Oscillation-based DFT for Second-order Bandpass OTA-C Filters

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version. Under embargo until 6 September 2018. The final publication is available at Springer via https://doi.org/10.1007/s00034-017-0648-9.This paper describes a design for testability technique for second-order bandpass operational transconductance amplifier and capacitor filters using an oscillation-based test topology. The oscillation-based test structure is a vectorless output test strategy easily extendable to built-in self-test. The proposed methodology converts filter under test into a quadrature oscillator using very simple techniques and measures the output frequency. Using feedback loops with nonlinear block, the filter-to-oscillator conversion techniques easily convert the bandpass OTA-C filter into an oscillator. With a minimum number of extra components, the proposed scheme requires a negligible area overhead. The validity of the proposed method has been verified using comparison between faulty and fault-free simulation results of Tow-Thomas and KHN OTA-C filters. Simulation results in 0.25μm CMOS technology show that the proposed oscillation-based test strategy for OTA-C filters is suitable for catastrophic and parametric faults testing and also effective in detecting single and multiple faults with high fault coverage.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

MiR-10b alleviates high glucose-induced human retinal endothelial cell injury by regulating TIAM1 signaling

Purpose: To investigate the effects of microRNA (miR)-10b on high glucose (HG)-induced human retinal endothelial cell (HREC) injury and the mechanisms involved.Methods: Levels of miR-10b were measured in HRECs using quantitative reverse transcriptasepolymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) after the addition of glucose (5.5 and 30 mM). Cell viability was measured using Cell Counting Kit-8 assay, while levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) weredetermined using fluorimetry. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to measure cellular apoptosis. Luciferase reporter assay was used to validate the miR-10b-binding sites of target genes. The levels of T-cell lymphoma invasion and metastasis (TIAM1) and NADPH oxidase-2 (NOX2) were determined using qRT-PCR. Ras-related C3 botulinum toxin substrate 1 (Rac1) activation was evaluated using a pull-down assay. The protein levels of TIAM1 and Rac1 were assayed by western blotting.Results: After HG stimulation, miR-10b expression was downregulated. Viability of HRECs decreased, whereas ROS production increased. However, the overexpression of miR-10b inhibited apoptosis and ROS production in HG-treated HRECs (p < 0.05), while luciferase reporter analysis revealed a possible binding site for miR-10b to target the 3'-untranslated region (UTR) of TIAM1. In addition, the overexpression of miR-10b distinctly reduced the expression levels of TIAM1 and NOX2, but decreased the activation of Rac1 in HG-treated HRECs (p < 0.05); these inhibitory effects of miR-10b were significantly reversed after TIAM1 application.Conclusion: MiR-10b alleviates HG-induced HREC injury by regulating TIAM1 signaling. MiR-10b therapy is a potential therapeutic strategy for patients suffering from diabetic retinopathy. Keywords: MicroRNA-10b, Human retinal endothelial cells, High glucose, TIAM1-Rac1 axi

Retracted: MiR-10b alleviates high glucose-induced human retinal endothelial cell injury by regulating TIAM1 signaling

This article previously published in Volume 19 Issue 8 of this journal in August 2020 has been retracted in line with the guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE, http://publication ethics.org/resources/guidelines).Retraction: Chen Y, Zhu Y, Zhao S. MiR-10b alleviates high glucose-induced human retinal endothelial cell injury by regulating TIAM1 signaling. Trop J Pharm Res, 2020, 19(8): 1577-1583.To the editor:I am retracting this article because some of the results we presented are irreproducible.Signed: Sheng Zha

Energy-Efficient Non-Orthogonal Transmission under Reliability and Finite Blocklength Constraints

This paper investigates an energy-efficient non-orthogonal transmission design problem for two downlink receivers that have strict reliability and finite blocklength (latency) constraints. The Shannon capacity formula widely used in traditional designs needs the assumption of infinite blocklength and thus is no longer appropriate. We adopt the newly finite blocklength coding capacity formula for explicitly specifying the trade-off between reliability and code blocklength. However, conventional successive interference cancellation (SIC) may become infeasible due to heterogeneous blocklengths. We thus consider several scenarios with different channel conditions and with/without SIC. By carefully examining the problem structure, we present in closed-form the optimal power and code blocklength for energy-efficient transmissions. Simulation results provide interesting insights into conditions for which non-orthogonal transmission is more energy efficient than the orthogonal transmission such as TDMA.Comment: accepted by IEEE GlobeCom workshop on URLLC, 201

Toward developing a tele-diagnosis system on fish disease

Fish disease diagnosis is a complicated process and requires high level of expertise, an expert system for fish disease diagnosis is considered as an effective tool to help fish farmers. However, many farmers have no computers and are not able to access the Internet. Telephone and mobile uses increase rapidly, so, the provision of call centre service appears as a sound alternative support channel for farmer to acquire counseling and support. This paper presents a research attempt to develop and evaluate a call center oriented Hybrid disease diagnosis & consulting system (H-Vet) in aquaculture in China. This paper looks at why H-Vet is needed and what are the advantages and difficulties in the developing and using such a system. A machine learning approach is adopted, which helps to acquire knowledge when enhancing expert systems with the user information collected through call center. This paper also proposes a fuzzy Group Support Systems (GSS) framework for acquiring knowledge from individual expert and aggregating knowledge into workgroup knowledge by H-Vet in the situation of difficult disease diagnosis. The system’s architecture and components are describedIFIP International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Theory and Practice - Expert SystemsRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

DREAM: Efficient Dataset Distillation by Representative Matching

Dataset distillation aims to synthesize small datasets with little information loss from original large-scale ones for reducing storage and training costs. Recent state-of-the-art methods mainly constrain the sample synthesis process by matching synthetic images and the original ones regarding gradients, embedding distributions, or training trajectories. Although there are various matching objectives, currently the strategy for selecting original images is limited to naive random sampling. We argue that random sampling overlooks the evenness of the selected sample distribution, which may result in noisy or biased matching targets. Besides, the sample diversity is also not constrained by random sampling. These factors together lead to optimization instability in the distilling process and degrade the training efficiency. Accordingly, we propose a novel matching strategy named as \textbf{D}ataset distillation by \textbf{RE}present\textbf{A}tive \textbf{M}atching (DREAM), where only representative original images are selected for matching. DREAM is able to be easily plugged into popular dataset distillation frameworks and reduce the distilling iterations by more than 8 times without performance drop. Given sufficient training time, DREAM further provides significant improvements and achieves state-of-the-art performances.Comment: Efficient matching for dataset distillatio

Role of Smad4 on TGF-β–induced extracellular matrix stimulation in mesangial cells

Role of Smad4 on TGF-β–induced extracellular matrix stimulation in mesangial cells.BackgroundThe best characterized signaling pathway employed by transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) is the Smad pathway; however, its role in matrix production in mesangial cells is unclear. We focused on Smad4, as Smad4 is essential for the activation of Smad-dependent target genes.MethodsTo investigate the function of Smad4 in extracellular matrix (ECM) production, we generated several stably transfected mesangial cell lines (MMC) that have a deletion in the linker region (Smad4ΔM4: Δ275-322) or have a deletion in MH1 of Smad4 (Smad4N4: Δ1-136). The ECM genes, α1 type I collagen (COL1A1), plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) and fibronectin (FN) were assessed in wild-type mesangial cells and stably transfected Smad4-DN cell lines in the absence and presence of TGF-β.ResultsAs compared to wild-type MMC that had a 10.8-fold stimulation of TGF-β–induced p3TP-Lux activity, MMC stably transfected with Smad4ΔM4 and Smad4N4 had only a 2.0-fold and 1.3-fold stimulation, respectively, indicating that they had dominant-negative effects on TGF-β signaling. Basal and TGF-β–induced COL1A1 expression in Smad4 dominant-negative cells were dramatically reduced to very low levels. The early (2 hours) TGF-β–induced PAI-1 mRNA expression was inhibited; however, the sustained (24 to 48 hours) TGF-β–induced expression was not affected in Smad4 dominant-negative cells. For FN, TGF-β–induced expression was maintained in Smad4-dominant negative cells.ConclusionThese results indicate that Smad4 is essential for basal and TGF-β–induced COL1A1 expression, and contributes to the early, but not sustained TGF-β–induced PAI-1 expression in mesangial cells. However, TGF-β–induced FN expression is independent of Smad4. In conclusion, Smad4 has a discriminate effect in mediating specific ECM molecules stimulated by TGF-β in mesangial cells