypass for congestion offloading

With increasing network bandwidths, stateful firewalls are likely to become communication bottlenecks in networks. To mitigate this problem, we propose to bypass selected traffic around firewalls using software-defined networking (SDN). We discuss various approaches and elaborate the following concept. A controller samples outgoing packets at the firewall using sFlow to detect congestion. In case of congestion, flows already admitted by the firewall are identified and offloaded at an appropriate rate by installing flow-specific bypass rules on an OpenFlow-capable switch. We suggest two different algorithms to select appropriate flows and provide a proof-of-concept implementation in a network testbed using the Ryu controller framework. Experimental results illustrate the system behavior at different load levels with and without offloading. We provide an analytical system model to predict the offloading performance for other system parameters than experimentally evaluated and validate the model with our experimental results. A parameter study suggests that the offloaded traffic rate may be a multiple of the firewall's capacity if the switch supports sufficient flow rules or is able to match for TCP flags.
Holiday Ornament-Related Injuries in Children

Objectives: Holiday ornament injuries in children have not been well documented in the medical literature. Our aim was to investigate the patterns of injuries sustained from these ornaments as a first measure toward prevention. Methods: This was a retrospective cohort analysis of all patients examined in an urban pediatric emergency department over a 13-year period ending in March 2008 for holiday ornament-related injuries. Cases were identified using a computer-assisted text query followed by a manual chart review. Data collected from each chart included the child's age, sex, injury characteristics, physical examination findings, radiographic imaging, interventions, and disposition. To analyze injury rates over the years, we used a multiplicative Poisson model allowing varying exposures. Results: Over the study period, we identified 76 eligible patients. The median age was 2 years (interquartile range, 1.17-3.3 years); 44.7% were female. Forty-three of the 76 cases (53.9%) involved ingestions: 35 were of holiday ornaments, and 8 were of light bulbs. All but one of these ornaments were made of glass. In 28%, there was an associated bleed either from the mouth or as a delayed gastrointestinal bleed. Other patients experienced lacerations (27.6%), eye injuries (5.1%), and minor electrocution injury (2.5%). Imaging was performed in 85%. A subspecialty consult was obtained in 23%, primarily addressing a foreign body ingestion or removal after skin exploration. The incidence rate has not changed over the years. Conclusions: Holiday ornament-related injuries primarily involve foreign body ingestions and glass-related injuries. Over half of the injuries involved small light bulbs and ornaments made of glass placed at the level a toddler can reach. Pediatricians are advised to discuss these points with families during holiday season.
Enhanced microwave‐assisted method for on‐bead disulfide bond formation: Synthesis of α‐conotoxin MII

A novel enhanced microwave‐assisted disulfide bridge formation method has been developed. To optimize the synthesis of the biologically important bicyclic peptide α‐conotoxin MII (α‐CtxMII), several cyclization methods have been tested and are discussed herein. By using m.w. ‐assisted heating, we achieved high yields for the first loop cyclization of α‐CtxMII on‐bead. This method has the advantage of avoiding intermolecular by‐products during the cyclization step. Furthermore, the method gives higher yields compared with the common on‐bead cyclization methods. The second disulfide bridge of α‐CtxMII was formed using a simple oxidation method after the cleavage of the intermediate monocyclic peptide from the resin. This method has the potential to be efficient for the synthesis of other disulfide rich biologically important peptides. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Biopolymers (Pept Sci) 92: 23–34, 2009.
Mosaicism of the CAG repeat sequence in the Huntington disease gene in a pair of monozygotic twins

We report on a pair of monozygotic twins belonging to a family segregating Huntington disease (HD). In routine DNA analysis of blood cells, they displayed three alleles of the CAG repeat sequence in the HD gene. Two different cell lines, carrying the normal allele together with either an expanded allele with 47 CAGs or an intermediate allele with 37 CAGs, were detected in blood and buccal epithelium from both twins. To our knowledge, this is the first case described of HD gene CAG repeat length mosaicism in blood cells. Haplotype analysis established that the 37 CAG allele most likely arose by contraction of the maternal 47 CAG allele. The contraction must have taken place postzygotically, possibly at a very early stage of development, and probably before separation of the twins. One of the twins has presented symptoms of HD for 4 years; his skin fibroblasts and hair roots carried only the cell line with the 47 CAG repeat allele. The other twin, who is without symptoms at present, displayed mosaicism in skin fibroblasts and hair roots. If the proportion of the two cell lines in the brain of each twin resembles that of their hair roots (another tissue originating from the ectoderm), the mosaicism in the unaffected twin would mean that only a part of his brain cells carried the expanded allele, which could explain why he, in contrast to his brother, has no symptoms at this time. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Rac1 and Cdc42 Have Different Roles in Candida albicans Development

ABSTRACT We investigated the role of the highly conserved G protein Rac1 in the opportunistic pathogen Candida albicans. We identified and disrupted RAC1 and show here that, in contrast to CDC42, it is not necessary for viability or serum-induced hyphal growth but is essential for filamentous growth when cells are embedded in a matrix. Rac1 is localized to the plasma membrane, yet its distribution is more homogenous than that of Cdc42, with no enrichment at the tips of either buds or hyphae. In addition, fluorescence recovery after photobleaching results indicate that Rac1 and Cdc42 have different dynamics at the membrane. Furthermore, overexpression of Rac1 does not complement Cdc42 function, and conversely, overexpression of Cdc42 does not complement Rac1 function. Thus, Rac1 and Cdc42, although highly similar to one another, have different roles in C. albicans development.
The Role of Working Memory in the Language-Learning Process of Children with Cochlear Implants

In some cases, language acquisition of children with a cochlear implant is observed as being suboptimal. Recent models of cognitive psychology assume that a crucial factor involved may be a functional impairment of the working memory. The best-known model of working memory is that by Baddeley et al. (1998). It incorporates two modality-specific subsystems for phonological and visual information processing as well as what is called an episodic buffer for information processing that transcends different modalities, all controlled by the central executive, which chiefly serves to facilitate attention control. We were interested in only one of these subsystems — the phonological loop, as this is most important for hearing. The idea is that speech input enters the phonological store where it is retained for around two seconds for analysis and processing before it is then, as a phonological representation of the new word, converted into a ‘new entry’, so to speak, that is registered in the memory. Where auditory input occurs over a lengthier period of time, the analysis of its phonological characteristics may be extended by a process of internal speech and repetition, thus also resulting in processing and retention. This mechanism is also referred to as subvocal rehearsal. There is a new explanatory approach that departs from what are termed ‘demographic factors’ and seeks causes in non-sensory aspects, i.e. not in ‘hearing earlier’, ‘hearing better’, or ‘hearing for longer’, but in the processing — and processing quality — of linguistic input by the child as they learn language.
Binning Strategy for Hierarchical Bitmap Indices with Large Scale Domain Hierarchy

As bitmap indices are useful for OLAP queries over lowcardinality data columns, they are frequently used in data warehouses. In many data warehouse applications, the domain of a column tends to be hierarchical, such as categorical data and geographical data. When the domain of a column is hierarchical in nature, the performance of query processing can be improved significantly by leveraging hierarchically organized bitmap indices. However, creating bitmaps for all possible distinct nodes of the large scale hierarchy is not feasible, due to the large amount of space overhead. Thus, in this paper, we introduce the binning strategy, HBIN, which aims to reduce the storage space overheads of hierarchical bitmap indices. The experiment results show that the proposed technique provides significant performance gains over other alternative solutions to this problem.
University of Groningen Production of functionally active Penicillium chrysogenum isopenicillin N synthase in the yeast

Background: β-Lactams like penicillin and cephalosporin are among the oldest known antibiotics used against bacterial infections. Industrially, penicillin is produced by the filamentous fungus Penicillium chrysogenum. Our goal is to introduce the entire penicillin biosynthesis pathway into the methylotrophic yeast Hansenula polymorpha. Yeast species have the advantage of being versatile, easy to handle and cultivate, and possess superior fermentation properties relative to filamentous fungi. One of the fundamental challenges is to produce functionally active enzyme in H. polymorpha. Results: The P. chrysogenum pcbC gene encoding isopenicillin N synthase (IPNS) was successfully expressed in H. polymorpha, but the protein produced was unstable and inactive when the host was grown at its optimal growth temperature (37°C). Heterologously produced IPNS protein levels were enhanced when the cultivation temperature was lowered to either 25°C or 30°C. Furthermore, IPNS produced at these lower cultivation temperatures was functionally active. Localization experiments demonstrated that, like in P. chrysogenum, in H. polymorpha IPNS is located in the cytosol. Conclusion: In P. chrysogenum, the enzymes involved in penicillin production are compartmentalized in the cytosol and in microbodies. In this study, we focus on the cytosolic enzyme IPNS. Our data show that high amounts of functionally active IPNS enzyme can be produced in the heterologous host during cultivation at 25°C, the optimal growth temperature for P. chrysogenum. This is a new step forward in the metabolic reprogramming of H. polymorpha to produce penicillin. Background β-lactam antibiotics like penicillins and cephalosporins belong to one of the largest-selling classes of drugs worldwide with a production of forty-five thousand tons in the year 2000 [1]. Penicillins and cephalosporins are produced by the filamentous fungi Penicillium chrysogenum and Acremonium chrysogenum, respectively, as well as some filamentous bacteria. These antibiotics possess as common structural motif the β-lactam ring [2]. Not surprisingly, the penicillin and cephalosporin biosynthetic Published: 19 March 2008 BMC Biotechnology 2008, 8:29 doi:10.1186/1472-6750-8-29 Received: 25 October 2007 Accepted: 19 March 2008 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral. com/1472-6750/8/29 © 2008 Gidijala et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. BMC Biotechnology 2008, 8:29 http://www.biomedcentral. com/1472-6750/8/29
Basic to applied research: the benefits of audio-visual speech perception research in teaching foreign languages

Traditionally, second language (L2) instruction has emphasised auditory-based instruction methods. However, this approach is restrictive in the sense that speech perception by humans is not just an auditory phenomenon but a multimodal one, and specifically, a visual one as well. In the past decade, experimental studies have shown that the audio-visual aspects of speech perception have facilitative effects in L2 acquisition. This article has four theoretical and practical aims: (1) to synthesise the existing evidence from audio-visual speech perception (AVSP) in the context of L2 acquisition; (2) to demonstrate how L1–L2 orthographic matching can be used in L2 instruction; (3) to present ideas on how AVSP research can profitably be used in L2 teaching settings; and (4) to argue for the need for further applied and interdisciplinary research into the issues highlighted here.
Adaptive fuzzy output feedback dynamic surface sliding mode control for a nonlinear dynamic system

Friction and deadzone nonlinearities in the nonlinear dynamic systems act often the main obstacles for higher motion control. It is difficult to achieve effective motion compensation for these types of nonlinearities by traditional linear control methodology without the aid of a proper estimation scheme on nonlinearity. Here, we present an adaptive fuzzy dynamic surface control scheme combined with state and nonlinearity observer and sliding mode control to estimate immeasurable state and compensate undesirable uncertainty on motion control for a strict output feedback nonlinear dynamic system. The adaptive laws of the fuzzy, friction and deadzone observer are derived from the recursive steps of the dynamic surface control. The boundedness and convergence of the closed-loop system are guaranteed by a Lyapunov stability analysis. The performance of the proposed control scheme is verified through simulation and experiment on the robot manipulator.
Minoration de la hauteur de Néron-Tate pour les points et les sous-variétés : variations sur le problème de Lehmer

Cette these est consacree aux problemes de minorations de hauteur normalisee des points et des sous-varietes non de torsion. Le chapitre 1 est un chapitre de rappels, les autres sont originaux. On prouve au chapitre 2 un resultat de densite de petits points. Ceci nous permet d'obtenir, pour les sous-varietes de varietes abeliennes de type C.M. , une minoration en fonction du degre de la sous-variete, optimale aux puissances de log du degre pres. On montre en toute generalite qu'une ``bonne minoration'' de la hauteur des points entraine une minoration analogue de la hauteur des sous-varietes. Ceci nous permet en particulier de prouver que, sur les varietes abeliennes, le probleme de Lehmer pour les points est equivalent au probleme de Lehmer pour les sous-varietes. Le chapitre 3 est un raffinement du precedent dans le cas des hypersurfaces. La preuve, qui passe par l'introduction d'une fonction auxiliaire, suit le schema classique des preuves de transcendance. En utilisant l'inegalite des pentes, due a Bost, on retrouve ensuite au chapitre 4 le celebre resultat de Dobrowolski concernant le probleme originel de Lehmer sur la minoration de la hauteur des entiers algebriques. Le chapitre 5 etend un resultat de Amoroso et Zannier au cas des courbes elliptiques C.M. : on obtient une minoration du type Lehmer, mais ou le degre de l'extension engendree par le point P sur K est remplace par le degre de l'extension engendree par le point P sur la cloture abelienne de K. Ceci nous permet de simplifier la preuve d'un resultat de Viada. Enfin au chapitre 6, on fait le lien entre diverses conjectures relatives au probleme de Lehmer sur les varietes abeliennes.
The occurrence of adverse drug reactions reported for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medications in the pediatric population: a qualitative review of empirical studies

Background To review empirical studies of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) reported to be associated with the use of medications generally licensed for treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms in the pediatric population. Methods PubMed, Embase, and PsycINFO® databases were searched from origin until June 2011. Studies reporting ADRs from amphetamine derivates, atomoxetine, methylphenidate, and modafinil in children from birth to age 17 were included. Information about ADR reporting rates, age and gender of the child, type, and seriousness of ADRs, setting, study design, ADR assessors, authors, and funding sources were extracted. Results The review identified 43 studies reporting ADRs associated with medicines for treatment of ADHD in clinical studies covering approximately 7000 children, the majority of 6- to 12-year-old boys, and particularly in the United States of America (USA). The most frequently reported ADRs were decrease in appetite, gastrointestinal pain, and headache. There were wide variations in reported ADR occurrence between studies of similar design, setting, included population, and type of medication. Reported ADRs were primarily assessed by the children/their parents, and very few ADRs were rated as being serious. A large number of children dropped out of studies due to serious ADRs, and therefore, the actual number of serious ADRs from use of psychostimulants is probably higher. A large number of studies were conducted by the same groups of authors and sponsored by the pharmaceutical companies manufacturing the respective medications. Conclusion Reported ADRs from use of psychostimulants in children were found in clinical trials of short duration. Since ADHD medications are prescribed for long-term treatment, there is a need for long-term safety studies. The pharmaceutical companies should make all information about ADRs reported for these medications accessible to the public, and further studies are needed on the impact of the link between researchers and the manufacturers of the respective products.
Assessing the Effects of Demographic Characteristics on ICT and Indigenous Knowledge usage by Small Scale Farmers

Information and communication technologies (ICT) have been changing the way that actors like researchers, development agents, policy makers, and farmers share agricultural information and knowledge. The study investigated the effects of demographic characteristics on ICT and indigenous knowledge usage by small scale farmers from three (3) districts in Ghana. Data for the study were collected from both primary and secondary sources and analyzed using different quantitative and qualitative statistical procedures and methods. The study revealed that age has effect on agricultural indigenous knowledge required by small scale farmers. Also education has a significant effect of on the types of ICT tools and services used by small scale farmers and gender has no statistical significance effect of on the type of AIK practice by respondents.
Run-Length-Based Test Data Compression Techniques: How Far from Entropy and Power Bounds? - A Survey

The run length based coding schemes have been very effective for the test data compression in case of current generation SoCs with a large number of IP cores. The first part of paper presents a survey of the run length based codes. The data compression of any partially specified test data depends upon how the unspecified bits are filled with 1s and 0s. In the second part of the paper, the five different approaches for "don't care" bit filling based on nature of runs are proposed to predict the maximum compression based on entropy. Here the various run length based schemes are compared with maximum data compression limit based on entropy bounds. The actual compressions claimed by the authors are also compared. For various ISCAS circuits, it has been shown that when the X filling is done considering runs of zeros followed by one as well as runs of ones followed by zero (i.e., Extended FDR), it provides the maximum data compression. In third part, it has been shown that the average test power and peak power is minimum when the don't care bits are filled to make the long runs of 0s as well as 1s.
Unrequited value: The role of curiosity and individualised escape in value creation

In marketing, value is linked to products and services, and studied in known contexts from the perspective of customers and companies. This thesis draws attention to value creation through new fleeting offerings that are yet to be studied in marketing. These objects are presented here as 'branded installations'. These installations are unforeseen and offer experiences to people if they choose to interact with them. This study urges for the recognition of fleeting, interactive experiences offered to people and the impact they have on value for brands. This study, therefore, examines the value generated by branded installations. It offers an understanding of new experiences that lack context for consumers. Qualitative analysis establishes the need for curiosity in brand value creation. This thesis benefits from the theories of conceptual art and examines consumer experiences in unexplored contexts. The experiences led by branded installations are presented as highly-individualised escape: as ' secret' escape, 'accidental' escape from marketing, and opportunities of play and escape offered by branded installations. The marketers' perspective along with consumers' response have together led this thesis to present 'Unrequited Value' for brands as their attempts to shine through the clutter of marketing largely fails as consumers personalise their escape.