Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Uniform Stabilization of Nonlinear Systems With Arbitrary Switchings and Dynamic Uncertainties

We solve the problem of global uniform input-to-state stabilization of nonlinear switched systems with time-varying and periodic dynamics, with dynamic uncertainties, and with external disturbances. The switching signal is assumed to be unknown and the dynamics of the known components of the state vector is equivalent to the general triangular form (GTF) with non-invertible input-output maps. In our first and most general result, we prove that, if the dynamic uncertainty is treated as external disturbance, then the general triangular form system can be stabilized with arbitrarily small gain w.r. t. the dynamic uncertainty by means of a switching-independent, smooth and periodic feedback. Hence, using a suitable extension of the well-known small gain theorem to our case of switched systems with arbitrary switchings, we obtain the uniform input-to-state stabilization of the entire interconnected system. The second part of the paper addresses a more special case of triangular form (TF) switched systems with right-invertible input-output (I-O) maps with unknown switchings and with dynamic uncertainties. We show that the design becomes simpler and more constructive and the controllers become time-invariant if the dynamics is autonomous in this special case. Finally, we consider an example with explicit design of the stabilizing controllers.
Impact of Antiretroviral Therapy on the Incidence of Tuberculosis: The Brazilian Experience, 1995–2001

Background The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) fuels tuberculosis (TB) epidemics. In controlled clinical trials, antiretroviral therapy (ART) reduces TB incidence in HIV-infected patients. In this study we determine if, under programmatic conditions, Brazil's policy of universal ART access has impacted TB incidence among HIV-infected patients. Methods We abstracted clinical information from records of HIV-infected patients managed in the public sector in 11 Brazilian states between 1/1/1995 and 12/31/2001. Case ascertainment (TB and HIV) utilized guidelines (with added stringency) published by Brazil's Ministry of Health. We determined TB incidence and hazards ratio (HR) for ART-naïve and ART-treated [including highly active ART (HAART)] patients employing Cox proportional hazards analysis. Results Information from 463 HIV-infected patients met study criteria. The median age of the study population was 34 years, 70% were male, and mean follow-up to primary endpoints—TB, death, and last clinic visit—was 330, 1059, and 1125 days, respectively. Of the 463 patients, 76 (16%) remained ART-naïve. Of the patients who never received HAART (n = 157) 81 were treated with ART non-HAART. Of the patients who received any ART (n = 387), 306 were treated with HAART (includes those patients who later switched from ART non-HAART to HAART). Tuberculosis developed in 39/463 (8%) patients. Compared to HAART- and ART non-HAART-treated patient groups, TB incidence was 10- (p<0.001) and 2.5-fold (p = 0.03) higher in ART-naïve patients, respectively. The median baseline absolute CD4+ T-lymphocyte count for patients who developed TB was not significantly different from that of patients who remained TB free. In multivariate analysis, the incidence of TB was statistically significantly lower in HAART-treated [HR 0.2; 95% (CI 0.1, 0.6); p<0.01] compared to ART naïve patients. A baseline CD4+ T-lymphocyte count <200 cells/mm3 [HR 2.5; (95% CI 1.2, 5.4); p<0.01], prior hospitalization [HR 4.2; (95% CI 2.0, 8.8); p<0.001], prior incarceration [HR 4.1; 95% CI 1.6, 10.3); p<0.01], and a positive tuberculin skin test [HR 3.1; (95% CI 1.1, 9.0); p = 0.04] were independently and positively associated with incident TB. Conclusion In this population-based study we demonstrate an 80% reduction in incident TB, under programmatic conditions, in HAART-treated HIV-infected patients compared to ART-naïve patients.
Transfusion-dependent low-risk myelodysplastic patients receiving deferasirox: Long-term follow-up

Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDSs) are characterized by ineffective hematopoiesis that results in peripheral cytopenias. Anemia is the most common symptom of MDS and the majority of patients become transfusion-dependent with the risk of iron overload, which may lead to cardiac, hepatic and endocrine complications. Deferasirox is an orally available iron chelator administered once-daily in transfusion-dependent patients with various chronic anemias. Its efficacy has been established in controlled clinical trials. In the present study, we describe our experience with 55 consecutive MDS patients [International Prognostic Scoring System risk score of low (n=32) or intermediate-1 (n=23)] treated with deferasirox in a routine clinical setting following Consensus Guidelines on Iron Chelation Therapy. According to WHO classifications, patients had refractory anemia (n=30), refractory anemia with ringed sideroblasts (n=16), refractory cytopenia with multilineage dysplasia (n=8) or refractory cytopenia with multilineage dysplasia and ringed sideroblasts (n=1). The median monthly transfusion requirement at baseline was 3 units. Patients received a starting dosage of 10 mg/kg/day, subsequently titrated according to serum ferritin (SF) levels which were measured monthly. Safety assessment included monitoring of liver and renal parameters and recording adverse events (AE) during treatment. At the baseline, the mean ± SD SF level was 2,362±172 ng/ml and after 24 months, the mean ± SD decrease in SF was 1,679±209 ng/ml. Sixteen patients had sustained hematological improvement meeting International Working Group 2006 criteria. One patient became transfusion-independent. No severe AE were reported. In conclusion, deferasirox therapy was effective and safe in reducing transfusional iron overload and it reduces transfusion requirement in a subset of patients.
Topological units of environmental signal processing in the transcriptional regulatory network of Escherichia coli

Recent evidence indicates that potential interactions within metabolic, protein–protein interaction, and transcriptional regulatory networks are used differentially according to the environmental conditions in which a cell exists. However, the topological units underlying such differential utilization are not understood. Here we use the transcriptional regulatory network of Escherichia coli to identify such units, called origons, representing regulatory subnetworks that originate at a distinct class of sensor transcription factors. Using microarray data, we find that specific environmental signals affect mRNA expression levels significantly only within the origons responsible for their detection and processing. We also show that small regulatory interaction patterns, called subgraphs and motifs, occupy distinct positions in and between origons, offering insights into their dynamical role in information processing. The identified features are likely to represent a general framework for environmental signal processing in prokaryotes.
The large-time smile and skew for exponential Levy models

We derive a full asymptotic expansion for call option prices and a third order approximation for implied volatility in the large-time, large log-moneyness regime for a general exponential Levy model, by extending the saddlepoint argument used in Forde,Jacquier & Mijatovic for the Heston model. As for the Heston model, there are two special log-moneyness values where the call option asymptotics are qualitatively different, and we use an Edgeworth expansion to deal with these cases. We also characterise the behaviour of the implied volatility skew at large-maturities; in particular we show that the derivative of the dimensionless implied variance with respect to log-moneyness exists and is less than or equal to 4 in the large-maturity limit, which is consistent with the bound on the right and left-side derivative given in Rogers&Tehranchi.
New properties of SAW gas sensing

Novel attractive properties of SAW gas sensing are theoretically predicted and experimentally verified. The response upon gas exposure of SAW-based gas sensors can be increased, decreased, reversed, cancelled, speeded up, aged down, and selected for a given sensitive layer, simply by changing the substrate material and orientation. When utilized as a tool for analytical chemistry, the steady-state and kinetic properties of adsorption, desorption, and diffusion, together with other related processes, can be simply deduced from pure acoustic measurements. These new properties are shown to be produced by the change of the components of the elliptic polarization of the wave, varying with the propagation direction and the substrate material. Experimental results, obtained for quartz substrates coated with polycrystalline palladium and palladium-nickel films exposed to H/sub 2/, CO, N/sub 2/O, and different concentrations of relative humidity in air are presented as an example.
The ghosts of HeLa: How cell line misidentification contaminates the scientific literature

While problems with cell line misidentification have been known for decades, an unknown number of published papers remains in circulation reporting on the wrong cells without warning or correction. Here we attempt to make a conservative estimate of this ‘contaminated’ literature. We found 32,755 articles reporting on research with misidentified cells, in turn cited by an estimated half a million other papers. The contamination of the literature is not decreasing over time and is anything but restricted to countries in the periphery of global science. The decades-old and often contentious attempts to stop misidentification of cell lines have proven to be insufficient. The contamination of the literature calls for a fair and reasonable notification system, warning users and readers to interpret these papers with appropriate care.
Isolation and characterization of endoglucanases 1 and 2 from Bacteroides succinogenes S85

Two endoglucanases designated EG1 and EG2 were purified by column chromatography from the nonsedimentable extracellular culture fluid of Bacteroides succinogenes S85. They accounted for approximately 32 and 11%, respectively, of the total endoglucanase present in the nonsedimentable fraction. The most active enzyme (EG1) had a molecular weight of 65,000, pI of 4.8, and temperature and pH optima of 39 degrees C and 6.4, respectively. The Km for carboxymethyl cellulose was 3.6 mg/ml, and the Vmax was 84 U/mg. The major products of cellulose hydrolysis catalyzed by EG1 were cellotriose and cellobiose. EG2 was present as two components with molecular weights of 118,000 and 94,000. The two components had nearly identical cyanogen bromide peptide maps, thereby indicating that the 94,000-dalton component was a proteolytic degradation product of the 118,000-dalton enzyme. The larger component, which was more abundant in the culture fluid than the smaller form was, had a Km of 12.2 mg/ml and a Vmax of 10.4 U/mg. It was a basic protein with a pI of 9.4, a temperature optimum of 39 degrees C, and a pH optimum of 5.8. The major product of cellulose hydrolysis was cellotetraose. EG2 exhibited specific binding to acid-swollen cellulose, whereas EG1 did not, and neither of them had affinity for crystalline cellulose. Based on the substrate specificities and the affinities of the two enzymes for cellulose, we postulated that EG2 is involved in the early stages of cellulose hydrolysis and that EG1 is active primarily on the products arising from EG2.
Overview of the ImageCLEF 2013 Robot Vision Task

This article describes the RobotVision@ImageCLEF 2012 challenge, which addresses the problem of multimodal place classica- tion. Participants of the challenge were asked to classify rooms on the ba- sis of image sequences captured by cameras mounted on a mobile robot. The proposals of the participants had to answer the question \where are you? " (I am in the elevator, in the toilet, etc) when presented with a test sequence, acquired within the same building and oor but with dierent lighting conditions than the training sequence. The 2012 edition of the challenge introduced the use of depth images in addition to visual images. Moreover, several techniques for feature extraction and cue integration were also proposed. As in previous editions, two dierent tasks were pro- posed: task 1 and task 2. In task 1 (mandatory) participants were asked to classify the frames separately, while the temporal continuity of the im- age sequence could only be exploited in task 2 (optional). Eight dierent groups participated to the 2012 edition of the Robot Vision challenge. The winner in both tasks was the Centro de Investigaci on en Inform atica para la Ingenier a (CIII), from the Universidad Tecnol ogica Nacional, Ar- gentina (CIII UTN FRC). This participant obtained an overall score of 2071 (84.70% of the maximum score) in task 1 and 3930 (96.35% of the maximum score) in task 2.
A Robust Competitive Clustering Algorithm With Applications in Computer Vision

This paper addresses three major issues associated with conventional partitional clustering, namely, sensitivity to initialization, difficulty in determining the number of clusters, and sensitivity to noise and outliers. The proposed robust competitive agglomeration (RCA) algorithm starts with a large number of clusters to reduce the sensitivity to initialization, and determines the actual number of clusters by a process of competitive agglomeration. Noise immunity is achieved by incorporating concepts from robust statistics into the algorithm. RCA assigns two different sets of weights for each data point: the first set of constrained weights represents degrees of sharing, and is used to create a competitive environment and to generate a fuzzy partition of the data set. The second set corresponds to robust weights, and is used to obtain robust estimates of the cluster prototypes. By choosing an appropriate distance measure in the objective function, RCA can be used to find an unknown number of clusters of various shapes in noisy data sets, as well as to fit an unknown number of parametric models simultaneously. Several examples, such as clustering/mixture decomposition, line/plane fitting, segmentation of range images, and estimation of motion parameters of multiple objects, are shown.
Captured older stars as the reason for apparently prolonged star formation in young star clusters

The existence of older stars within a young star cluster can be interpreted to imply that star formation occurs on time-scales longer than a free-fall time of a pre-cluster cloud core. Here, the idea is explored that these older stars are not related to the star formation process forming the young star cluster but rather that the orbits of older field stars are focused by the collapsing pre-cluster cloud core. Two effects appear: the focusing of stellar orbits leads to an enhancement of the density of field stars in the vicinity of the centre of the young star cluster; and due to the time† dependent potential of the forming cluster some of these stars can get bound gravitationally to the cluster. These stars exhibit similar kinematical properties to the newly formed stars and cannot be distinguished from them on the basis of radial velocity or proper motion surveys. Such contaminations may lead to a wrong apparent star formation history of a young cluster. In the case of the ONC, the theoretical number of gravitationally bound older low-mass field stars agrees with the number of observed older low-mass stars.
Genetic Architecture of Sexual Selection: QTL Mapping of Male Song and Female Receiver Traits in an Acoustic Moth

Models of indirect (genetic) benefits sexual selection predict linkage disequilibria between genes that influence male traits and female preferences, owing to non-random mate choice or physical linkage. Such linkage disequilibria can accelerate the evolution of traits and preferences to exaggerated levels. Both theory and recent empirical findings on species recognition suggest that such linkage disequilibria may result from physical linkage or pleiotropy, but very little work has addressed this possibility within the context of sexual selection. We studied the genetic architecture of sexually selected traits by analyzing signals and preferences in an acoustic moth, Achroia grisella, in which males attract females with a train of ultrasound pulses and females prefer loud songs and a fast pulse rhythm. Both male signal characters and female preferences are repeatable and heritable traits. Moreover, female choice is based largely on male song, while males do not appear to provide direct benefits at mating. Thus, some genetic correlation between song and preference traits is expected. We employed a standard crossing design between inbred lines and used AFLP markers to build a linkage map for this species and locate quantitative trait loci (QTL) that influence male song and female preference. Our analyses mostly revealed QTLs of moderate strength that influence various male signal and female receiver traits, but one QTL was found that exerts a major influence on the pulse-pair rate of male song, a critical trait in female attraction. However, we found no evidence of specific co-localization of QTLs influencing male signal and female receiver traits on the same linkage groups. This finding suggests that the sexual selection process would proceed at a modest rate in A. grisella and that evolution toward exaggerated character states may be tempered. We suggest that this equilibrium state may be more the norm than the exception among animal species.
Command, Control and Navigation: Experimental Results with the NPS

Provides an overview of the Naval Postgraduate School ARIES autonomous underwater vehicle and its control and navigation. An attempt is made to highlight its current operational capabilities and provide a description of future enhancements for greater mission utility and flexibility. An overview of the vehicle design along with descriptions of all major hardware components and sensors is given. A major discussion of the implementation of a modular, multirate, multiprocess software architecture for the ARIES is provided. The architecture is designed to operate using either a single computer processor or two independent, cooperating processors linked through a network interface for improved load balancing. A dual computer implementation is presented since each processor assumes different tasks for mission operation. Also included is a section on the underwater navigation method using a real-time extended Kalman filter that fuses all sensor data and computes the real time position, orientation and velocity. Experimental results for navigational accuracy using a DGPS/IMU/Doppler-aided navigation system are presented with DGPS pop-up maneuvers. Navigational accuracy is a requirement for the use of ARIES as a mobile communications network node. This work provides some examples of missions possible with such a node and the current state of its command and control system.
of Patients with Low Back Pain

Lumbar CT Findings Low back pain is probably the second most common disease entity to upper respsiratory infection in developed country We were missing at least 50% of the pathologic conditions by using conventional diagnostic modalities in low back pain. They did tell us nothing or little about facet abnormalities , lateral recesses , vertebral canal and soft tissues surrounding lumbar spines High resolutional CT has been the biggest turning point in the diagnosis and management of low back pain CT make a contribution to reducing the morbidity and probably the cost of evaluating patients with low back pain , and to increasing diagnostic accuracy We observed 100 cases of lumbar CT using TCT 80A scanner for the evluation of low back pain during the period from Ap r. 1985 to Sep t. 1985 at Chung-Ang University Hospital Lumbar CT scan reveals high-positive findings (98%) in low back pain patients. Common low back disorders in CT are disc bulging (53%) , herniated nucleus pulposus (32%) , degenerative arthritis in posterior facet joints (27%) , spinal stensosis (20%) and postoperative spines (15%) Unco l1ll1l on low back disorders in CT are compression fracture of vertebral bodies , spon이시이ySls
A new approach to stability analysis for constrained finite receding horizon control without end constraints

We present a new approach to the stability analysis of finite receding horizon control applied to constrained linear systems. By relating the final predicted state to the current state through a bound on the terminal cost, it is shown that knowledge of upper and lower bounds for the finite horizon costs is sufficient to determine the stability of a receding horizon controller. This analysis is valid for receding horizon schemes with arbitrary positive-definite terminal weights and does not rely on the use of stabilizing constraints. The result is a computable test for stability, and two simple examples are used to illustrate its application.
Boosting-based discovery of multi-component physiological indicators: applications to express diagnostics and personalized treatment optimization

Increasing availability of multi-scale and multi-channel physiological data opens new horizons for quantitative modeling in medicine. However, practical limitations of existing approaches include both the low accuracy of the simplified analytical models and empirical expert-defined rules and the insufficient interpretability and stability of the pure data-driven models. Such challenges are typical for automated diagnostics from high-resolution image data and multi-channel temporal physiological information available in modern clinical settings. In addition, increasing number of portable and wearable systems for collection of physiological data outside medical facilities provide an opportunity for express and remote diagnostics as well as early detection of irregular and transient patterns caused by developing abnormalities or subtle initial effects of new treatments. However, quantitative modeling in such applications is even more challenging due to obvious limitations on the number of data channels, increased noise and non-stationary nature of considered tasks. Methods from nonlinear dynamics (NLD) are natural modeling tools for adaptive biological systems with multiple feedback loops and are capable of inferring essential dynamic properties from just one or a small number of data channels. However, most NLD indicators require long periods of data for stable calculation which significantly limits their practical value. Many of these challenges in biomedical modeling could be overcome by boosting and similar ensemble learning techniques that are capable of discovering robust multi-component meta-models from existing simplified models and other incomplete empirical knowledge. Here we describe an application of this approach to a practical system for express diagnostics and early detection of treatment responses from short beat-to-beat heart rate (RR) time series. The proposed system could play a key role in many applications relevant to e-healthcare, personalized medicine, express and remote web-enabled diagnostics, decision support systems, treatment optimization and others.