A collision free protocol for LANs utilizing concurrency for channel contention and transmission

Green woven yarn basket with small pink, purple, white, and black beads woven into it in stripes.https://commons.und.edu/uac-all/4451/thumbnail.jp

Caffeine-Induced Global Reductions in Resting-State BOLD Connectivity Reflect Widespread Decreases in MEG Connectivity.

In resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the temporal correlation between spontaneous fluctuations of the blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signal from different brain regions is used to assess functional connectivity. However, because the BOLD signal is an indirect measure of neuronal activity, its complex hemodynamic nature can complicate the interpretation of differences in connectivity that are observed across conditions or subjects. For example, prior studies have shown that caffeine leads to widespread reductions in BOLD connectivity but were not able to determine if neural or vascular factors were primarily responsible for the observed decrease. In this study, we used source-localized magnetoencephalography (MEG) in conjunction with fMRI to further examine the origins of the caffeine-induced changes in BOLD connectivity. We observed widespread and significant (p < 0.01) reductions in both MEG and fMRI connectivity measures, suggesting that decreases in the connectivity of resting-state neuro-electric power fluctuations were primarily responsible for the observed BOLD connectivity changes. The MEG connectivity decreases were most pronounced in the beta band. By demonstrating the similarity in MEG and fMRI based connectivity changes, these results provide evidence for the neural basis of resting-state fMRI networks and further support the potential of MEG as a tool to characterize resting-state connectivity

TOPOLOGY, ANALYSIS, AND CMOS IMPLEMENTATION OF SWITCHED-CAPACITOR DC-DC CONVERTERS

This review highlights various design and realization aspects of three commonly used charge pump topologies, namely, the linear, exponential, and the Fibonacci type of charge pumps. We shall outline the new methods developed recently for analyzing the steady and dynamic performances of these circuits. Some practical issues for the CMOS implementation of these charge pump structures will be critically discussed. Finally, some conventional voltage regulation methods for maintaining a stable output under a large range of loading current and supply voltage fluctuations will be proposed

SOAP3-dp: Fast, Accurate and Sensitive GPU-based Short Read Aligner

To tackle the exponentially increasing throughput of Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS), most of the existing short-read aligners can be configured to favor speed in trade of accuracy and sensitivity. SOAP3-dp, through leveraging the computational power of both CPU and GPU with optimized algorithms, delivers high speed and sensitivity simultaneously. Compared with widely adopted aligners including BWA, Bowtie2, SeqAlto, GEM and GPU-based aligners including BarraCUDA and CUSHAW, SOAP3-dp is two to tens of times faster, while maintaining the highest sensitivity and lowest false discovery rate (FDR) on Illumina reads with different lengths. Transcending its predecessor SOAP3, which does not allow gapped alignment, SOAP3-dp by default tolerates alignment similarity as low as 60 percent. Real data evaluation using human genome demonstrates SOAP3-dp's power to enable more authentic variants and longer Indels to be discovered. Fosmid sequencing shows a 9.1 percent FDR on newly discovered deletions. SOAP3-dp natively supports BAM file format and provides a scoring scheme same as BWA, which enables it to be integrated into existing analysis pipelines. SOAP3-dp has been deployed on Amazon-EC2, NIH-Biowulf and Tianhe-1A.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures, submitted to PLoS ONE, additional files available at "https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bhclhxpoiubh371/O5CO_CkXQE". Comments most welcom

A Metabolomics Study on the Bone Protective Effects of a Lignan-Rich Fraction From Sambucus Williamsii Ramulus in Aged Rats

The lignan-rich fraction (SWR) of Sambucus Williamsii Ramulus, a folk herbal medicine in China for treatment of bone diseases, has previously reported to exert protective effects on bone without exerting uterotrophic effects in ovariectomized (OVX) mice. The aim of the present study was to identify the potential metabolites and the associated metabolic pathways that contribute to the beneficial effects of SWR on bone in vivo. Aged female Sprague Dawley rats (9 months old) were either sham-operated or ovariectomized for 12 weeks, before receiving treatment for another 12 weeks with the following treatment groups (n = 12 each): vehicle (Sham), vehicle (OVX), Premarin (130 μg/kg) or low (57 mg/kg), medium (114 mg/kg), and high (228 mg/kg) doses of SWR. The results showed that SWRH significantly suppressed bone loss, improved bone micro-architecture and increased bone strength on tibia without stimulating uterus weight gain in OVX rats. Premarin exerted similar bone protective effects as SWRH but elicited uterotrophic effects in OVX rats. The metabolic profiles of serum samples were analyzed by using ultra-performance liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of flight mass spectrometry and gas chromatography time-of flight mass spectrometry, and the metabolites that were significantly altered were identified by multivariate statistical analysis. Our study indicated that SWRH effectively restored the changes of 26 metabolites induced by estrogen-deficiency in OVX rats, which related to lipids, amino acids, tryptophan metabolisms, and anti-oxidative system. A subsequent validation showed that the serum level of superoxide dismutase and catalase were indeed up-regulated, while the serotonin level in a tryptophan hydroxylase 1 (TPH1) high expressing cells (rats RBL-2H3 cells) was down regulated after treatment with SWR. The results also suggested that the gut-microbiota may play an important role on the bone protective effects of SWR. The current study provides insight for understanding the unique mechanism of actions of SWR that might be involved in achieving bone protective effects in vivo

A Gramaticalização do Verbo Ir e a Variação de Formas para Expressar o Futuro do Presente: uma Fotografia Capixaba

Esta pesquisa verifica o estágio do processo de gramaticalização do verbo IR, que tem assumido a função de auxiliar em construções perifrásticas para expressar tempo. Para isso, investiga-se a variação entre as formas sintética e perifrástica com IR para expressão do futuro do presente. Temos por hipótese que a forma perifrástica já atinge todos os gêneros das duas modalidades da língua, uma vez que já se especializou para codificar tempo. São examinados dois gêneros, tomando-os como prototípicos do continuun oral/escrito: entrevistas com informantes universitários e editoriais de jornal. Partindo de uma orientação teórica Funcionalista, num quadro mais geral, concebe-se a língua como flexível ao uso, passível de influências cognitivas, sociais e também individuais, embora haja nela forças que atuam no sentido de regularizar a estrutura. Seguindo algumas pesquisas que têm se mostrado frutíferas, o modelo funcionalista estará em diálogo com outro modelo que procura dar conta da heterogeneidade estruturada da língua e de seus processos de mudança: a Teoria Variacionista. Num quadro mais específico, os fundamentos que orientam a pesquisa são os da Gramaticalização. Os dados extraídos dos gêneros selecionados serão submetidos ao programa computacional GOLDVARB 2001 e, em seguida, interpretados à luz das teorias lingüísticas que fundamentam esta pesquisa

Patterning of L10 FePt Nanoparticles with Ultra-High Coercivity for Bit-Patterned Media

L1(0)-ordered FePt nanoparticles (NPs) with ultra-high coercivity were directly prepared from a new metallopolyyne using a one-step pyrolysis method. The chemical ordering, morphology and magnetic properties of the as-synthesized FePt NPs have been studied. Magnetic measurements show the coercivity of these FePt NPs is as high as 3.6 T. Comparison of NPs synthesized under the Ar and Ar/H-2 atmospheres shows that the presence of H-2 in the annealing environment influences the nucleation and promotes the growth of L1(0)-FePt NPs. Application of this metallopolymer for bit-patterned media was also demonstrated using nanoimprint lithography.Department of Applied PhysicsDepartment of Applied Biology and Chemical Technolog