Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A quantitative protocol for dynamic measurements of protein interactions by Förster resonance energy transfer-sensitized fluorescence emission

Fluorescence detection of acceptor molecules sensitized by Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) is a powerful method to study protein interactions in living cells. The method requires correction for donor spectral bleed-through and acceptor cross-excitation as well as the correct normalization of signals to account for varying fluorophore concentrations and imaging parameters. In this paper, we review different methods for FRET signal normalization and then present a rigorous model for sensitized emission measurements, which is both intuitive to understand and practical to apply. The method is validated by comparison with the acceptor photobleaching and donor lifetime-imaging techniques in live cell samples containing EYFP and ECFP tandem constructs exhibiting known amounts of FRET. By varying the stoichiometry of interaction in a controlled fashion, we show that information on the fractions of interacting donors and acceptors can be recovered. Furthermore, the method is tested by performing measurements on different microscopy platforms in both widefield and confocal imaging modes to show that signals recovered under different imaging conditions are in quantitative agreement. Finally, the method is applied in the study of dynamic interactions in the cyclin–cdk family of proteins in live cells. By normalizing the obtained signals for both acceptor and donor concentrations and using a FRET exhibiting control construct for calibration, stoichiometric changes in these interactions could be visualized in real time. The paper is written to be of practical use to researchers interested in performing sensitized emission measurements. The correct interpretation of the retrieved signals in a biological context is emphasized, and guidelines are given for the practical application of the developed algorithms.
An algorithm for tuning microwave resonator filters using short circuit admittance parameters

An analytic technique for tuning microwave cross-coupled resonator filters is presented. The method employs the short circuit admittance parameters of the filter, found through measurement to derive the coupling coefficients of the structure and hence the coupling matrix. Because several elements of distortion are unaccounted for in the ideal coupling matrix model, an error vector is derived and the Y-parameters are adjusted using vector operations to provide more accurate results. With the coupling coefficients found, the filter's geometry can be accordingly adjusted and the process repeated until the filter is tuned. A numerical example is provided to illustrate the theory.
Watt-Level Ultrafast Fiber Laser Based on Weak Evanescent Interaction With Reduced Graphene Oxide

We propose a Watt-level, all-fiber, ultrafast Er/Yb-codoped double-clad fiber laser mode-locked by reduced graphene oxide (rGO) interacting with photonic crystal fiber (PCF) ultraweakly. The rGO solution is filled into the cladding holes of PCF, and after evaporation, the rGO flakes, contributing saturable absorption and high nonlinearity, interact with a light intensity of only 1/107 of that in the center of PCF. This ultraweakly interacting structure can enhance the thermal damage threshold and decrease the accumulated nonlinearity, which is proved to be an excellent choice for high-power mode-locked laser. By incorporating the saturable absorber into an Er/Yb-codoped fiber ring cavity, stable soliton laser with femtosecond duration is generated, and harmonic mode-locking is formed when increasing pump strength. The maximum average power of 1.14 W is obtained. To the best of our knowledge, this report is the highest power obtained directly from an all-fiber, graphene-mode-locked laser system operating with fundamental transverse mode. In addition, the experimental results demonstrate that our proposed structure is effective in generating high-power pulses when some other materials are used, including but not limited to graphene oxide, carbon nanotubes, topological insulator, or metal nanoparticles.
Fostering serendipity in online information systems

Serendipity, the process of making fortunate discoveries for which someone was not looking for, plays a critical role in leveraging creativity and innovation. In this paper we propose a framework for facilitating serendipity in web information systems. We focus on three main technological areas which use the World Wide Web as a space for information seeking and knowledge creation: search, browse (navigation) and recommender systems. We argue that there are five factors that, individually and jointly, facilitate serendipity: novelty (or unexpectedness); diversity; personalization; visualization; and social collaboration. The paper reviews methods and techniques for each factor in each of the three technological areas and argues for a research agenda that addresses them in an effort to foster surprising discoveries and creative insights in the online world.
Alarm calling in yellow-bellied marmots: II. The importance of direct fitness

Alarm calling in sciurid rodents is often explained by inclusive fitness benefits that callers accrue. Inclusive fitness arguments imply that indirect fitness plays an important role in the evolution and maintenance of alarm calling. A more parsimonious hypothesis is that animals alarm call to increase their direct fitness by warning their oVspring. Group-living animals are related to each other social group member by a coeYcient of relatedness, r, that theoretically ranges from 0-1.0. The sum of these pair-wise coeYcients, 'total r', reflects the magnitude of possible inclusive fitness benefits. The amount of variation in the rate of yellow-bellied marmot, Marmota flaviventris, alarm calling that was explained by direct parental care was compared with that variation explained by total r. After pups emerged, adult females with pups called more than other age/sex classes. Additionally, 42% of the variation in the rate of calling over the entire study was a function of whether the caller was a female who had pups emerge above ground that year. Total r explained no significant variation in the rate of alarm calling. Alarm calling in group-living yellow-bellied marmots is a form of direct parental care and inclusive fitness, broadly defined, is of little importance for the maintenance of alarm calling. 1997 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour
Non-linear Cost-sensitive Decision Tree for Multi-classification

The motivation of this paper is based on a hypothesis that non-linear decision nodes provide a better classification performance than axis-parallel decision nodes do in many practical problems, such as image classification, and voice classification. The algorithm – MNCS_DT is introduced in this paper to create non-linear splits nodes by novel discriminant analysis in decision tree for multi-classification problem and take costsensitive problem into account when the features are selected. In experiment part, we use four UCI data sets to compare the performance of MNCS_DT and C4.5 CS by costs and error rates. The performance of MNCS_DT is better than C4.5 CS. And eight data sets from UCI are used to compare the performance of three different feature sets measured by accuracy, G-mean, and operation time. The performance of feature set consisting of features that follow multivariate normal distribution and altered information gain values higher than average one is better than two other feature sets in most data sets.
A local constitutive model with anisotropy for various homogeneous 2D biaxial deformation modes

A local constitutive model for granular materials with anisotropy is proposed and applied to different biaxial box deformation modes. The simplified version of the model (in the coordinate system of the biaxial box) involves only scalar values for hydrostatic and shear stresses, for the isotropic and shear strains as well as the new parameter, the (scalar) anisotropy modulus. A non-linear constitutive evolution equation, for both shear stress and anisotropy, during deviatoric (shear) deformation, is based on observations gained from Discrete Element Method (DEM) simulations. While parameters like the bulk modulus are set to constant, for the sake of simplicity, the model involves a yield stress and a maximal anisotropy as well as the corresponding deviatoric shear-rate pre-factors for incremental stress and incremental anisotropy modulus. In this study, the self-consistency of the simple-most model is discussed before it is applied to various bi-axial deformation modes. Constant anisotropy is compared to evolving anisotropy, where the sign accounts for the direction (tension or compression corresponds to positive or negative strain, respectively). Generalization to arbitrary orientation and possible non-coaxial strain, stress and fabric tensors is not yet attempted in this study.
Graphene terahertz filter

In this paper we suggest and analyze numerically an electromagnetic filter for THz region. The filter is made of a frequency selective surface based on graphene elements placed on a dielectric substrate. The unit cell of the device represents a square lattice in which two graphene crosses are placed on both sides of a dielectric substrate. The two graphene elements interact and resonate with two dipole plasmonic modes with different frequencies due to difference in the geometrical sizes of the crosses. In the frequency between these two resonances there is a transparency window that characterizes the filtering property of the device. This effect can be explained by Fano resonance. The device operates at the central frequency 2.3 THz with the reflection and the transmission coefficients equal to -18.6 dB and -0.92 dB, respectively. We show also that the position of the transmission peak can be tuned by changing the chemical potential of the graphene.
Viterbi-Like Algorithm for Bit Allocation in Fixed-Point Fast Fourier Transform

With the popularity of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), fixed-point fast Fourier transform (FFT) has become increasingly important in communication IC design. Ying-Jui Chen et al. proposed a Quasi-Coordinate-Descent-Based (QCDB) algorithm which could be applied to design a fixed-point FFT. In this paper, I used and improved the QCDB algorithm to optimize the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for fixed-point FFT. Given the constraint of the available number of bits on an IC chip, the proposed algorithm found the optimal allocation of bits for each twiddle factor to maximize the SNR. First, it described a method to systematically estimate fixed-point FFT noise propagation performance. By modeling the signal and noise propagation in each processing stage of the FFT as a series of signal amplifier stages combined with additive noise sources, it could obtain SNR associated each FFT stage given a certain number of bits. Then, with the SNR for each FFT stage known, this paper proposed the Viterbi-like algorithm to improve the QCDB algorithm which was with the local optimal and to find the global optimal allocation of bits to maximize the SNR. This new modified algorithm was called as Viterbi-like modified quasi-coordinate-descent-based algorithm and showed that it gave the much better result than by the QCDB algorithm through the experiments.
Analysis of a vane-loaded gyro-TWT for the gain-frequency response

A cylindrical waveguide provided with wedge-shaped metal vanes projecting radially inward from the wall of the guide and excited in the transverse-electric mode was analyzed for the cold (beam-absent) dispersion relation. The angular harmonics generated due to the angular periodicity of vanes were taken into account in the cold analysis. The results of the cold analysis of the vane-loaded structure with respect to the axial propagation constant and the cut-off frequency were plugged into the hot (beam-present) dispersion relation of a small-orbit gyro-traveling wave tube (gyro-TWT) in an otherwise smooth-wall waveguide to obtain the hot dispersion relation of a vane-loaded gyro-TWT. The latter was interpreted to obtain the Pierce-type small-signal gain equation of a vane-loaded gyro-TWT. The vane-loaded gyro-TWT enjoys a higher gain than that of the smooth-wall. The beam position, as well as the beam harmonic mode number relative to the waveguide mode number, was optimized for the maximum device gain. The number, angular width, and radial height of vanes were optimized for large gain values without the sacrifice of bandwidth. The competition amongst the close-by waveguide modes was studied. The results obtained by the present analysis were compared with those of the others available in the literature.
Are there networks in maps? An experimental visualization of personal movement data

Shifted Maps proposes a novel visualization method to generate personal geovisualizations of individual movement data. The resulting visual appearance can be characterized as a map network consisting of visited places and their connections. The visited places are shown as circular map extracts scaled according to the time spent there and the movements between the places are represented as edges between the places. A key feature of the Shifted Maps visualization is the possibility to explore the data in three different arrangements based on geo-spatial position, travel time, and frequency of movements. By combining map and network visualizations of movement data, it becomes possible to analyze and compare spatial and temporal topologies.
Amino Acid Deprivation-induced Stringent Response and Dps Confer Added Levels of Protection from UV Radiation in Escherichia coli

Nutrient-starved bacteria undergo physiological changes that increase bacterial resistance to nutrient and oxidative stresses, chemical and metal toxicity, and radiation, resulting in continued survival. Previous studies have demonstrated that cells in stationary phase are more resistant to UV radiation than cells in the exponential growth phase. The DNA-binding protein, Dps, plays a key role in surviving UV radiation and other stresses in stationary phase. This study investigated the role of Dps in resistance to UV irradiation during stringent response in Escherichia coli ZK126 and ZK1146, a dps mutant. We report that Dps-associated resistance to UV irradiation is present not only during stationary phase, but may also be present in exponential phase and stringent response. However, there is evidence to suggest that the activation of the stringent response confers added protection in E. coli to UV radiation in a Dps-independent manner. _________________________________________________________________
Hybrid Message Passing Based Low Complexity Receiver for SCMA System over Frequency Selective Channels

As the mobile communications develop rapidly, ever higher spectral efficiency is required. The sparse code multiple access (SCMA) has been recognized as a promising technology to further increase the access efficiency of wireless networks. In this paper, we consider the receiver design problem for SCMA system over frequency selective channels. The conventional minimum mean squared error (MMSE) detection method suffers from huge complexity due to the the multi-user and inter-symbol interferences. To this end, we propose a near optimal low complexity message passing receiver. By approximating the discrete log-likelihood ratio as Gaussian random variable, all messages on factor graph can be obtained as Gaussian distributions. Furthermore, we propose to introduce auxiliary variables to the factor graph and develop a novel hybrid belief propagation (BP) and expectation propagation (EP) receiver. Simulation results show that the proposed hybrid BP-EP method performs close to the MMSE-based receiver with reduced complexity. Also, compared to the orthogonal multiple access scheme, the considered SCMA system with the proposed receiver is able to support 50% more users.
Session : Functional Connectivity : MRI Measures of Spontaneous Fluctuations in Intrinsic Networks Title : Spontaneous Signal Fluctuations in Intrinsic Networks

Highlights • Spontaneous hemodynamic fluctuations display spatio-temporal organization. • Task-free fMRI has become a powerful approach for studying properties of large-scale brain networks and their clinical implications. • There remain challenges in interpreting results of task-free fMRI studies, as the neural origins of spontaneous hemodynamic signals are not well understood and fMRI data also contain non-neural (noise) fluctuations.
Bandgap voltage references with 1V supply

The structure, operation principle and set of circuit implementations of the low output voltage (~200 mV) bandgap voltage references are presented. References are capable for operating with a supply below 1V, while having accuracy and noise parameters comparable with the traditional 1.2 V bandgap reference. Reference's core can use substrate, lateral or vertical PNP or NPN transistors, which allows implementation on almost any process. A test reference fabricated with the 50HPA07 BiCMOS process from Texas Instruments shows untrimmed output voltages with less than 1% production scattering (3sigma). The temperature coefficient is below 20 ppm/degC while minimum supply voltage is 1 V at -40 to 125degC range
HIP Socioeconomic status affects the early outcome of total hip replacement

J Bone Joint Surg [Br] 2011;93-B:464-9. Received 16 August 2010; Accepted after revision 8 December 2010 This prospective study assessed the effect of social deprivation on the Oxford hip score at one year after total hip replacement. An analysis of 1312 patients undergoing 1359 primary total hip replacements for symptomatic osteoarthritis was performed over a 35-month period. Social deprivation was assessed using the Carstairs index. Those patients who were most deprived underwent surgery at an earlier age (p = 0.04), had more comorbidities (p = 0.02), increased severity of symptoms at presentation (p = 0.001), and were not as satisfied with their outcome (p = 0.03) compared with more affluent patients. There was a significant improvement in Oxford scores at 12 months relative to pre-operative scores for all socioeconomic categories (p < 0.001). Social deprivation was a significant independent predictor of mean improvement in Oxford scores at 12 months, after adjusting for confounding variables (p = 0.001). Deprivation was also associated with an increased risk of dislocation (odds ratio 5.3, p < 0.001) and mortality at 90 days (odds ratio 3.2, p = 0.02). Outcome, risk of dislocation and early mortality after a total hip replacement are affected by the socioeconomic status of the patient
Linearization of Direct Detection Optical Channels Using Self-Coherent Subsystems

Intensity modulation with direct detection (IM-DD) dominates the commercial short-reach optical communications. However, when upgrading the data-rate distance product to 1000 Gb/s·km per wavelength and beyond, IM-DD faces severe performance barrier. Although a linear mapping exists between the intensity of transmitter and receiver in IM-DD back-to-back system, it becomes nonlinear under fiber channel impairments; for instance, the dominant chromatic dispersion. Coherent detection overcomes this fundamental obstacle by recovering a linear replica of the optical field instead of intensity. The local oscillator provides a reference carrier which mixes with the received signal, from which both intensity and phase of the signal can be recovered. Borrowing the idea from coherent detection, in DD system, a carrier can be sent along with the signal so that the receiver utilizes the reference carrier originated from transmitter; namely, the receiver conducts self-coherent (SCOH) detection. In this paper, we review a variety of optical SCOH subsystems, and reveal how they realize linear channels, while maintaining the simple and low-cost DD. SCOH can readily reach a data-rate distance product beyond 10000 Gb/s·km, making it suitable for the future high-speed short- and medium-reach applications, such as the data center interconnect, passive access network, and metropolitan area network.
An Investigation into the Use of Reinforcement Learning Techniques within the Algorithmic Trading Domain

Algorithmic trading has seen a significant surge in interest given the rapidly increasing capabilities of modern day computers. From reducing trading latency by purchasing highly demanded property as near to stock exchanges as possible to continuously honing technical methods over many years, both market participants and academic researchers are constantly seeking novel and successful methods to help them achieve greater success. We propose a novel reinforcement learning approach to the algorithmic trading problem which we define in terms of the classic reinforcement learning problem framework. Reinforcement learning methods, which aim to optimise an agent’s performance within an unknown environment, are very much in active development and cutting edge solutions are regularly being introduced and improved upon. Using state-of-the-art techniques based upon least-squares temporal difference learning, we aim to evaluate the success of our approach in the foreign exchange market and identify its limitations. To achieve this, we design and implement a purpose built algorithmic trading system with support for the reinforcement learning concepts that we require. Whilst the results that we obtain only show slight profitability, we believe that the framework that we outline carries many merits as a proof of concept and could easily be expanded upon in future work. We discuss some suggestions for these and justify how they could complement our approach. We also feel that the systems we have produced could be adapted and employed by those with interests in both algorithmic trading and reinforcement learning in order to pursue their ideas.
Gingival myiasis of camel (Camelus dromedarius) caused by Wohlfahrtia magnifica

Myiasis is defined as the infestation of living tissues of vertebrates by larvae of flies. Gingival myiasis is an uncommon type of myiasis. During the inspection of the teeth of slaughtered camels (in Mashhad, Iran) for a research project, a gingival myiasis was seen in a 15 year-old camel. Eight larvae were removed from the lesions and sent to a parasitology laboratory for identification. Affected area of the gingiva was cut and placed in 10% formalin, then sent to pathology laboratory for histopathological studies. Parasitological studies revealed the causative agents of this condition were larvae of Wohlfahrtia magnifica (Diptera: Sarcophagidae). The affected gingiva showed hyperplasia of squamous epithelial tissue and acanthosis in mucosal membrane, hyperemia and infiltration of mononuclear cells and eosinophils into lamina propria were seen. The present report is the first report of gingival myiasis in camel.