Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Minimum Current Operation of Bidirectional Dual-Bridge Series Resonant DC/DC Converters

This paper discusses the steady-state operation of phase-shift modulated dual-bridge series resonant converter (DBSRC) intended for dc/dc power bidirectional control over a wide range of input and output voltages. The analysis, developed here for the most general case of three independent phase-shift control angles, demonstrates the existence of minimum current trajectories in the 3-D control space along which the DBSRC cell can deliver any admissible power level with minimum tank circulating current. At nonunity conversion ratios, minimum current operation prevents the DBSRC output bridge from experiencing severe hard-switching losses, substantially reducing the effort normally required by auxiliary zero-voltage switching assistance circuitry, and outperforming the efficiency of conventional one-angle modulation approaches especially at light load. The developed approach is validated via computer simulations and experimental tests on a 1-kW DBSRC prototype. Tests performed at a nonunity voltage conversion ratio indicate a marked light-load efficiency improvement with respect to the conventional one-angle modulation, confirming the importance of the minimum current operation when the converter is expected to operate with programmable output voltages or under wide input voltage variations.
Statement on Pregnancy in Pulmonary Hypertension from the Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute

Pregnancy outcomes in patients with pulmonary hypertension remain poor despite advanced therapies. Although consensus guidelines recommend against pregnancy in pulmonary hypertension, it may nonetheless occasionally occur. This guideline document sought to discuss the state of knowledge of pregnancy effects on pulmonary vascular disease and to define usual practice in avoidance of pregnancy and pregnancy management. This guideline is based on systematic review of peer-reviewed, published literature identified with MEDLINE. The strength of the literature was graded, and when it was inadequate to support high-level recommendations, consensus-based recommendations were formed according to prespecified criteria. There was no literature that met standards for high-level recommendations for pregnancy management in pulmonary hypertension. We drafted 38 consensus-based recommendations on pregnancy avoidance and management. Further, we identified the current state of knowledge on the effects of sex hormones during pregnancy on the pulmonary vasculature and right heart and suggested areas for future study. There is currently limited evidence-based knowledge about both the basic molecular effects of sex hormones and pregnancy on the pulmonary vasculature and the best practices in contraception and pregnancy management in pulmonary hypertension. We have drafted 38 consensus-based recommendations to guide clinicians in these challenging topics, but further research is needed in this area to define best practices and improve patient outcomes.
Gigacount/Second Photon Detection Module Based on an  $8\times 8$  Single-Photon Avalanche Diode Array

In this letter, we present a compact photon detection module, based on an 8 × 8 array of single-photon avalanche diodes. The use of a dedicated silicon technology for the fabrication of the sensors allows us to combine large active areas (50-μm diameter), high photon detection efficiency (49% at 550-nm wavelength), and low dark count rate. Because of a fully parallel architecture, the module provides voltage pulses synchronous to each photon detection for a maximum global count rate exceeding 1 Gcps. These properties make the system suitable for operation in two different free-running modes. The first, suitable to acquire faint signals, allows multi-spot acquisitions and can be used to considerably reduce the measurement time in applications, such as single-molecule analysis. With the second, it is possible to use all the pixels in a combined mode, to extend and move the dynamic range of the module to very high count rates and to attain number resolving capabilities.
UC San Francisco UC San Francisco Previously Published Works Title Role of transgene regulation in ex vivo lentiviral correction of artemis deficiency

Artemis is a single-stranded endonuclease, deficiency of which results in a radiation-sensitive form of severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID-A) most effectively treated by allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplantation and potentially treatable by administration of genetically corrected autologous HSCs. We previously reported cytotoxicity associated with Artemis overexpression and subsequently characterized the human Artemis promoter with the intention to provide Artemis expression that is nontoxic yet sufficient to support immunodevelopment. Here we compare the human Artemis promoter (APro) with the moderatestrength human phosphoglycerate kinase (PGK) promoter and the strong human elongation factor-1a (EF1a) promoter to regulate expression of Artemis after ex vivo lentiviral transduction of HSCs in a murine model of SCID-A. Recipient animals treated with the PGK-Artemis vector exhibited moderate repopulation of their immune compartment, yet demonstrated a defective proliferative T lymphocyte response to in vitro antigen stimulation. Animals treated with the EF1a-Artemis vector displayed high levels of T lymphocytes but an absence of B lymphocytes and deficient lymphocyte function. In contrast, ex vivo transduction with the AProArtemis vector supported effective immune reconstitution to wild-type levels, resulting in fully functional T and B lymphocyte responses. These results demonstrate the importance of regulated Artemis expression in immune reconstitution of Artemis-deficient SCID.
Defective visual field tests in chronic heavy smokers.

PURPOSE To evaluate the visual field changes in smokers. METHODS In 24 healthy, chronic, heavy cigarette smokers and 16 age and sex-matched healthy non-smokers, central 30-2 threshold tests were evaluated. The quantitative perimetric indices as objective retinal sensitivity measures were recorded in both eyes, but only those from the second eye were chosen for analysis. The visual field defects were also assessed. RESULTS All subjects had normal visual acuity. The central visual fields in smokers showed relative to absolute scotomas in 20 degrees to 30 degrees. Quantitative perimetric indices including total threshold dB with red and white target, MD, PSD, and CPSD values were significantly different (p<0.05) between the groups. Smokers showed both diffuse and localised retinal sensitivity decrease. SF showed no significant difference (p>0.05) between the groups. CONCLUSION In healthy, chronic, heavy cigarette smokers, retinal sensitivity was found to be decreased although central vision was not affected. This is possibly due to a cumulative effect of chronic smoking onto the retinal and/or optic nerve functions without clinically evident optic neuropathy.
Genotoxic and mutagenic effects of polluted surface water in the midwestern region of Brazil using animal and plant bioassays

Abstract This study aimed to evaluate DNA damage in animal and plant cells exposed to water from the Água Boa stream (Dourados, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil) by using bioassays, and to identify the chemical compounds in the water to determine the water quality in the area. Through the cytotoxicity bioassay with Allium cepa, using micronucleus test, and comet assay, using Astyanax altiparanae fish, the results indicated that biological samples were genetically altered. Micronuclei were observed in erythrocytes of A. altiparanae after exposure to water from locations close to industrial waste discharge. The highest DNA damage observed with the comet assay in fish occurred with the exposure to water from locations where the presence of metals (Cu, Pb, Cd, Ni) was high, indicating the possibility of genotoxic effects of these compounds. Thus, these results reinforce the importance of conducting genotoxicity tests for developing management plans to improve water quality, and indicate the need for waste management before domestic and industrial effluents are released into the rivers and streams.
Bilateral Migration and Multinationals: On the Welfare Effects of Firm and Labor Mobility

This paper starts by observing two novel facts. First, bilateral migration flows are pervasive across OECD countries, both for high-skilled and low-skilled workers. This fact goes against the common belief that migration merely reallocates cheap labor from poor to rich countries. Second, multinational corporations tend to hire a large number of migrant workers. In this paper I develop a general equilibrium model that is able to reproduce these facts. In the model, migration is bilateral because of imperfect substitutability between native and foreign workers, and the operations of multinational corporations. I calibrate the model to match aggregate data on multinational production and migration stocks between the United States and Canada in 2000. The calibrated economy is a laboratory to run counterfactual experiments on the joint effects of economic policies on welfare. Opening to migration alone does not necessarily benefit native workers, especially the low-skilled ones, while the interaction between migration and multinational corporations results in net positive effect on welfare. Migration quotas, if they are reciprocal, have negative effects on native workers' welfare. The experiment results lend supports to the view that greater openness to migration can bring mutual welfare gains.
THE VALUES OF CLASSIC MAYA JADE: A REANALYSIS OF CANCUEN'S JADE WORKSHOP

Abstract Most ancient Maya jade workshops have been discovered in the Motagua Valley, the region where the majority of known Mesoamerican jade sources are located; whereas in the Maya lowlands, evidence of jade production has primarily been in the form of finished objects or, in a few cases, of jade debitage in construction fill and cache contexts. At Cancuen, however, a large jade preform production area was discovered in the heart of a major lowland Maya site. In this paper we present the technological reanalysis of this material and show that the quality and color of the raw material corresponds to very different production processes, values, and distribution within the site. We suggest that most of Cancuen's jade production was exported to recipient sites as preforms and discuss the importance of this organization for understanding the nature of wealth goods production and exchange in the ancient Maya world.
A Phase I/II Multicenter, Open-Label Study of the Oral Histone Deacetylase Inhibitor Abexinostat in Relapsed/Refractory Lymphoma

Purpose: Additional targeted therapeutics are needed for the treatment of lymphoma. Abexinostat is an oral pan-histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACi) displaying potent activity in preclinical models. We conducted a multicenter phase I/II study (N = 55) with single-agent abexinostat in relapsed/refractory lymphoma. Experimental Design: In phase I, 25 heavily pretreated patients with any lymphoma subtype received oral abexinostat ranging from 30 to 60 mg/m2 twice daily 5 days/week for 3 weeks or 7 days/week given every other week. Phase II evaluated abexinostat at the maximum tolerated dose in 30 patients with relapsed/refractory follicular lymphoma or mantle cell lymphoma. Results: The recommended phase II dose was 45 mg/m2 twice daily (90 mg/m2 total), 7 days/week given every other week. Of the 30 follicular lymphoma and mantle cell lymphoma patients enrolled in phase II, 25 (14 follicular lymphoma, 11 mantle cell lymphoma) were response-evaluable. Tumor size was reduced in 86% of follicular lymphoma patients with an investigator-assessed ORR of 64.3% for evaluable patients [intent-to-treat (ITT) ORR 56.3%]. Median duration of response was not reached, and median progression-free survival (PFS) was 20.5 months (1.2–22.3+). Of responding follicular lymphoma patients, 89% were on study/drug >8 months. In mantle cell lymphoma, the ORR was 27.3% for evaluable patients (ITT ORR 21.4%), and median PFS was 3.9 months (range, 0.1–11.5). Grade 3–4 treatment-related adverse events (phase II) with ≥10% incidence were thrombocytopenia (20%), fatigue (16.7%), and neutropenia (13.3%) with rare QTc prolongation and no deaths. Conclusions: The pan-HDACi, abexinostat, was overall well tolerated and had significant clinical activity in follicular lymphoma, including highly durable responses in this multiply relapsed patient population. Clin Cancer Res; 22(5); 1059–66. ©2015 AACR.
Study on oxygen/nitrogen gas mixtures for the surface insulation performance in gas insulated switchgear

This paper presents a comparative study on SF6 alternative candidate gases for the surface insulation performance of eco-friendly Gas Insulated Switchers (GIS) and Solid Insulated Switchers (SIS). The candidate gases including N2/O2 mixture gas, dry air, and compressed air were proposed based on AC surface flashover experiment. These gases were compared and examined based on their surface insulation performance, pressure and gap dependence, surface insulation reliability in different temperatures, economic feasibility and easiness of manufacture. The comparison results verified that dry air had excellent properties on the comparison criteria and was the most suitable eco gas among the candidate gases for eco-friendly GIS and SIS. In addition to the comparative study on the candidate gases, their surface flashover characteristics were described in detail based on the effect of moisture contained in the candidate gases on flashover voltage and the correlation among electric field intensity, collision-ionization coefficient, electron attachment coefficient, and gap length.
[Characterising Colombian households regarding quality of life-based food insecurity].

OBJECTIVE Characterizing Colombian households regarding quality of life-based food insecurity. MATERIALS AND METHODS Colombian households' quality of life was determined using data from the quality of life survey carried out by the Colombian Statistics' Department in 2008. The Latin-American and Caribbean Household Food Insecurity Scale was used for measuring the prevalence of household food insecurity(after having been adapted and validated for Colombia). Data was analyzed using the Chi square test and logistic regression analysis. RESULTS The households having a higher probability of food insecurity were those owning their dwelling but still paying the mortgage or those who were in possession of a dwelling without ownership documents, households where income was deemed insufficient for covering minimum expenses or did not cover minimum expenses, those who stated that they felt poor and those living in overcrowded conditions. The probability of food insecurity was also increased in households where the head of the family had lost her/his job, where late payments of 4 months or more were due for public utilities, had decreased food expenses or had spent their savings. CONCLUSION Household food Insecurity was significantly associated with a household's socioeconomic conditions and those of a head of household.
Pre-Emptive Targeting of the Epitope Spreading Cascade with Genetically Modified Regulatory T Cells During Autoimmune Demyelinating Disease1

Epitope spreading or endogenous self-priming has been implicated in mediating the progression of autoimmune disease. In the present study we created an immune-deviated, epitope spreading response in SWXJ mice after the onset of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, a prototypic autoimmune animal model widely used in multiple sclerosis research. We established an immunoregulatory spreading repertoire by transferring T cells genetically modified to produce high levels of IL-10 in response to a dominant epitope spreading determinant. Installation of a Th2/Tr1-like spreading repertoire resulted in a marked and prolonged inhibition of disease progression and demyelination characterized by 1) bystander inhibition of the recall response to the priming immunogen, and 2) a Th1→Tr1 immune-deviated spreading response involving a shift in the source of IL-10 production from the transferred regulatory population to the host-derived, endogenously primed repertoire. Thus, our data provide a rationale for cell-based therapeutic intervention in multiple sclerosis by showing that pre-emptive targeting of the epitope spreading cascade with regulatory T cells effectively induces an immune-deviated spreading response capable of inhibiting ongoing inflammatory autoreactivity and disease progression.
Quantum Chaos, Transport, and Decoherence in Atom Optics

Introduction: Classical and Quantum Chaos Quantum mechanics has been a rich field of study for so long because it provides many phenomena that run counter to our classically rooted intuitions. While such counterintuitive behavior occurs in simple systems, such as transmission through a double-slit aperture or an entangled pair of particles, even more surprising behavior arises in the study of quantum systems whose classical counterparts are chaotic. The study of chaos dates back to Poincare’s analysis of the stability of planetary motion near the end of the 19th century. Since then, it has been found to be a ubiquitous phenomenon in many areas, from the study of plasma confinement and weather to disease epidemiology. For our purposes, we can define chaos to be deterministic yet unpredictable behavior in a simple system. The unpredictability in chaotic systems is commonly referred to as “sensitive dependence on initial conditions,” which we can restate more formally as follows. Suppose the state of a system is parameterized by a set of variables x1, . , xn (which determine the phase space for the system). The evolution of these variables with time determines a trajectory for the system. Then chaotic systems are characterized by exponentially rapid separation in time of nearby pairs of trajectories. For predictability, this property means that a necessarily imperfect measurement of the initial condition or rounding errors in a numerical calculation will make long-term prediction of chaotic trajectories impossible. One natural question that arises is how the complicated behavior associated with chaos becomes manifest in quantum systems. Clearly, the notion of chaos as it is usually defined is classical, because quantum mechanics is a theory of waves, not trajectories. In fact, as we will see in the discussion of dynamical localization below, quantum
Sleep related vehicle accidents

EDITOR,—J A Horne and L A Reyner provide useful data on sleep related vehicle accidents, which were defined according to criteria that theyrightly consider more likely to have resulted in underreporting than overreporting of such accidents.1 The criteria that they used, however, although including “breathalyser/blood alcohol levels below the legal driving limit,” do not …
Broad Advances in Understanding HIV Resistance to Antiretrovirals: Report on the XVII International HIV Drug Resistance Workshop

The 2008 International HIV Drug Resistance Workshop explored six topics on viral resistance: new antiretrovirals; clinical implications; epidemiology; new technologies and interpretations; HIV pathogenesis, fitness, and resistance; and mechanisms of resistance. The last of these topics provided a forum for new work on resistance of hepatitis B and C viruses, which were also explored in two poster sessions. Much work focused on resistance to the two most recent antiretroviral classes (integrase inhibitors and CCR5 antagonists), a new set of entry inhibitor candidates and one new class represented by the maturation inhibitor bevirimat. Other research explored two novel non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, etravirine and IDX899. Epidemiological work analysed rates of transmitted resistant virus, multiclass resistance in antiretroviral-experienced patients and a heightened resistance risk in injecting drug users regardless of adherence. New research on resistance technologies involved an enhanced assay for HIV-1 coreceptor determination and improved gene-based tools for predicting coreceptor use. In the pathogenesis arena, a small study of intensification shed light on the likely source of residual viraemia in patients on successful antiretro-viral therapy. A large study in Mozambique correlated the timing of infant infection with selection, transmission and persistence of nevirapine resistance mutations. Mechanistic research explored resistance to the integrase inhibitor raltegravir, K65R-mediated resistance to tenofovir and the role of connection domain mutations in resistance to zidovudine.
Differential reparative phenotypes between zebrafish and medaka after cardiac injury

Background: Zebrafish have the ability for heart regeneration. However, another teleost animal model, the medaka, had not yet been investigated for this capacity. Results: Compared with zebrafish, the medaka heart responded differently to an injury: An excessive fibrotic response occurred in the medaka heart, and existing cardiomyocytes or cardiac progenitor cells remained dormant, resulting in no numerical difference between the uncut and injured heart with respect to the number of EdU‐incorporated cardiomyocytes. The results obtained from the analysis of the medaka raldh2‐GFP transgenic line showed a lack of raldh2 expression in the endocardium. Regarding periostin expression, the localization of medaka periostin‐b, a marker of fibrillogenesis, in the medaka heart remained at the wound site at 30 dpa; whereas zebrafish periostin‐b was no longer localized at the wound but was detected in the epicardium at that time. Conclusions: Compared with zebrafish heart regeneration, the medaka heart phenotypes suggest the possibility that the medaka could hardly regenerate its heart tissue or that these phenotypes for heart regeneration showed a delay. Developmental Dynamics 243:1106–1115, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Is hepcidin-25 a clinically relevant parameter for the iron status in hemodialysis patients?

BACKGROUND Accumulating data suggest potential clinical relevant relationships between hepcidin-25 levels, iron stores, erythropoiesis effectiveness, and epoetin dose. The immunometric methods and mass spectroscopy are currently used to measure hepcidin-25, but no standard exists, and values, although similar in trends, differ in absolute value. OBJECTIVE To investigate hepcidin levels and their relationship with peripheral iron indices, inflammation, and anemia therapy in patients on hemodialysis (HD). METHODS A cross-sectional study in 78 patients from a single HD center. Hepcidin-25 was measured with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), using a commercial kit (Bachem, UK). RESULTS Hepcidin-25 levels were similar to those previously reported in studies using the same antibody (median 113 [95% CI; 107-122 ng/mL]) and significant but weak correlations of hepcidin with transferrin (R2=0.06; p<0.04) and ferritin (R2=0.09; p<0.01) were found. A model of multiple regression analysis explained 57% of variation along hepcidin quartiles. Lower hepcidin levels were associated with higher transferrin levels (odds ratio 1.05 [1.01-1.09]), bigger iron doses (odds ratio 1.09 [1.02-1.15]), and an increased darbepoetin resistance index (odds ratio 4.3E+15 [11.15-1.6E+30]). An elevated serum C reactive protein was associated with increased hepcidin levels (odds ratio 0.70 [0.49-0.99]), while a higher ultrafiltration volume (odds ratio 4.30 [1.28-14.51]) and the male sex (odds ratio 0.04 [0.00-0.80]) were related to lower hepcidin levels. LIMITS Cohort number and composition. Hepcidin-25 ELISA assay. CONCLUSION A low hepcidin level in hemodialysis patients with high epoetin resistance index could be a useful marker of iron-restricted erythropoiesis, but confirmation by a therapeutical trial is necessary.