Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A micro inverter based on Ćuk converter for PV modules with anti-islanding and MPPT schemes

This paper describes a study, which enables the implementation of a microinverter for grid-tied photovoltaic applications. The system consists of a Ćuk converter in cascade with a full-bridge current source inverter. The Ćuk converter, working in DCM, synthesizes a sinusoidal current waveform, in absolute value, synchronized with the power grid. A simple square wave (SQW) full bridge current source inverter is connected in cascade with the Ćuk converter, in order to obtain a sinusoidal current waveform at its output, the SQW control aims to minimize the inverter switching power losses. The connection of microgeneration systems into the utility grid can bring some challenges, as the islanding detection and the tracking of the PV module maximum power point, for instance. In this sense, a non-detected islanding may cause: degradation of power quality, threats to safety of maintenance crews, damage to third party equipment connected to the same power grid. In order to maximize the power production of the photovoltaic module it is mandatory, to make use of a MPPT algorithm. The implemented algorithm consists of a variation of the P&O method, instead of a fixed perturbation magnitude, the develop algorithm makes use of the derivative of the PV module voltage, in order to determine the magnitude of the perturbation. The inverter control is implemented in a Matlab/Simulink© environment in association with a dSPACE© controller board for research and development (DS1104 R&D).
Antithrombogenic property of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells in nanofibrous vascular grafts

Nanostructured biomaterials have tremendous potential for tissue engineering. However, the performance and integration of the nanomaterials in vivo are not well understood. A challenge in vascular tissue engineering is to develop optimal scaffolds and establish expandable cell sources for the construction of tissue-engineered vascular grafts that are nonthrombogenic and have long-term patency. Here, we used tissue-engineered vascular grafts as a model to demonstrate the potential of combining nanofibrous scaffolds and bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) for vascular tissue engineering. Biodegradable nanofibrous scaffolds with aligned nanofibers were used to mimic native collagen fibrils to guide cell organization in vascular grafts. The results from artery bypass experiments showed that nanofibrous scaffolds allowed efficient infiltration of vascular cells and matrix remodeling. Acellular grafts (without MSCs) resulted in significant intimal thickening, whereas cellular grafts (with MSCs) had excellent long-term patency and exhibited well organized layers of endothelial cells (ECs) and smooth muscle cells (SMCs), as in native arteries. Short-term experiments showed that nanofibrous scaffolds alone induced platelet adhesion and thrombus formation, which was suppressed by MSC seeding. In addition, MSCs, as ECs, resisted platelet adhesion in vitro, which depended on cell-surface heparan sulfate proteoglycans. These data, together with the observation on the short-term engraftment of MSCs, suggest that the long-term patency of cellular grafts may be attributed to the antithrombogenic property of MSCs. These results demonstrate several favorable characteristics of nanofibrous scaffolds, the excellent patency of small-diameter nanofibrous vascular grafts, and the unique antithrombogenic property of MSCs.
American foulbrood of the honey bee : Occurrence and distribution of different genotypes of Paenibacillus larvae in the administrative district of Arnsberg ( North Rhine-Westphalia )

Between March 2003 and October 2004, Paenibacillus larvae, the aetiological agent of American foulbrood disease of the honey bee, was isolated from broodcombs and honey samples of 54 apiaries in the administrative district of Arnsberg (North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany). Genotyping of 176 P. larvae isolates with repetitive element polymerase chain reaction fingerprinting (rep-PCR) using BOX A1R and MBO REP1 primers revealed five different genotypes (AB, Ab, ab, aß, A<). In samples of three apiaries, more than one genotype was detected. A combination of two genotypes was isolated from honey samples of the same hive two times (ab/aß and Ab/ab). The five genotypes were not randomly distributed in the district, but revealed a certain geographical clustering. Possible factors with impact on the genotype diversity and the distribution pattern are discussed.
Interannual and Seasonal Variability of the Surface Energy Balance and Temperature of Central Great Slave Lake

This paper addresses interannual and seasonal variability in the thermal regime and surface energy fluxes in central Great Slave Lake during three contiguous open-water periods, two of which overlap the Canadian Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) Enhanced Study (CAGES) water year. The specific objectives are to compare the air temperature regime in the midlake to coastal zones, detail patterns of air and water temperatures and atmospheric stability in the central lake, assess the role of the radiation balance in driving the sensible and latent heat fluxes on a daily and seasonal basis, quantify magnitudes and rates of the sensible and latent heat fluxes and evaporation, and present a comprehensive picture of the seasonal and interannual thermal and energy regimes, their variability, and their most important controls. Atmospheric and lake thermal regimes are closely linked. Temperature differences between midlake and the northern shore follow a seasonal linear change from 68C colder midlake in June, to 68C warmer in November‐December. These differences are a response to the surface energy budget of the lake. The surface radiation balance, and sensible and latent heat fluxes are not related on a day-to-day basis. Rather, from final lake ice melt in mid-June through to mid- to late August, the surface waters strongly absorb solar radiation. A stable atmosphere dominates this period, the latent heat flux is small and directed upward, and the sensible heat flux is small and directed downward into the lake. During this period, the net solar radiation is largely used in heating the lake. From mid- to late August to freeze up in December to early January, the absorbed solar radiation is small, the atmosphere over the lake becomes increasingly unstable, and the sensible and latent heat fluxes are directed into the atmosphere and grow in magnitude into the winter season. Comparing the period of stable atmospheric conditions with the period of unstable conditions, net radiation is 6 times larger during the period of stable atmosphere and the combined latent and sensible heat fluxes are 9 times larger during the unstable period. From 85% to 90% of total evaporation occurs after mid-August, and evaporation rates increase continuously as the season progresses. This rate of increase varies from year to year. The time of final ice melt exerts the largest single control on the seasonal thermal and energy regimes of this large northern lake.
Stochastic car tracking with line- and color-based features

Color- and edge-based trackers can often be "distracted", causing them to track the wrong object. Many researchers have dealt with this problem by using multiple features, as it is unlikely that all will be distracted at the same time. It is also important for the tracker to maintain multiple hypotheses for the state; sequential Monte Carlo filters have been shown to be a convenient and straightforward means of maintaining multiple hypotheses. In this paper, we improve the accuracy and robustness of real-time tracking by combining a color histogram feature with an edge-gradient-based shape feature under a sequential Monte Carlo framework.
Evolution of somatic and germ cell populations after busulfan treatment in utero or neonatal cryptorchidism in the rat

Summary In order to elucidate the respective effects of depletion of germ cells and of increase in testicular temperature, rats of the same Wistar strain were rendered experimentally bicryptorchid or sterilized by a busulfan injection in utero and compared to control animals. In both models, germ cells were depleted but numeric evolution and functions of somatic cells differed. The aim of that work was to compare the numeric evolutions of testicular somatic and germ cells to their respective functions in each model before puberty and in adult rats of the same strain. Serum concentrations of FSH, LH and testosterone were compared at 20, 40 and 110 days of age. Histological analyses of Sertoli and germ cells in the seminiferous tubules and of Leydig cells in the intertubular tissue were performed before puberty and at adulthood. Testosterone serum concentrations were depleted in both models starting at 40 days of age and more in busulfan‐treated rats. Both FSH and LH levels were increased from 20 days onwards in experimental rats. Additional cryptorchidism in busulfan‐treated rats depressed the serum testosterone concentration. At 17 days of age, the cryptorchidism do not modify somatic or germ cell populations while busulfan treatment has induced a decrease of both these populations. Conversely, the cross sectional area of the somatic testicular cells was not affected whatever the treatment. In adult testes of busulfan‐treated and cryptorchid rats, the total numbers of Sertoli and Leydig cells and of germ cells per testis were decreased. The cellular size of the perivascular Leydig cells was not modified by any of the treatments whereas the size of the Sertoli cells was reduced.
Comparison of Five Diagnostic Methods for Detecting Bovine Viral Diarrhea Virus Infection in Calves

Five diagnostic techniques performed on skin biopsies (shoulder region) and/or serum were compared for detection of bovine viral diarrhea virus infection in 224 calves 0–3 months of age, 23 calves older than 3 months but younger than 7 months, and 11 cattle older than 7 months. The diagnostic methods used were immunohistochemistry (IHC), 2 commercial antigen ELISAs, 1 commercial antibody ELISA, and realtime RT-PCR. Results of 249 out of 258 skin and serum samples were identical and correlated within the 3 antigen detection methods and the real-time RT-PCR used. Twenty-six of these 249 samples were BVDV-positive with all antigen detection methods and the real-time RT-PCR. Nine out of 258 samples yielding discordant results were additionally examined by RT-PCR, RT-PCR Reamplification (ReA), and antigen ELISA I on serum and by immunohistochemistry on formalin fixed and paraffin-embedded skin biopsies. Virus isolation and genotyping was performed as well on these discordant samples. In 3 cases, transiently infected animals were identified. Two samples positive by real-time RT-PCR were interpreted as false positive and were ascribed to cross-contamination. The antigen ELISA II failed to detect 2 BVDV-positive calves due to the presence of maternal antibodies; the cause of 2 false-positive cases in this ELISA remained undetermined. Only persistently infected animals were identified in skin samples by IHC or antigen ELISA I. The 3 antigen detection methods and the real-time RT-PCR used in parallel had a high correlation rate (96.5%) and similar sensitivity and specificity values.
Treatment decision‐making at the end of life: a survey of Australian doctors' attitudes towards patients' wishes and euthanasia

To the Editor: Waddell et al. use four hypothetical case scenarios to investigate factors influencing end-of-life decision-making in a random sample of doctors. ' In a scenario involving a competent 56-year-old man with a progressively debilitating disease who had requested physician-assisted death, they found that 93% of respondents chose to provide palliative care rather than follow the patient's wishes by assisting him to suicide, or by performing active euthanasia. The authors conclude that "doctors believe that assisting a patient to die is an act that negates what they perceive to be the very essence of their profession". This study was enthusiastically embraced by opponents of euthanasia as proof of united doctor opposition to legalisation of euthanasia. The study by Waddell et al. ignored Australian surveys which clearly show the fragmentation of medical attitudes towards euthanasia. >' We are currently interviewing health care workers in HIV/AIDS care in four Australian cities and in San Francisco. Data from 49 detailed interviews (to date) show that a consistent precondition, in most cases, to doctor willingness to perform euthanasia was a personal knowledge of the patient through a long-lasting professional relationship. Responses to hypothetical case scenarios, in contrast, reveal little more than abstract attitudes. We question the assumption that choosing one of three predetermined treatment options in response to "what-if" questions could reveal reliable data about current attitudes and practices. Faith in the 93% figure is eroded by studies showing significant levels of involvement in euthanasia by doctors (12.3% in one study-). Our research shows that, while there is a category of doctors who practise euthanasia and quietly support its legalisation, there is another category who have been involved in euthanasia and associated illegal acts despite maintaining essentially conservative attitudes about their professional role and the role of medicine. Our interviewees were also frequently ambivalent in their attitudes as
Arithmetic structures for inner-product and other computations based on a latency-free bit-serial multiplier design

Traditional bit-serial multipliers present one or more clock cycles of data latency. When combined with addition operations, as would be needed for an inner-product computation, the latency may increase further. We extend a design method for latency-free bit-serial multipliers to more powerful bit-serial arithmetic units capable of computing functions of the form S=VW+X, S=VW+X+Y, S=VW+X+Y+Z, S=VW+XY, and S=VW+XY+Z with no latency (i.e., with only combinational delay between input and output). We show that the above double multiplication and accumulative capabilities are obtained with small extra cost compared to simple bit-serial multipliers. More specifically, the added cost, contributed mainly by the use of a (7, 3) counter in lieu of a (5, 3) counter in each multiplier cell, is about 50% for the most complex unit, making our designs quite cost-effective. Unsigned or sign-extended 2's-complement numbers may be used to produce arbitrarily long outputs. Since the designs are fully modular, they are easily introduced into VLSI libraries.
Video Event Detection Using Motion Relativity and Feature Selection

Event detection plays an essential role in video content analysis. In this paper, we present our approach based on motion relativity and feature selection for video event detection. First, we propose a new motion feature, namely Expanded Relative Motion Histogram of Bag-of-Visual-Words (ERMH-BoW) to employ motion relativity for event detection. In ERMH-BoW, by representing what aspect of an event with Bag-of-Visual-Words (BoW), we construct relative motion histograms between different visual words to depict the objects' activities or how aspect of the event. ERMH-BoW thus integrates both what and how aspects for a complete event description. Meanwhile, we show that by employing motion relativity, ERMH-BoW is invariant to the varying camera movement and able to honestly describe the object activities in an event. Furthermore, compared with other motion features, ERMH-BoW encodes not only the motion of objects, but also the interactions between different objects/scenes. Second, to address the high-dimensionality problem of the ERMH-BoW feature, we further propose an approach based on information gain and informativeness weighting to select a cleaner and more discriminative set of features. Our experiments carried out on several challenging datasets provided by TRECVID for the MED (Multimedia Event Detection) task demonstrate that our proposed approach outperforms the state-of-the-art approaches for video event detection.
Gene Expression Profiling of Prostate Cancer–Associated Genes Identifies Fibromodulin as Potential Novel Biomarker for Prostate Cancer

Background The aim of this study was to evaluate the gene expression profiles of a set of prostate cancer–associated genes in prostate cancer cell lines, to determine their association with different cancer phenotypes and identify potential novel biomarkers for this disease. Methods Quantitative real-time PCR was used to determine the expression profiles of 21 prostate cancer–associated genes in the human prostate cancer cell lines PC-3 and LNCaP, using the nontumorigenic cell line PWR-1E as control cell line. Genes evaluated were ESM-1, SERPINE2, CLU, BGN, A2M, PENK, FMOD, CD81, DCN, TSPAN8, KBTBD10, F2RL1, TMSB4X, SNCG, CXXC5, FOXQ1, PDPN, SPN, CAV1, CD24 and KLK3. A potential biomarker from this set of genes, the FMOD gene, encoding the small leucine-rich proteoglycan fibromodulin, was selected for further evaluation in clinical samples from patients diagnosed with benign or malignant prostatic disease. Results Several of the evaluated genes showed significantly altered expression in the prostate cancer cell lines, compared with nontumorigenic PWR-1E cells. Further evaluation of FMOD transcript in prostate clinical samples from patients diagnosed with benign or malignant prostatic disease identified a significant difference in the expression levels of this proteoglycan between benign and malignant tissue (p<0.05). Conclusions A number of gene transcripts were differentially expressed by the cell lines assayed. Among them, FMOD was further evaluated in clinical samples and was found to be differentially expressed between benign and prostate cancer tissue. Further validation of FMOD transcript in a larger population is required to ascertain its usefulness as biomarker for prostate cancer.
Spatial Attention Effects in Macaque Area V4

Focal visual attention typically produces enhanced perceptual processing at the psychological level and relatively stronger neural responses at the physiological level. A longstanding mechanistic question is whether these attentional effects pertain specifically to the attended (target) object or to the region of space it occupies. We show here that attentional response enhancement in macaque area V4 extends to behaviorally irrelevant objects in the vicinity of the target object, indicating that focal attention has a strong spatial component at the physiological level. In addition, we find that spatial attention effects typically show a striking directional asymmetry. The direction of the asymmetry varies between cells, so that some cells respond best when attention is directed to the left of the stimulus, some when attention is directed to the right, etc. Thus, attention involves not only enhanced responses to behavioral targets but also a complex modulation of responses to other stimuli in the surrounding visual space.
Drosophila Blimp-1 Is a Transient Transcriptional Repressor That Controls Timing of the Ecdysone-Induced Developmental Pathway

ABSTRACT Regulatory mechanisms controlling the timing of developmental events are crucial for proper development to occur. ftz-f1 is expressed in a temporally regulated manner following pulses of ecdysteroid and this precise expression is necessary for the development of Drosophila melanogaster. To understand how insect hormone ecdysteroids regulate the timing of FTZ-F1 expression, we purified a DNA binding regulator of ftz-f1. Mass spectroscopy analysis revealed this protein to be a fly homolog of mammalian B lymphocyte-induced maturation protein 1 (Blimp-1). Drosophila Blimp-1 (dBlimp-1) is induced directly by 20-hydroxyecdysone, and its product exists during high-ecdysteroid periods and turns over rapidly. Forced expression of dBlimp-1 and RNA interference analysis indicate that dBlimp-1 acts as a repressor and controls the timing of FTZ-F1 expression. Furthermore, its prolonged expression results in delay of pupation timing. These results suggest that the transient transcriptional repressor dBlimp-1 is important for determining developmental timing in the ecdysone-induced pathway.
No effect of low-level chronic neonicotinoid exposure on bumblebee learning and fecundity

In recent years, many pollinators have declined in abundance and diversity worldwide, presenting a potential threat to agricultural productivity, biodiversity and the functioning of natural ecosystems. One of the most debated factors proposed to be contributing to pollinator declines is exposure to pesticides, particularly neonicotinoids, a widely used class of systemic insecticide. Also, newly emerging parasites and diseases, thought to be spread via contact with managed honeybees, may pose threats to other pollinators such as bumblebees. Compared to honeybees, bumblebees could be particularly vulnerable to the effects of stressors due to their smaller and more short-lived colonies. Here, we studied the effect of field-realistic, chronic clothianidin exposure and inoculation with the parasite Nosema ceranae on survival, fecundity, sugar water collection and learning using queenless Bombus terrestris audax microcolonies in the laboratory. Chronic exposure to 1 ppb clothianidin had no significant effects on the traits studied. Interestingly, pesticide exposure in combination with additional stress caused by harnessing bees for Proboscis Extension Response (PER) learning assays, led to an increase in mortality. In contrast to previous findings, the bees did not become infected by N. ceranae after experimental inoculation with the parasite spores, suggesting variability in host resistance or parasite virulence. However, this treatment induced a slight, short-term reduction in sugar water collection, potentially through stimulation of the immune system of the bees. Our results suggest that chronic exposure to 1 ppb clothianidin does not have adverse effects on bumblebee fecundity or learning ability.
Generation of a non‐sporulating strain of Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2) by the manipulation of a developmentally controlled ftsZ promoter

The differentiation of Streptomyces aerial hyphae into chains of unigenomic spores occurs through the synchronous formation of multiple FtsZ rings, leading to sporulation septa. We show here that developmental control of ftsZ transcription is required for sporulation in Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2). Three putative ftsZ promoters were detected in the ftsQ–ftsZ intergenic region. In addition, some readthrough from upstream promoter(s) contributed to ftsZ transcription. S1 nuclease protection assays and transcriptional fusions of the ftsZ promoter region to the egfp gene (for green fluorescent protein) provided evidence that ftsZ2p is a developmentally controlled promoter that is specifically upregulated in sporulating aerial hyphae. This upregulation required all the six early regulatory sporulation genes that were tested: whiA, B, G, H, I and J. The DNA sequence of the promoter indicated that it is not part of the developmental regulon that is controlled by the RNA polymerase sigma factor σWhiG. A strain in which the ftsZ2p promoter was inactivated grew normally during vegetative growth and formed aerial mycelium, but was deficient in sporulation septation. Thus, ftsZ2p was dispensable for vegetative growth, but was required for the strain to make sufficient FtsZ to support developmentally controlled multiple cell divisions in aerial hyphae.