Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Detection Limit of Etched Fiber Bragg Grating Sensors

While Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors have been extensively used for temperature and strain sensing, clad etched FBGs (EFBGs) have only recently been explored for refractive index sensing. Prior literature in EFBG based refractive index sensing predominantly deals with bulk refractometry only, where the Bragg wavelength shift of the sensor as a function of the bulk refractive index of the sample can be analytically modeled, unlike the situation for adsorption of molecular thin films on the sensor surface. We used a finite element model to calculate the Bragg wavelength change as a function of thickness and refractive index of the adsorbing molecular layer and compared the model with the real-time, in-situ measurement of electrostatic layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly of weak polyelectrolytes on the silica surface of EFBGs. We then used this model to calculate the layer thickness of LbL films and found them to be in agreement with literature. Further, we used this model to arrive at a realistic estimate of the limit of detection of EFBG sensors based on nominal measurement noise levels in current FBG interrogation systems and found that sufficiently thinned EFBGs can provide a competitive platform for real-time measurement of molecular interactions while simultaneously leveraging the high multiplexing capabilities of fiber optics.
Onset of magnetic order in strongly-correlated systems from ab initio electronic structure calculations: application to transition metal oxides

We describe an ab initio theory of finite temperature magnetism in strongly-correlated electron systems. The formalism is based on spin density functional theory, with a self-interaction corrected local spin density approximation (SIC-LSDA). The self-interaction correction is implemented locally, within the Kohn–Korringa–Rostoker (KKR) multiple-scattering method. Thermally induced magnetic fluctuations are treated using a mean-field ‘disordered local moment’ (DLM) approach and at no stage is there a fitting to an effective Heisenberg model. We apply the theory to the 3d transition metal oxides, where our calculations reproduce the experimental ordering tendencies, as well as the qualitative trend in ordering temperatures. We find a large insulating gap in the paramagnetic state which hardly changes with the onset of magnetic order.
Muscle-bone interactions during fracture healing

Although it is generally accepted that the rate and strength of fracture healing is intimately linked to the integrity of surrounding soft tissues, the contribution of muscle has largely been viewed as a vascular supply for oxygen and nutrient exchange. However, more is becoming known about the cellular and paracrine contributions of muscle to the fracture healing process. Research has shown that muscle is capable of supplying osteoprogenitor cells in cases where the periosteum is insufficient, and the muscular osteoprogenitors possess similar osteogenic potential to those derived from the periosteum. Muscle’s secrotome includes proteins capable of inhibiting or enhancing osteogenesis and myogenesis following musculoskeletal injury and can be garnered for therapeutic use in patients with traumatic musculoskeletal injuries. In this review, we will highlight the current knowledge on muscle-bone interaction in the context of fracture healing as well as concisely present the current models to study such interactions.
Patents and Cumulative Innovation: Causal Evidence from the Courts

Cumulative innovation is central to economic growth. Do patent rights facilitate or impede follow-on innovation? We study the causal effect of removing patent rights by court invalidation on subsequent research related to the focal patent, as measured by later citations. We exploit random allocation of judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to control for endogeneity of patent invalidation. Patent invalidation leads to a 50 percent increase in citations to the focal patent, on average, but the impact is heterogeneous and depends on characteristics of the bargaining environment. Patent rights block downstream innovation in computers, electronics and medical instruments, but not in drugs, chemicals or mechanical technologies. Moreover, the effect is entirely driven by invalidation of patents owned by large patentees that triggers more follow-on innovation by small firms.
Impulses in Slowly Conducting Vagal Fibers from Afferent Endings in the Veins, Atria, and Arteries of Dogs and Cats

Afferent impulses in 61 fine myelinated or unmyelinated vagal fibers arising from endings in large blood vessels (“vascular endings”) were recorded in anesthetized dogs and cats. The endings had a sparse, irregular spontaneous discharge, or they were quiescent. They were stimulated by capsaicin, phenyl diguanide, or veratridine injected into the bloodstream but not by sodium cyanide or hypoxia. Unlike arterial baroreceptors and atrial receptors, which are concentrated in localized areas, vascular endings were widely distributed in the thoracic aorta, the pulmonary artery, the brachiocephalic artery, the splenic artery, the atriovenous junctions, the atrial appendages, the inferior vena cava, and the hepatic vein. Conduction velocity in 28 fibers ranged from 0.8 to 11.0 m/sec (mean 3.1 m/sec), and in 19 of these fibers the velocity was less than 2.5 m/sec (i.e., the fibers were C-fibers). Vascular endings were stimulated by distending the vessels with balloons. Endings in the pulmonary artery and the aorta did not respond to pressures within the physiological range, but they were stimulated by abnormally high pressures (pulmonary artery 60–110 mm Hg, aorta 200–215 mm Hg). The physiological role of the vascular endings is unknown.
Saturation Management of a Controlled Fuel-Cell/Ultracapacitor Hybrid Vehicle

In this paper, a new control strategy, including saturation management of hybrid fuel-cell (FC)/ultracapacitor (UC) power sources, is described. First, an analysis of hybrid architectures using an FC and UCs for automotive applications is presented. Next, the model and the control strategy are described using energetic macroscopic representation (EMR). The main improvement over classical control strategies of such systems is to take into account saturation management with a dynamic reconfiguration of the energy management strategy (EMS). It includes the regenerative breaking in high state of charge (SOC) of the UC and the supply of a full power demand in low SOC of the UC. Finally, experimental results with small-scale devices show the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy using saturation management.
Vassiliev knot invariants. III: Forest algebra and weighted graphs

The main tool used in the investigation of Vassiliev knot invariants is the Hopf algebra of chord diagrams CDL1]. This algebra, simple as it seems at rst sight, upon a closer examination proves to be a rather complicated object. It is suucient to say that, up to now, the number of its primitive generators is known only in degrees no greater than 9. A standard way to tackle a complex mathematical object O is through the study of its subobjects and its quotient objects. An ideal situation is when you can distinguish a simple subobject S O such that the corresponding quotient object O=S is also simple enough and so that the properties of the entire O are completely determined by the properties of S and O=S. With the Hopf algebra of chord diagrams, we were not able to achieve this goal. The best we could do was to nd a simple (but non-trivial) subalgebra A M and a simple quotient algebra W deened by an epimorphism M ! W. These two algebras, A and W, are, however, not complementary to each other. Quite on the contrary, the composition map in the short non-exact sequence 0 ! A ! M ! W ! 0 proves to be an isomorphism between A and W.
Ellipsis sites induce structural priming effects

Exposure to verb phrase ellipsis in English with double-object or prepositional ditransitive antecedents affects syntactic choices in subsequent sentence production, inducing speakers to favor the production of structures parallel to that to which the ellipsis is anaphoric. This result is readily explanable only if ellipsis sites contain or trigger access to syntactic structure (which causes priming), and is incompatible with nonstructural semantic approaches to ellipsis.
Ischemic optic neuropathy q

Ischemic optic neuropathy is one of the major causes of blindness or seriously impaired vision, yet there is disagreement as to its pathogenesis, clinical features and especially its management. This is because ischemic optic neuropathy is not one disease but a spectrum of several different types, each with its own etiology, pathogenesis, clinical features and management. They cannot be lumped together. Ischemic optic neuropathy is primarily of two types: anterior (AION) and posterior (PION), involving the optic nerve head (ONH) and the rest of the optic nerve respectively. Furthermore, both AION and PION have different subtypes. AION comprises arteritic (A-AION – due to giant cell arteritis) and, non-arteritic (NA-AION – due to causes other than giant cell arteritis); NA-AION can be further classified into classical NA-AION and incipient NA-AION. PION consists of arteritic (A-PION – due to giant cell arteritis), nonarteritic (NA-PION – due to causes other than giant cell arteritis), and surgical (a complication of several systemic surgical procedures). Thus, ischemic optic neuropathy consists of six distinct types of clinical entities. NA-AION is by far the most common type and one of the most prevalent and visually crippling diseases in the middle-aged and elderly. A-AION, though less common, is an ocular emergency and requires early diagnosis and immediate treatment with systemic high dose corticosteroids to prevent further visual loss, which is entirely preventable. Controversy exists regarding the pathogenesis, clinical features and especially management of the various types of ischemic optic neuropathy because there are multiple misconceptions about its many fundamental aspects. Recently emerging information on the various factors that influence the optic nerve circulation, and also the various systemic and local risk factors which play important roles in the development of various types of ischemic optic neuropathy have given us a better understanding of their pathogeneses, clinical features and management. This knowledge should help us not only to manage them better but also to reduce their incidence. For example, clinically, the evidence that about 40% of NAAION eyes experience spontaneous improvement in visual acuity and that systemic steroid therapy during early stages in both NA-AION and NA-PION has a significant beneficial effect for visual outcome are encouraging developments. This review discusses the current concepts on various issues related to various types of ischemic optic neuropathy. 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A pixel based fragile watermarking technique using LBP (Local Binary Pattern)

The fragile watermarking technique presented in this paper is based on the pixel information. The authentication data is calculated from the pixels by using Local Binary Pattern concept. Spatial information of pixels is used for watermark calculation and it is having spatial relationship of pixels. The authentication information is calculated for the block of 3×3 using LBP operator and we have used 2 LSB for adding watermark. Local Binary Pattern is widely used for texture classification, pattern recognition and face detection. The recovery information is obtained from the pixels itself. The performance of tamper detection in proposed technique is comparatively good to earlier techniques. Image quality of recovered image is good.
Phase Synchrony among Neuronal Oscillations in the Human Cortex

Synchronization of neuronal activity, often associated with network oscillations, is thought to provide a means for integrating anatomically distributed processing in the brain. Neuronal processing, however, involves simultaneous oscillations in various frequency bands. The mechanisms involved in the integration of such spectrally distributed processing have remained enigmatic. We demonstrate, using magnetoencephalography, that robust cross-frequency phase synchrony is present in the human cortex among oscillations with frequencies from 3 to 80 Hz. Continuous mental arithmetic tasks demanding the retention and summation of items in the working memory enhanced the cross-frequency phase synchrony among α (∼10 Hz), β (∼20 Hz), and γ (∼30-40 Hz) oscillations. These tasks also enhanced the “classical” within-frequency synchrony in these frequency bands, but the spatial patterns of α, β, and γ synchronies were distinct and, furthermore, separate from the patterns of cross-frequency phase synchrony. Interestingly, an increase in task load resulted in an enhancement of phase synchrony that was most prominent between γ- and α-band oscillations. These data indicate that cross-frequency phase synchrony is a salient characteristic of ongoing activity in the human cortex and that it is modulated by cognitive task demands. The enhancement of cross-frequency phase synchrony among functionally and spatially distinct networks during mental arithmetic tasks posits it as a candidate mechanism for the integration of spectrally distributed processing.
Priority Inheritance Protocols: An Approach to Real-Time Synchronization

An investigation is conducted of two protocols belonging to the priority inheritance protocols class; the two are called the basic priority inheritance protocol and the priority ceiling protocol. Both protocols solve the uncontrolled priority inversion problem. The priority ceiling protocol solves this uncontrolled priority inversion problem particularly well; it reduces the worst-case task-blocking time to at most the duration of execution of a single critical section of a lower-priority task. This protocol also prevents the formation of deadlocks. Sufficient conditions under which a set of periodic tasks using this protocol may be scheduled is derived. >
Generation of digital terrain models with a ground-based SAR system

A novel technique for the retrieval of a digital terrain model (DTM) with a ground-based synthetic aperture radar (GB-SAR) system is described. A set of SAR images collected over a test site located at Salice d'Ulzio, Italy, is used to validate experimentally the proposed DTM retrieval technique. The topographic height is obtained using an algorithm specifically tailored for a GB-SAR system equipped with two receive antennas. The comparison with an existing DTM of the test site area shows that the retrieved DTM is accurate, with root mean square height differences between the two DTMs below 5 m.
Marriage, migration and gender

This is the final volume in the five volume series on Women and Migration in Asia. The articles in this volume bring a gender-sensitive perspective to bear on aspects of marriage and migration in intra- and transnational contexts. In particular, they consider: a) how, given specific rules of marriage and (post-marital) residence, the institution of marriage may itself entail women's migration; b) how marriage can be used as an individual and family strategy to facilitate migration, and conversely, how migration may become an important factor in the making of marriages; c) the fluid boundaries between matchmaking and trafficking in the context of migration; d) the political economy of marriage transactions; and finally, more broadly, e) the impact of intra- and transnational migration on the institution of marriage, family relations and kinship networks. While most of the articles here concern marriage in the context of transnational migration, it is important- given the reality of uneven development within the different countries of the Asian region - to emphasise the overlap and commonality of issues in both intra- and international contexts.
Design and Usability Evaluation of Social Mobile Diabetes Management System in the Gulf Region

Background The prevalence of diabetes in the Gulf States is one of the highest globally. It is estimated that 20% of the population in the region has been diagnosed with diabetes and according to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), five of the IDF’s “top 10” countries for diabetes prevalence in 2011 and projected for 2030 are in this region. In recent years, there have been an increasing number of clinical studies advocating the use of mobile phone technology for diabetes self-management with improved clinical outcomes. However, there are few studies to date addressing the application of mobile diabetes management in the Gulf region, particularly in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), where there is exponential increase in mobile phone usage and access to social networking. Objective The objective of this paper is to present the design and development of a new mobile health system for social behavioral change and management tailored for Saudi patients with diabetes called Saudi Arabia Networking for Aiding Diabetes (SANAD). A usability study for the SANAD system is presented to validate the acceptability of using mobile technologies among patients with diabetes in the KSA and the Gulf region. Methods The SANAD system was developed using mobile phone technology with diabetes management and social networking modules. For the usability study the Questionnaire for User Interaction Satisfaction was used to evaluate the usability aspect of the SANAD system. A total of 33 users with type 2 diabetes participated in the study. Results The key modules of the SANAD system consist of (1) a mobile diabetes management module; (2) a social networking module; and (3) a cognitive behavioral therapy module for behavioral change issues. The preliminary results of the usability study indicated general acceptance of the patients in using the system with higher usability rating in patients with type 2 diabetes. Conclusions We found that the acceptability of the system was high among Saudi patients with diabetes, and ongoing work in this research area is underway to conduct a clinical pilot study in the KSA for patients with type 2 diabetes. The wide deployment of such a system is timely and required in the Gulf region due to the wide use of mobile phones and social networking mediums.
On the Geo-Indicativeness of Non-Georeferenced Text

Geographic location is a key component for information retrieval on the Web, recommendation systems in mobile computing and social networks, and place-based integration on the Linked Data cloud. Previous work has addressed how to estimate locations by named entity recognition, from images, and via structured data. In this paper, we estimate geographic regions from unstructured, non geo-referenced text by computing a probability distribution over the Earth's surface. Our methodology combines natural language processing, geostatistics, and a data-driven bottom-up semantics. We illustrate its potential for mapping geographic regions from non geo-referenced text.
Early rheumatoid arthritis and body composition.

OBJECTIVES RA is associated with joint destruction and cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). Possible predictors for CVD are early changes in body composition. We therefore evaluated whether lean mass of arms and legs (LMAL), total body fat mass (BFM) or truncal fat distribution (TFD) are altered early in RA, and if so, which factors are associated. METHODS We included 132 RA patients (95 women) with disease duration of < or =12 months. Disease activity score (DAS28), HAQ, BMI, comorbidity, smoking and medications were recorded. Total and regional lean mass and fat mass were measured with DXA. Data were compared with 132 age- and gender-matched controls, and possibly associated factors were analysed in linear regression models. RESULTS LMAL was low in patients for both women and men (P = 0.007 and <0.001, respectively). BMI (P = 0.012), BFM (P = 0.014) and TFD (P < 0.001) were higher than expected in RA women. In bivariate analyses, all adjusted for age and current smoking, disease duration was independently associated with low LMAL in women (P = 0.021). High BFM was associated with HAQ x disease duration in men (P = 0.033) and DAS28 in women (P = 0.011). High TFD was associated with a history of diabetes or CVD in men with RA (P = 0.005). CONCLUSIONS Low LMAL, high BFM and high TFD are present in early RA patients. The long-term significant consequences of these abnormalities need to be determined.
Hepatitis C, HCV genotypes and hepatic siderosis in patients with chronic renal failure on haemodialysis in Brazil.

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to investigate the HCV genotypes, hepatic siderosis, inflammatory activity and fibrosis of the liver in patients with chronic renal failure (CRF) on haemodialysis in Brazil. METHODS A cohort of 72 CRF patients was compared with a group of 65 candidates for blood donation (CBD). For the subjects selected, who tested positive for anti-HCV antibodies and were HCV-PCR positive, a protocol with epidemiological, clinical and laboratory information was completed. An ultrasound-guided liver biopsy was performed and histological analysis of liver fragments was carried out. The presence of HCV-RNA in plasma was established by nested-RT-PCR. The genotype was determined by Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP) analysis of the PCR product. RESULTS HCV genotype 1 was predominant in both groups, but genotype 2 was the second most common amongst CRF patients, and there was a significant difference when compared with the CBD group (P=0.016). Regarding inflammation and fibrosis, no significant difference was observed in the histology of the liver between the study groups. Siderosis of the liver was more prevalent in the CRF group (P=0.000). Severe complications of liver biopsies were reported in 10 CRF patients (13.2%). CONCLUSIONS Genotype 2 was observed more frequently in the haemodialysis group. No statistically significant difference was detected between the CRF and CBD groups with regard to both inflammatory response and liver fibrosis. Hepatic siderosis has been attributed to excessive iron administration. As percutaneous liver biopsy resulted in severe complications, we suggest that other procedures of evaluating liver damage in CRF patients should be looked at thoughtfully.
Hydrophobic Residues That Form Putative Fusion Loops of Epstein-Barr Virus Glycoprotein B Are Critical for Fusion Activity

ABSTRACT To test the importance of the hydrophobic residues within the putative Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) glycoprotein B (gB) fusion loops in membrane fusion, WY112-113 and WLIW193-196 were mutated into alanine, glutamic acid, or the analogous residues from herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) gB (HR and RVEA). All gB variants exhibited cell surface expression, demonstrating that the substitutions did not perturb gB trafficking. None of six gB variants was, however, capable of mediating fusion with either epithelial or B cells. These data demonstrate that the bulky and hydrophobic EBV loop residues, which differ from the more hydrophilic HSV-1 residues and appear more compatible with membrane insertion, are essential for EBV gB-dependent fusion.