Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influence of magnetism on the martensitic transition and related magnetocaloric effect in NiMn-based Heusler alloys

This work is devoted to improving the understanding of the magnetic and magnetocaloric properties of martensitic Ni-Mn-based Heusler alloys with Ga, In and Sn. Ni-Mn-Sn, Ni-Mn-In and Ni-Mn-(In,Sn) alloys were chosen as prototype alloys for studying the adiabatic temperature change on cyclic field change. Each of these compositions are known for exhibiting large field-induced entropy changes up to 4 J kg^{-1} K^{-1} T^{-1} and the inverse magnetocaloric effect (MCE) on applying a magnetic field. We show with adiabatic calorimetry studies that the adiabatic temperature change on initial field application is larger than the one observed on the following field removal and application cycles. Thus in Ni-Mn-In, the inverse MCE of constant size is observed in the following cycles. This is related to the reversibility in the field-induced-change in the austenite-to-martensite ratio caused by magnetoelastic effects observed in these alloys. In contrast, in Ni-Mn-Sn, the inverse MCE observed on first field application is followed by conventional MCE on field removal and on following cycles. Such behavior arises from small field-induced change in the austenite-to-martensite ratio being lower by an order of magnitude than in Ni-Mn-In. In Ni-Mn-(In,Sn) alloys, the inverse MCE with decreasing magnitude is observed on the cyclic field-change. This behavior is related to irreversibilities in the austenite-to-martensite ratio on cyclic field change. Compositional series of Ni-Mn-Ga and Ni-Mn-Sn alloys with varying Ni and Mn concentrations were studied by means of ferromagnetic resonance and polarized neutron scattering. With these studies, we show that antiferromagnetic Mn-Mn interactions play the key role in martensitic transformations, and the absence of antiferromagnetic interactions renders the structural transformation impossible. We also show the presence of antiferromagnetic interactions in both the magnetically ordered martensite phase and in the magnetically disordered austenite phase in Mn-rich martensitic Ni-Mn-based Heusler alloys. The (Ni,Co)-Mn-In alloy is a prototype for large magnetostrain and magnetocaloric effect applications exhibiting large temperature range with low magnetization between T^M_C and A_s in the martensite phase. We show that in this alloy, ferromagnetic domains remain down to 180 K below M_s on cooling. On warming, ferromagnetic domains develop below the austenite start A_s temperature at 250 K. Ni-Mn-In is known for its large shift of the structural transition temperature M_s of about 10 K/T along with partial stabilization of the austenite phase far below M_s. We use field-dependent neutron diffraction on a Ni-Mn-In sample to investigate phenomena of the austenite arrest in this alloy.
Propagation of Electromagnetic Waves Guided by the Anisotropically Conducting Model of a Tape Helix Supported by Dielectric Rods

The practically important case of a dielectric-loaded tape helix enclosed in a coaxial perfectly conducting cylindrical shell is analysed in this paper. The dielectric-loaded tape helix for guided electromagnetic wave propagation considered here has infinitesimal tape thickness and infinite tape-material conductivity. The homogeneous boundary value problem is solved taking into account the exact boundary conditions similar to the case of anisotropically conducting open tape helix model [1, 2]. The boundary value problem is solved to yield the dispersion equation which takes the form of the solvability condition for an infinite system of linear homogeneous algebraic equations viz., the determinant of the infiniteorder coefficient matrix is zero. For the numerical computation of the approximate dispersion characteristic, all the entries of the symmetrically truncated version of the coefficient matrix are estimated by summing an adequate number of the rapidly converging series for them. The tape-current distribution is estimated from the null-space vector of the truncated coefficient matrix corresponding to a specified root of the dispersion equation.
Knowledge of Greek adolescents on human papilloma virus (HPV) and vaccination

Abstract The aim of the present study was to identify the sexual behavior, attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge on sexually transmitted infections (STIs) focused on human papilloma virus (HPV) in the Greek adolescent population. The participants were 4547 adolescents, a representative sample for Greek territory with a mean age of 17 years. After written permission from Greek ministry of education each student completed a questionnaire with 36 questions. The fields covered were demographic characteristics, sexual life data, and basic knowledge on HPV. In the present study, 43% and 75% of the participants knew about HPV or cervical cancer, while more than 6 out of 10 did not know the association between the 2. More than 60% of the participants could not answer correctly neither about HPV infection and cervical cancer frequency in sexually active women, nor about protection methods against HPV and cervical cancer. This study shows that the low vaccination coverage of the Greek population may be due to lack of information and awareness of the adolescents and their parents. It is our duty to increase our efforts in order to better educate the population and vaccinate the population as early as possible in their reproductive years.
Increased antioxidant defense mechanism in human adventitia-derived progenitor cells is associated with therapeutic benefit in ischemia.

AIMS Vascular wall-resident progenitor cells hold great promise for cardiovascular regenerative therapy. This study evaluates the impact of oxidative stress on the viability and functionality of adventitia-derived progenitor cells (APCs) from vein remnants of coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. We also investigated the antioxidant enzymes implicated in the resistance of APCs to oxidative stress-induced damage and the effect of interfering with one of them, the extracellular superoxide dismutase (EC-SOD/SOD3), on APC therapeutic action in a model of peripheral ischemia. RESULTS After exposure to hydrogen peroxide, APCs undergo apoptosis to a smaller extent than endothelial cells (ECs). This was attributed to up-regulation of antioxidant enzymes, especially SODs and catalase. Pharmacological inhibition of SODs increases reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels in APCs and impairs their survival. Likewise, APC differentiation results in SOD down-regulation and ROS-induced apoptosis. Oxidative stress increases APC migratory activity, while being inhibitory for ECs. In addition, oxidative stress does not impair APC capacity to promote angiogenesis in vitro. In a mouse limb ischemia model, an injection of naïve APCs, but not SOD3-silenced APCs, helps perfusion recovery and neovascularization, thus underlining the importance of this soluble isoform in protection from ischemia. INNOVATION This study newly demonstrates that APCs are endowed with enhanced detoxifier and antioxidant systems and that SOD3 plays an important role in their therapeutic activity in ischemia. CONCLUSIONS APCs from vein remnants of CABG patients express antioxidant defense mechanisms, which enable them to resist stress. These properties highlight the potential of APCs in cardiovascular regenerative medicine.
The NAIST ASR system for the 2015 Multi-Genre Broadcast challenge: On combination of deep learning systems using a rank-score function

The Multi-Genre Broadcast challenge is an official challenge of the IEEE Automatic Speech Recognition and Understanding Workshop. This paper presents NAISTs contribution to the premiere of this challenge. The presented speech-to-text system for English makes use of various front-ends (e.g., MFCC, i-vector and FBANK), DNN acoustic models and several language models for decoding and rescoring (N-gram, RNNLM). Subsets of the training data with varying sizes were evaluated with respect to the overall training quality. Two speech segmentation systems were developed for the challenge, based on DNNs and GMM-HMMs. Recognition was performed in three stages: Decoding, lattice rescoring and system combination. This paper focuses on the system combination experiments and presents a rank-score based system weighting approach, which gave better performance compared to a normal system combination strategy. The DNN based ASR system trained on MFCC + i-vector features with the sMBR training criterion gives the best performance of 27.8% WER, and thus significantly outperforms the baseline DNN-HMM sMBR yielding 33.7% WER.
Preparation and Characterization of Antibacterial Cellulose/Chitosan Nanofiltration Membranes

Presently, most nanofiltration membranes are prepared with non-biodegradable petrochemical materials. This process is harmful to the ecosystem and consumes a large amount of non-renewable energy. In this study, biodegradable and biocompatible antibacterial cellulose/chitosan nanofiltration membranes (BC/CS-NFMs) were fabricated and characterized for their mechanical strength, antimicrobial activity, salt and dye filtration performance, and polyethylene glycol (PEG) retention using Thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), Field emission scanning electron microscopy(FE-SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy(FT-IR), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The BC/CS-NFMs were obtained by the hydrolysis and carboxymethylation of dense cellulose/chitosan membranes (BC/CSMs). The tensile strength of the BC/CS-NFMs decreased as the chitosan content increased. In addition, the thermal stability and antibacterial ability of the BC/CS-NFMs improved. The pore size is less than 1 nm, and a spongy, layered structure is observed in the cross-sectional FE-SEM images. FT-IR analysis shows that a part of the hydroxyl in cellulose transforms to carboxymethyl during the hydrolysis and carboxymethylation of the BC/CSMs. No obvious changes can be observed in the cellulose and chitosan after the blend membrane formation from the XRD measurements. Based on the experimental results on the permeation and rejection of BC/CS-NFMs, different proportions of cellulose and chitosan nanofiltration membranes almost did not affect the water flux and rejection rate. The BC/CS-NFMs showed better water flux and a higher rejection rate in aqueous dye-salt solutions.
Vector Control of Front-End Converters for Variable-Speed Wind&#8211;Diesel Systems

This paper presents a novel power-balance control method for a wind-diesel generation feeding an isolated grid. The system is based on a variable-speed wind energy conversion system (WECS) connected to an ac load using a power converter. An energy storage system (ESS), connected to the ac load using an additional converter, is used to balance the power generated by the WECS with the load. In this paper, the vector control systems for both interfacing power converters are discussed; the control uses the WECS converter to regulate the ac load voltage and the ESS converter to regulate the power flow to achieve a power balance. A small signal model is used to design the control systems. Finally, the proposed control is implemented in a 2-kW experimental prototype and the experimental results are fully analyzed and discussed in the paper
Glucose Metabolism Regulates T Cell Activation, Differentiation, and Functions

The adaptive immune system is equipped to eliminate both tumors and pathogenic microorganisms. It requires a series of complex and coordinated signals to drive the activation, proliferation, and differentiation of appropriate T cell subsets. It is now established that changes in cellular activation are coupled to profound changes in cellular metabolism. In addition, emerging evidence now suggest that specific metabolic alterations associated with distinct T cell subsets may be ancillary to their differentiation and influential in their immune functions. The “Warburg effect” originally used to describe a phenomenon in which most cancer cells relied on aerobic glycolysis for their growth is a key process that sustain T cell activation and differentiation. Here, we review how different aspects of metabolism in T cells influence their functions, focusing on the emerging role of key regulators of glucose metabolism such as HIF-1α. A thorough understanding of the role of metabolism in T cell function could provide insights into mechanisms involved in inflammatory-mediated conditions, with the potential for developing novel therapeutic approaches to treat these diseases.
Global Properties and Functional Complexity of Human Gene Regulatory Variation

Identification and functional interpretation of gene regulatory variants is a major focus of modern genomics. The application of genetic mapping to molecular and cellular traits has enabled the detection of regulatory variation on genome-wide scales and revealed an enormous diversity of regulatory architecture in humans and other species. In this review I summarise the insights gained and questions raised by a decade of genetic mapping of gene expression variation. I discuss recent extensions of this approach using alternative molecular phenotypes that have revealed some of the biological mechanisms that drive gene expression variation between individuals. Finally, I highlight outstanding problems and future directions for development.
Fall Incidence in Frail Older Women after Individualized Visual Feedback-Based Balance Training

Background: The knowledge concerning balance training actually lowering fall rates among frail older persons is limited. Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the effects of a 4-week individualized visual feedback-based balance training on the fall incidence during 1-year follow-up among frail older women living in residential care. Methods: Twenty-seven older women from 2 residential care homes were randomized into exercise (n = 20) and control (n = 7) groups. Balance measurements were carried out before and after a 4-week training period and falls were monitored by monthly diaries for 1 year. An interview about fear of falling and physical activity was completed before and after the intervention and after the 1-year follow-up. Results: A positive effect of balance training on fall incidence was found. A dynamic Poisson regression model showed that during the follow-up the monthly risk of falling was decreased in the exercise group compared to controls (risk ratio 0.398, 95% CI 0.174–0.911, p = 0.029). In addition, the exercise group reported a reduced fear of falling and increased physical activity after a training period but these changes declined during the follow-up period. Conclusion: Individualized visual feedback-based balance training was shown to be a promising method for fall prevention among frail older women. High compliance (97.5%) with the training program showed that carefully targeted training programs can be carried out among older people with health limitations.
Monocular Visual-Inertial SLAM: Continuous Preintegration and Reliable Initialization

In this paper, we propose a new visual-inertial Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) algorithm. With the tightly coupled sensor fusion of a global shutter monocular camera and a low-cost Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), this algorithm is able to achieve robust and real-time estimates of the sensor poses in unknown environment. To address the real-time visual-inertial fusion problem, we present a parallel framework with a novel IMU initialization method. Our algorithm also benefits from the novel IMU factor, the continuous preintegration method, the vision factor of directional error, the separability trick and the robust initialization criterion which can efficiently output reliable estimates in real-time on modern Central Processing Unit (CPU). Tremendous experiments also validate the proposed algorithm and prove it is comparable to the state-of-art method.
An anti-folk theorem for finite past equilibria in repeated games with private monitoring

We prove an anti-folk theorem for repeated games with private monitoring. We assume that the strategies have a finite past (they are measurable with respect to finite partitions of past histories), that each period players' preferences over actions are modified by smooth idiosyncratic shocks, and that the monitoring is sufficiently connected. In all repeated game equilibria, each period play is an equilibrium of the stage game. When the monitoring is approximately connected, and equilibrium strategies have a uniformly bounded past, then each period play is an approximate equilibrium of the stage game.
Bladder Preservation for Muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer

The standard treatment for muscle invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) has been considered to be radical cystectomy (RC) with pelvic lymphadenectomy. However morbidity and impact on quality of life is significant. Radiotherapy has been used in MIBC patients who choose bladder preservation or who are unfit for RC with comparable outcomes. Evidence from some prospective and large retrospective series supports the use of radiotherapy as an attractive alternative option. In this paper we review the evidence and practice of bladder preservation strategies with radiotherapy for muscle invasive bladder cancer.
Rapid Mixing and Markov Bases

The mixing behaviour of random walks on lattice points of polytopes using Markov bases is examined. It is shown that under a dilation of the underlying polytope, these random walks do not mix rapidly when a fixed Markov basis is used. We also show that this phenomenon does not disappear after adding more moves to the Markov basis. Avoiding rejections by sampling applicable moves does also not lead to an asymptotic improvement. As a way out, a method of how to adapt Markov bases in order to achieve the fastest mixing behaviour is introduced.
CATIS: A Context-Aware Tourist Information System

In this paper we describe our current implementation and future plans for CATIS, a context-aware tourist information system that leverages Web services and XML technologies for its implementation. We review notions of context as they relate to tourists, and provide relevant tourism scenarios that helped drive our design. Our system architecture is Web services-based and includes a context manager element that manages both dynamic and static context. The elements of context in our work are location, time of day, speed, direction of travel, personal preferences, and device type. We describe how these elements are leveraged to adapt Web-based information that is delivered to mobile tourists. Our future plans for incorporating mobility in the user’s context, and how to scale our system to support large numbers of mobile users are described as well.
The factor structure of the revised Illness Perception Questionnaire in a population of oesophageal cancer survivors

Objectives: To determine whether the proposed seven‐factor structure of the Illness Perception Questionnaire—Revised (Timeline Acute/Chronic, Timeline Cyclical, Consequences, Personal Control, Treatment Control, Illness Coherence and Emotional Representations) is appropriate among a population of oesophageal cancer survivors.
Adequacy of empirical antifungal therapy and effect on outcome among patients with invasive Candida species infections.

OBJECTIVES Although inadequate antimicrobial therapy has been demonstrated in multiple studies to increase the risk for death in bacterial infections, few data investigating the effect of antifungal therapy on outcome of serious fungal disease are available. We sought to assess the adequacy of empirical therapy and its effect on mortality in invasive Candida species infections. METHODS Population-based surveillance of all patients with Candida spp. cultured from blood and/or cerebrospinal fluid was conducted. Adequacy of empirical therapy was assessed according to published guidelines. RESULTS During a 5 year period, 207 patients had an invasive Candida spp. infection identified; in 199 cases (96%) adequate data were available for assessment of treatment and outcome at hospital discharge. One hundred and three (52%) cases were due to Candida albicans, 44 (22%) were due to Candida glabrata and the remainder were due to other species. Between the time of culture draw and reporting of a positive culture, only 64 (32%) patients were treated with empirical therapy; this was deemed adequate in 51 (26%). Patients who received adequate empirical therapy had a significant decrease in crude mortality [14/51 (27%) versus 68/148 (46%); risk ratio 0.60 (95% confidence interval 0.37-0.96); P = 0.02]. After adjusting for age and the need for intensive care unit admission in logistic regression analysis, the use of adequate empirical therapy was independently associated with a reduced risk for death [odds ratio 0.46 (95% confidence interval 0.22-1.00); P = 0.05]. CONCLUSIONS Adequate empirical therapy is used in a minority of patients with invasive Candida spp. infections but is associated with improved survival.
Change Narratives That Elude Quantification: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of How People with Chronic Pain Perceive Pain Rehabilitation

Chronic pain negatively impacts health, well-being, and social participation. Effective rehabilitation often hinges on long-term changes in pain-related perceptions and behaviors. However, there are important gaps in understanding how patients perceive these changes. The present pilot study addresses this gap by using qualitative and quantitative methodologies to explore how patients perceive and experience changes in function, participation, and pain-related factors following a chronic pain rehabilitation program. A mixed-method design was used in which the core method was qualitative. Descriptive quantitative data was used to further characterize the sample. Semistructured interviews were conducted 1–6 months following treatment completion. Questionnaires were administered before and after treatment and at follow-up. Interview data was analyzed thematically. Participants' individual descriptive data was compared to established cut-scores and criteria for change. A major theme of personal growth emerged in the qualitative analysis. Participants also discussed the factors that facilitated personal growth and the ongoing challenges to this growth. The quantitative data revealed limited improvement on measures of pain, disability, catastrophizing, and depression. These findings suggest that, despite limited improvement on treatment-related questionnaires, patients can experience an important and enduring sense of personal growth. Clinical and theoretical implications are discussed.