Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Functional Metal-oxide Plasmonic Metastructures: Ultrabright Semiconductor Quantum Dots with Polarized Spontaneous Emission and Suppressed Auger Recombination

We use localized surface plasmon resonances in metallic nanoantennas to suppress defect environment of colloidal quantum dots and to enhance and polarize their spontaneous emission. For this we study the interaction of such quantum dots with functional metal-oxide plasmonic metastructures consisting of an Au/Si Schottky junction in close vicinity of a Si/Al oxide charge barrier. We show that optically excited quantum dots can couple with such metastructures via their electric dipole ﬁelds, oﬀering super-plasmonic processes that include the impact of hot electron generation and ﬁxed negative charges at the Si/Al oxide junction. For metallic nanoantennas with small aspect ratios our results show that these metastructures can reduce the defect-induced nonradiative decay rates of quantum dots such that their lifetime can become signiﬁcantly longer than those in the absence of such nanoantennas. For metallic nanoantennas with larger aspect ratios these structures lead to ultrahigh enhancement of exciton-plasmon coupling, making the spontaneous emission of quantum dots strongly polarized while increasing their emission intensities by about 50 times. These results show by keeping excitons in the cores of quantum dots, the metastructures suppress migration of photo-excited electrons to surface defects and, therefore, reduce Auger recombination. Coherent dynamics associated with the quantum dot-induced exciton-plasmon coupling is theoretically investigated.
On achieving throughput in an input-queued switch

We establish some lower bounds on the speedup required to achieve throughput for some classes of switching algorithms in a input-queued switch with virtual output queues (VOQs). We use a weak notion of throughput, which will only strengthen the results, since an algorithm that cannot achieve weak throughput cannot achieve stronger notions of throughput. We focus on priority switching algorithms, i.e., algorithms that assign priorities to VOQs and forward packets of high priority first. We show a lower bound on the speedup for two fairly general classes of priority switching algorithms: input priority switching algorithms and output priority switching algorithms. An input priority scheme prioritizes the VOQs based on the state of the input queues, while an output priority scheme prioritizes the VOQs based on their output ports. We first show that, for output priority switching algorithms, a speedup S ≥ 2 is required to achieve weak throughput. From this, we deduce that both maximal and maximum size matching switching algorithms do not imply weak throughput unless S ≥ 2. The bound of S ≥ 2 is tight in all cases above, based on a result in Dai et al. Finally, we show that a speedup S ≥ 3/2 is required for the class of input priority switching algorithms to achieve weak throughput.
Commitment of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum to sexual and asexual development

SUMMARY Blood-stage malaria parasites in the vertebrate host can develop either into the asexual, multiplying forms, called schizonts, or into gametocytes, the sexual stages of the parasite. In the present work we studied the differentiation into asexual parasites or gametocytes of the progeny of single, isolated schizonts of the clone 3D7A of Plasinodium falciparum, using monoclonal antibodies specific for the sexual or asexual stages of the parasite. We observed that schizonts obtained from a continuous culture undergoing serial cycles of growth and dilution with fresh red blood cells produced either only gametocytes or only asexual parasites, showing a high degree of commitment to one or the other developmental pathway. The relative proportion of schizonts which produced gametocytes was very low at low parasite densities in culture, while at high parasite densities a much greater proportion of schizonts produced gametocytes. Nevertheless, at both low and high parasite densities individual schizonts were almost always fully committed to producing only gametocytes or only asexual parasites.
Solutes Transport Characteristics in Peritoneal Dialysis: Variations in Glucose and Insulin Serum Levels

Background. Differences in small solutes transport rate (SSTR) during peritoneal dialysis (PD) may affect water and solutes removal. Patients with high SSTR must rely on shorter dwell times and increased dialysate glucose concentrations to keep fluid balance. Glucose absorption during peritoneal dialysis (PD), besides affecting glucose and insulin metabolism, may induce weight gain. The study aimed at examining acute glucose and insulin serum level changes and other potential relationships in PD patients with diverse SSTR. Methods. This cross-sectional study used a modified peritoneal equilibration test (PET) that enrolled 34 prevalent PD patients. Zero, 15, 30, 60, 120, 180, and 240-minute glucose and insulin serum levels were measured. Insulin resistance index was assessed by the homeostasis model assessment (HOMA-IR) formula. SSTR categories were classified by quartiles of the four-hour dialysate/serum creatinine ratio (D4/PCr). Demographic and clinical variables were evaluated, and the body mass index (BMI) was estimated. Correlations among variables of interest and categories of SSTR were explored. Results. Glucose serum levels were significantly different at 15, 30, and 60 minutes between high and low SSTR categories (p = 0.014, 0.009, and 0.022). Increased BMI (25.5 ± 5.1) and insulin resistance [HOMA-IR = 2.60 (1.40–4.23)] were evidenced overall. Very strong to moderate correlations between insulin levels along the PET and HOMA-IR (r = 0.973, 0.834, 0.766, 0.728, 0.843, 0.857, 0.882) and BMI (r = 0.562, 0.459, 0.417, 0.370, 0.508, 0.514, 0.483) were disclosed. Conclusions. Early glucose serum levels were associated with SSTR during a PET. Overweight or obesity and insulin resistance were prevalent. An association between insulin serum levels and BMI was demonstrated.
Morphological Characterization of Cercospora Zeae-Maydis ( Tehon and Daniels ) Isolates in Southern and Southwestern Ethiopia

Received: 13 January, 2016 Accepted: 27 April, 2016 Published: 1 June, 2016 Maize (Zea mays L.) is one of the most important cereal crops cultivated in Ethiopia that ranks second after teff in area coverage and first in total production. Grey leaf spot is one of the major constraints of maize production in maize belt area of Ethiopia where warm humid environmental condition is prevailing. In view of the expansion, seriousness, and potential destructiveness of grey leaf spot (GLS), the study was conducted with the objective of characterizing Cercospora zeaemaydis isolates collected from various maize growing areas of Southern and Southwestern Ethiopia using morphological and cultural characteristics. Purified cultures of 10 representative samples were selected from 99 isolates of Cercospora zeae-maydis by categorizing the character of colony appearance on the medium and studied for the variation of colony growth, color, shapes, growth diameter and conidial size, in length and width and the number of septa. Colony growth, color, shapes and growth diameter of every culture were recorded, conidial size (length and width) and shapes were computed from 20 conidia per each selected 10 isolates of Cercospora zeae-maydis. Ninety nine isolates were studied for morphology and most of the conidia shapes were slightly curved (70%) and straight (30%). The mean conidial size was 49. 5μm in length and 9μm in width. The number of septa was found to range from 4.7 to 7.0. The study of cultural characteristics showed that variation existed among 10 representative isolates in colony growth, colony color and pigmentation. Among the two culture media tested, the highest mean colony diameter of 57.2mm was recorded on potato dextrose agar (PDA) and the lowest mean mycelial growth of 53.1mm was recorded on malt extract agar (MEA). Colony growth rate (mm/day) of 10 isolates was significantly different after growing the fungus on both PDA and MEA. All isolates had good sporulating capacity on general media (PDA) followed by MEA. Over all, the results of this study indicated wide variations among 10 isolates of Cercospora zeae-maydis based on morphological characteristics. Further investigations are recommended to get full image of the variations of Cercospora zeae-maydis in each maize growing agro-ecological areas of Ethiopia. © 2016 PSCI Publisher All rights reserved.
The X-ray activity-rotation relation of T Tauri stars in Taurus-Auriga

Context. The Taurus-Auriga star-forming complex hosts the only population of T Tauri stars in which an anticorrelation of X-ray activity and rotation period has been observed. Aims. We aim to explain the origin of the X-ray activity‐rotation relation in Taurus-Auriga. We also aim to put the X-ray activity of these stars into the context of the activity of late-type mai n-sequence stars and T Tauri stars in the Orion Nebula Cluster. Methods. We have used XMM-Newton’s European Photon Imaging Cameras to perform the most sensi tive survey to date of Xray emission (0.3-10 keV) from young stars in Taurus-Auriga. We investigated the dependences of X-ray activity measures ‐ X-ray luminosity, LX, its ratio with the stellar luminosity, LX/L⋆, and the surface-averaged X-ray flux, FXS ‐ on rotation period and compared them with predictions based solely on the observed dependence of LX on a star’s L⋆ and whether it is accreting or not. We tested for differences in the distributions of LX/L⋆ of fast and slow rotators, accretors and non-accretors, and compared the dependence of LX/L⋆ on the ratio of the rotation period and the convective turnover timescale, the Rossby number, with that of late-type main-sequence stars. Results. We found significant anticorrelations of LX and FXS with rotation period, but these could be explained by the typically higher stellar luminosity and effective temperature of fast-rotators in Taurus-Auriga and a near-linear dependence of LX on L⋆. We found no evidence for a dependence of LX/L⋆ on rotation period, but for accretors to have lower LX/L⋆ than non-accretors at all rotation periods. The Rossby numbers of accretors and non-accretors were found to be the same as those of late-type main-sequence stars showing saturated X-ray emission. Conclusions. Non-accreting T Tauri stars show X-ray activity entirely consistent with the saturated activity of fast-rotating late -type main-sequence stars. Accreting T Tauri stars show lower X-ray activity, but this cannot be attributed to their slower ro tation.
Modeling of envelope power spectra for reference-free ultrasonic attenuation estimation of soft tissue

Estimation of ultrasonic attenuation coefficient (AC) is essential for quantifying and characterizing the features of tissue microstructure. In the conventional AC estimation methods, a well-specified reference phantom is commonly used for minimizing the diffraction and transmit pulse related effects on the ultrasound radio-frequency (RF) echo signal. In this thesis, a novel AC estimation technique is proposed avoiding the need of using any reference data, where the undesired system effects on the RF data are minimized through point spread function (PSF) separation and band-pass filtering of the envelope signal of the tissue reflectivity function (TRF). An improved and computationally efficient non-parametric cepstrum-based technique is used for separating the TRF and PSF from the measured RF signal. The Hilbert transform based temporal envelope is introduced to smooth out the unwanted effects of discontinuity and noise in the TRF and PSF signals. Finally, a band-pass filter based log power approximation technique is applied to estimate the center frequency component of the attenuating TRF envelope power spectra with reduced diffraction effect. Assuming continuity of AC within a small uniform region, an exponentially weighted-average of logarithmic signal power of the neighboring blocks at the center frequency is measured for different depths, with a view to fit a regression line for obtaining an average AC value from its slope. Comparative results of the proposed reference-free AC estimation method with other conventional reference-based methods are presented for tissue-mimicking (TM) phantoms, in vivo breast and liver data. For the TM phantoms, the AC estimates using the proposed algorithm are within 10% deviation of the actual values. The obtained results for the normal female breasts, normal human livers, and fatty livers are 0.44 ± 0.23 dB/cm-MHz, 0.55 ± 0.21 dB/cm-MHz, and 0.61 ± 0.20 dB/cm-MHz, respectively, which are consistent with the literature-reported values of AC. Different from reference-based methods, the proposed technique is free from the bias that may result from the dissimilarity between acoustic characteristics of the reference and sample.
Congenital hypothyroid screening using cord blood TSH.

BACKGROUND Clinical diagnosis of congenital hypothyroidism (CH) is difficult at birth without neonatal screening. In line with the priorities of the national health services in Malaysia towards preventive medicine, early diagnosis and treatment of CH is emphasised. We conducted a pilot study at Kuala Lumpur's Maternity Hospital between April 1995 and November 1995 to estimate the incidence of CH and also evaluated the problems associated with large-scale neonatal screening using a commercial TSH kit on cord bloodspots. PATIENTS A total of 11,000 newborns were screened using cord blood spots taken at birth. RESULTS Two hundred and fifty newborns (2.27%) hand cord TSH > 20 mlU/L and had to be recalled for re-evaluation. Of these, 4 had cord TSH of > 100 mlU/L; three were confirmed to have congenital hypothyroidism and one had transient hyperthyrotropinaemia. Our study estimated the incidence of CH to be one in 3,666 live births in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Clinical features of hypothyroidism are subtle during the early weeks of life. However, prolonged neonatal jaundice (3/3), widely opened posterior fontanelle (3/3) and dry skin (3/3) were the common features in all our cases by 2-6 weeks of life. CONCLUSION This study suffered a high dropout rate. Twenty-six percent of the patients were not traceable after discharge and 48% did not respond to our recall. We stress the importance of public education and awareness in contributing to the cost-effectiveness of the screening program.
Overview of SCIAMACHY validation: 2002–2004

SCIAMACHY, on board Envisat, has been in op- eration now for almost three years. This UV/visible/NIR spectrometer measures the solar irradiance, the earthshine radiance scattered at nadir and from the limb, and the atten- uation of solar radiation by the atmosphere during sunrise and sunset, from 240 to 2380 nm and at moderate spectral resolution. Vertical columns and profiles of a variety of at- mospheric constituents are inferred from the SCIAMACHY radiometric measurements by dedicated retrieval algorithms. With the support of ESA and several international partners, a methodical SCIAMACHY validation programme has been developed jointly by Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium (the three instrument providing countries) to face complex requirements in terms of measured species, altitude range, spatial and temporal scales, geophysical states and intended scientific applications. This summary paper describes the ap- proach adopted to address those requirements. Since provisional releases of limited data sets in summer 2002, operational SCIAMACHY processors established at DLR on behalf of ESA were upgraded regularly and some data products - level-1b spectra, level-2 O3, NO2, BrO and clouds data - have improved significantly. Validation re- sults summarised in this paper and also reported in this spe- cial issue conclude that for limited periods and geograph- ical domains they can already be used for atmospheric re- search. Nevertheless, current processor versions still expe- rience known limitations that hamper scientific usability in other periods and domains. Free from the constraints of op- erational processing, seven scientific institutes (BIRA-IASB, IFE/IUP-Bremen, IUP-Heidelberg, KNMI, MPI, SAO and SRON) have developed their own retrieval algorithms and generated SCIAMACHY data products, together addressing nearly all targeted constituents. Most of the UV-visible data products - O3, NO2, SO2, H2O total columns; BrO, OClO slant columns; O3, NO2, BrO profiles - already have ac- ceptable, if not excellent, quality. Provisional near-infrared column products - CO, CH4, N2O and CO2 - have already demonstrated their potential for a variety of applications. Cloud and aerosol parameters are retrieved, suffering from calibration with the exception of cloud cover. In any case, scientific users are advised to read carefully validation re- ports before using the data. It is required and anticipated that SCIAMACHY validation will continue throughout in- strument lifetime and beyond and will accompany regular processor upgrades.
Kinematics of the faintest gas-rich galaxy in the Local Group: DDO210

We present deep, high velocity resolution (∼1. 6k m s −1 ) Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope (GMRT) HI 21 cm synthesis images of the faint (MB ∼− 10.6) local group dwarf galaxy DDO210. We find that the HI distribution in the galaxy is not axi-symmetric, but shows density enhancements in the eastern and southern halves of the galaxy. The optical emission is lopsided with respect to the HI, most of the bright optical emission arises from the eastern half of the HI disk. The velocity field of the galaxy is however quite regular and shows a systematic large scale pattern, consistent with the rotational motion. The rotation curve for the galaxy shows a peak (inclination corrected) rotation velocity of only ∼ 8k m s −1 , comparable to the random motions in the HI gas. After correcting for the dynamical support provided by random motions (the "asymmetric drift" correction), we find the corrected peak rotation velocity of ∼16. 0k m s −1 . Mass modeling of the corrected rotation curve shows that the kinematics of DDO210 can be well fit with either a modified isothermal halo (with a central density ρ0 ∼ 29 × 10 −3 Mpc −3 for a stellar mass to light ratio of 3.4) or an NFW halo. In the case of the NFW halo however, a good fit is obtained for a wide range of parameters; the halo parameters could not be uniquely determined from the fit. Density profiles with inner slope steeper than ∼1.2 however provide a poor fit to the data. Finally, the rotation curve derived using MOND also provides a reasonable fit to the observed rotation curve.
Comprehensive Study of Corynebacterium freneyi Strains and Extended and Emended Description of Corynebacterium freneyi Renaud, Aubel, Riegel, Meugnier, and Bollet 2001

ABSTRACT In 2001, Corynebacterium freneyi was described as a new fermentative, α-glucosidase-positive Corynebacterium species related to C. xerosis based on data from three strains. During a review of our extensive culture collection we encountered 18 additional C. freneyi strains and further characterized them in detail. Thirteen of the 18 strains were isolated from female genital tract specimens without any obvious disease association. Phenotypically, C. freneyi can be easily differentiated from C. xerosis by its distinct wrinkled colonies whereas nearly all other routinely applied phenotypic tests do not allow a unanimous separation of C. freneyi from C. xerosis. Restriction length polymorphism analysis using CfoI of the 16S-23S rRNA gene intragenic spacer definitively allows differentiation between the two species. Surprisingly, comparative 16S rRNA gene analysis does not discriminate between C. freneyi and C. xerosis because the designated type strain of C. freneyi is not the most representative strain for this species. The present report also includes detailed data on the antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of C. freneyi presented here for the first time. Based on the large number of additional C. freneyi strains from our culture collection, we provide an extended and emended species description of C. freneyi.
Microbial safety and polyphenols in cocoa liquor as influenced by pasteurisation and storage time

Article history: Received: February 21, 2018 Accepted: June 15, 2018 The aim of this research was to examine the influence of pasteurisation of cocoa liquor at different temperatures (115, 120, 125 and 140 °C) and 3-weekstorage time at 40 °C on microbial safety, peroxide value, polyphenol, and flavan-3-ol content. Peroxide value of the cocoa liquor increased after both, pasteurisation and storage, but not significantly. Although total polyphenol content decreased, flavan-3-ol content was stable during the investigated period. Microbial quality was satisfying, and the most stable mass was the one treated at 140 °C.
Discovering Health Topics in Social Media Using Topic Models

By aggregating self-reported health statuses across millions of users, we seek to characterize the variety of health information discussed in Twitter. We describe a topic modeling framework for discovering health topics in Twitter, a social media website. This is an exploratory approach with the goal of understanding what health topics are commonly discussed in social media. This paper describes in detail a statistical topic model created for this purpose, the Ailment Topic Aspect Model (ATAM), as well as our system for filtering general Twitter data based on health keywords and supervised classification. We show how ATAM and other topic models can automatically infer health topics in 144 million Twitter messages from 2011 to 2013. ATAM discovered 13 coherent clusters of Twitter messages, some of which correlate with seasonal influenza (r = 0.689) and allergies (r = 0.810) temporal surveillance data, as well as exercise (r = .534) and obesity (r = −.631) related geographic survey data in the United States. These results demonstrate that it is possible to automatically discover topics that attain statistically significant correlations with ground truth data, despite using minimal human supervision and no historical data to train the model, in contrast to prior work. Additionally, these results demonstrate that a single general-purpose model can identify many different health topics in social media.
A family of norms with applications in quantum information theory II

We consider the problem of computing the family of operator norms recently introducedin [1]. We develop a family of semidefinite programs that can be used to exactly computethem in small dimensions and bound them in general. Some theoretical consequencesfollow from the duality theory of semidefinite programming, including a new constructiveproof that for all r there are non-positive partial transpose Werner states that are r-undistillable. Several examples are considered via a MATLAB implementation of thesemidefinite program, including the case of Werner states and randomly generated statesvia the Bures measure, and approximate distributions of the norms are provided. Weextend these norms to arbitrary convex mapping cones and explore their implicationswith positive partial transpose states.
N,N,N′,N′,N′′-Pentamethyl-N′′-[3-(trimethylazaniumyl)propyl]guanidinium bis(tetraphenylborate)

In the crystal structure of the title salt, C12H30N4 2+·2C24H20B−, the C—N bond lengths in the central CN3 unit of the guanidinium ion are 1.3388 (17), 1.3390 (16) and 1.3540 (17) Å, indicating partial double-bond character in each. The central C atom is bonded to the three N atoms in a nearly ideal trigonal-planar geometry and the positive charge is delocalized in the CN3 plane. The bonds between the N atoms and the terminal C-methyl groups of the guanidinium moiety, all have values close to a typical single bond [1.4630 (16)–1.4697 (17) Å]. C—H⋯π interactions are present between the guanidinium H atoms and the phenyl C atoms of one tetraphenylborate ion. The phenyl rings form a kind of aromatic pocket, in which the guanidinium ion is embedded.