Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
1 INFLUENCE OF HYDROGEN AS A FUEL ADDITIVE ON COMBUSTION AND EMISSIONS CHARACTERISTICS OF A FREE PISTON ENGINE

It has been shown that using fuel additives play an important role in enhancing the combustion characteristics in terms of efficiency and emissions. In addition, free piston engines have shown capable in reducing energy losses and presenting more efficient and reliable engines. In this context, the objective of the present work is to investigate the effect of using Hydrogen as a fuel additive in natural gas HCCI free piston engine. To this aim, two models have been iteratively coupled: 1) the combustion model that is used to calculate the heat release of the combustion and 2) the scavenging model that is employed to determine the in-cylinder mixture state after scavenging in terms of its homogeneity and species mass fractions and to obtain the finial pressure and temperature of the in-cylinder mixture. In the former model, the 0-D approach through Cantera toolkit has been considered due to the fact that HCCI combustion is very rapid and the fuel-air mixture is well-homogenous, whereas in the latter model, 3D-CFD approach through Ansys fluent software is considered to ensure precise calculations of the species exchange at the end of each engine cycle. The effect of Hydrogen as a fuel additive has been quantified in terms of the combustion characteristics (e.g., ignition delay, heat release rate, engine overall efficiency and emissions, etc.). It has been shown that hydrogen addition reduces ignition delay time, decreases the in-cylinder peak pressure, while allowing the engine to operate with higher mechanical efficiency as it has high heat release rate, increases the NOx emission levels of the engine, but decreases the carbon monoxide (CO) levels
Phospho enol pyruvate Carboxykinase Assayed at Physiological Concentrations of Metal Ions Has a High Affinity for CO 2 1

The effect of Mn /Mg concentration on the activity of intact, homogeneous phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK) from leaves of the C4 grass, Guinea grass (Panicum maximum), have been investigated. Assay conditions were optimized so that PEPCK activity could be measured at concentrations of Mn /Mg similar to those found in the cytosol (low micromolar Mn and millimolar Mg ). PEPCK activity was totally dependent on Mn and was activated at low micromolar concentrations of Mn by millimolar concentrations of Mg . Therefore, at physiological concentrations of Mn , PEPCK has a requirement for Mg . Assay at physiological concentrations of Mn /Mg led to a marked decrease in its affinity for ATP and a 13-fold increase in its affinity for CO2. The Km (CO2) was further decreased by assay at physiological ATP to ADP ratios, reaching values as low as 20 m CO2, comparable with the Km (CO2) of ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase-oxygenase. This means that PEPCK will catalyze a reversible reaction and that it could operate as a carboxylase in vivo, a feature that could be particularly important in algal CO2-concentrating systems.
The anatomy and development of the mutants pirouette, shaker-1 and waltzer in the mouse

The genes v, sh-1 and pi all have the same general effect on the labyrinth. The organ of Corti, spiral ganglion, stria vascularis and the saccular macula degenerate in all three mutants. The cristae are normal in v/v and sh-1/sh-1 but are affected in pi/pi mice. The average size of the vestibular ganglion cells is reduced in sh-1 / sh-1 and pi/pi but not in v/v mice. The degeneration of the vestibular part of the labyrinth observed in the mutant shaker-1 is contrary to the previous reports on this mutant. In general, the anomalies discussed here closely resemble those in the other mutants of this group, namely, Varitint-waddler, jerker and shaker-2. But each mutant has some characteristic feature which is not seen in the others.
AN EFFICIENT AND HIGH BREAKDOWN ESTIMATION PROCEDURE FOR NONLINEAR REGRESSION MODELS

In regression analysis least square (LS) estimator fails because of its sensitivity to unusual observations present in the data. Robust estimation provides alternative estimates which are insensitive and efficient, when the data are not normally distributed or polluted with distant observations usually called outliers. To cope with the problem of outliers is more challenging in nonlinear regression (NLRM) than linear regression. In this study, least trimmed absolute (LTA) estimator which is a robust and high breakdown estimator is adopted for nonlinear regression model fitting. Bias and mean square error is used to check the efficiency of the proposed estimator. The performance of the estimator is compared with LS and existing robust M-estimators using simulated data sets and real world problems. It has been observed that LTA is efficient in case of contaminated data sets as compared to LS and M estimator. Furthermore, it has been concluded that in case of 40% contamination LTA outperforms LS and M estimator, while in case of 20% outliers LTA and M estimators perform equally well. In regard to clean data sets, LS, LTA and M estimator performs equally well. Conclusion has been made on the basis of simulated data sets as well as real data sets.
The Health of the Nation Outcome Scales: Validating Factorial Structure and Invariance Across Two Health Services

Objective: The Health of the Nation Outcome Scale (HoNOS) was developed in the mid-1990s as an inclusive and comprehensive instrument to measure patient outcomes in four main factors: behaviour, impairment, symptoms and social problems. This paper attempts to investigate whether similar health services rate the HoNOS with equivalent psychometric calibration. Method: The purpose of this study was to test for invariant construct interpretation of the instrument across two equivalent health services, using simultaneous confirmatory factor analysis. Results: Although the four-factor model of the HoNOS was confirmed, structural non-invariance occurred, casting doubt on the equivalent interpretability and generalisability of the instrument across similar heath services. Conclusions: Over-inclusiveness, lack of specificity and questionable independence of observations may have contributed to the non-invariant factor structure between the two health services. Such results shed some doubt on the ability of the HoNOS and like observational instruments to provide equivalent comparisons between health services.
Extended Workdays in an Underground Mine: A Work Performance Analysis

Many companies in different industrial sectors are exploring alternative work schedules to deal with diverse problems associated with shiftwork. The use of extended workday schedules (regular shift lengths exceeding 8 h with compressed workweeks) is attracting growing interest in many industries that use continuous operations. To address concerns regarding possible fatigue effects on safety and work performance associated with such schedules, the U.S. Bureau of Mines conducted a two-phase study at an underground metal mine in western Canada. Data were collected before and after a group of workers employed at the mine changed from an 8- to a 12-h schedule. Results indicate nearly unanimous acceptance and improved sleep quality associated with the new schedule. In general, fatigue-sensitive behavioral and physiological performance measures show either no change or improvement with 12-h shifts. We conclude that the extended workday schedule should be retained but periodically reevaluated.
Disturbing the rhythm of thought: Speech pausing patterns in schizophrenia, with and without formal thought disorder

Everyday speech is produced with an intricate timing pattern and rhythm. Speech units follow each other with short interleaving pauses, which can be either bridged by fillers (erm, ah) or empty. Through their syntactic positions, pauses connect to the thoughts expressed. We investigated whether disturbances of thought in schizophrenia are manifest in patterns at this level of linguistic organization, whether these are seen in first degree relatives (FDR) and how specific they are to formal thought disorder (FTD). Spontaneous speech from 15 participants without FTD (SZ-FTD), 15 with FTD (SZ+FTD), 15 FDRs and 15 neurotypical controls (NC) was obtained from a comic strip retelling task and rated for pauses subclassified by syntactic position and duration. SZ-FTD produced significantly more unfilled pauses than NC in utterance-initial positions and before embedded clauses. Unfilled pauses occurring within clausal units did not distinguish any groups. SZ-FTD also differed from SZ+FTD in producing significantly more pauses before embedded clauses. SZ+FTD differed from NC and FDR only in producing longer utterance-initial pauses. FDRs produced significantly fewer fillers than NC. Results reveal that the temporal organization of speech is an important window on disturbances of the thought process and how these relate to language.
Impact of basal ganglia damage after successful endovascular recanalization for acute ischemic stroke involving lenticulostriate arteries.

OBJECTIVERegional ischemic vulnerability of the brain reportedly differs between the cortex and basal ganglia and has been poorly assessed in the setting of endovascular mechanical thrombectomy. This study was conducted to determine the fate of an ischemic basal ganglia and its contribution to the clinical outcome after successful endovascular recanalization for acute ischemic stroke with large vessel occlusion involving the lenticulostriate arteries.METHODSClinical and radiological findings were retrospectively analyzed in consecutive patients with acute ischemic stroke characterized by large vessel occlusion involving the lenticulostriate arteries. Mechanical thrombectomy was performed in all patients using a stent retriever. The fate of ischemic basal ganglia based on location (lentiform nucleus, caudate nucleus, and internal capsule) and insular cortex was assessed according to the Alberta Stroke Programme Early CT Score (ASPECTS). RESULTSOf 170 patients with large intracranial vessel occlusion who achieved successful endovascular recanalization, defined as a thrombolysis in cerebral infarction grade of ≥ 2B, involvement of the lenticulostriate arteries was seen in 55 patients (internal carotid artery, n = 35; proximal middle cerebral artery, n = 20). Preoperative infarction was detected in the lentiform nucleus (66.7%), internal capsule (11.1%), and caudate nucleus (33.3%), all of which showed secondary advancement despite successful recanalization (85.4%, 27.3%, and 54.5%, respectively; p < 0.05). Lenticulostriate arteries with a lateral proximal and/or medial proximal origin significantly affected the development of mature infarction in the lentiform nucleus. Postoperative hemorrhagic transformation was detected in 25 of 55 patients, mostly in the lentiform nucleus. Involvement of insular ribbon infarction was significantly high in patients with hemorrhagic transformation in the basal ganglia. Age, initial National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score, initial ASPECTS, postoperative ASPECTS, postoperative infarction in the insular ribbon, and lesions in the middle cerebral artery area (M1-M6) were significantly different between patients with good and poor modified Rankin Scale scores. Interestingly, no differences were detected in postoperative infarction or hemorrhagic transformation in the basal ganglia. Multivariate analysis showed that only age (p = 0.02, OR 0.88) and the initial NIHSS score (p = 0.01, OR 0.86) independently affected favorable clinical outcomes.CONCLUSIONSThe basal ganglia are vulnerable and readily develop secondary infarction and hemorrhagic transformation despite successful recanalization. However, this does not have a significant impact on the clinical outcome of acute ischemic stroke with large vessel occlusion involving the lenticulostriate arteries.
Evaluating the use of job aids and user instructions to improve adherence for the treatment of childhood pneumonia using amoxicillin dispersible tablets in a low-income setting: a mixed-method study

Objectives We conducted a study to evaluate the use of job aids and simple user instructions to improve adherence for the treatment of childhood pneumonia with amoxicillin dispersible tablet (DT). Design A mixed-method study implemented in three phases between October 2015 and February 2016. Settings The study was implemented in two subdistricts of Bangladesh. Participants Caregivers of children aged 2–59 months, health service providers and key stakeholders at national and district level. Interventions An intervention including training and job aids and user-friendly instructions was introduced in one subdistrict while standard amoxicillin DT packaging and instructions with no training served as the control in the comparison subdistrict. Primary outcome Adherence behaviour of caregivers of children aged 2–59 months for the treatment of childhood pneumonia with amoxicillin DT. Methods We conducted a survey with 56 caregivers in the intervention subdistrict and 38 caregivers in the comparison subdistrict. We also conducted 44 in-depth interviews to evaluate the job aids and user-friendly instructions with healthcare providers and caregivers to assess the feasibility, usability and acceptability of the tools in intervention subdistrict. Results For 5-day treatment course, 32.1% (95% CI 23.1% to 41.1%) of caregivers in the intervention subdistrict and 2.6% (95% CI 0.3% to 7.8%) in the comparison subdistrict maintained full adherence to the amoxicillin DT treatment for pneumonia. More children under 12 months were given age-appropriate treatment than older children. Key stakeholders and healthcare providers considered the use and integration of the tools into the health system to be feasible and acceptable. Conclusions The provision of tools for the treatment of childhood pneumonia with amoxicillin DT had a positive influence on adherence behaviours. These tools can help close information gaps and overcome the barriers posed by medical illiteracy and remembering instructions from providers.
Validation of the Trait Anxiety Scale for State-Trait Anxiety Inventory in Suicide Victims and Living Controls of Chinese Rural Youths

This study evaluated the validation of STAI Trait-Anxiety Scale in suicide cases and community living controls in rural China. The participants were 392 suicides and 416 controls. Cronbach's Alpha was computed to evaluate the internal consistency. The Spearman Correlation Coefficient between Trait-Anxiety Scale and other instrument was calculated to evaluate the external validity, and the Exploratory Factor Analysis was used to evaluate the construct validity. The results showed the Cronbach's Alpha was . 891 and . 787 respectively in case and control groups. Most of the correlations between instruments were significant. We found 2 factors in cases and 3 factors in controls. We could cautiously infer that the Trait Anxiety Scale was an adequate tool to measure trait anxiety through proxy data in suicide victims and living controls in rural China.
I-Vector-Based Patient Adaptation of Deep Neural Networks for Automatic Heartbeat Classification

Automatic classification of electrocardiogram (ECG) signals is important for diagnosing heart arrhythmias. A big challenge in automatic ECG classification is the variation in the waveforms and characteristics of ECG signals among different patients. To address this issue, this paper proposes adapting a patient-independent deep neural network (DNN) using the information in the patient-dependent identity vectors (i-vectors). The adapted networks, namely i-vector adapted patient-specific DNNs (iAP-DNNs), are tuned toward the ECG characteristics of individual patients. For each patient, his/her ECG waveforms are compressed into an i-vector using a factor analysis model. Then, this i-vector is injected into the middle hidden layer of the patient-independent DNN. Stochastic gradient descent is then applied to fine-tune the whole network to form a patient-specific classifier. As a result, the adaptation makes use of not only the raw ECG waveforms from the specific patient but also the compact representation of his/her ECG characteristics through the i-vector. Analysis on the hidden-layer activations shows that by leveraging the information in the i-vectors, the iAP-DNNs are more capable of discriminating normal heartbeats against arrhythmic heartbeats than the networks that use the patient-specific ECG only for the adaptation. Experimental results based on the MIT-BIH database suggest that the iAP-DNNs perform better than existing patient-specific classifiers in terms of various performance measures. In particular, the sensitivity and specificity of the existing methods are all under the receiver operating characteristic curves of the iAP-DNNs.
LSD1 destabilizes FBXW7 and abrogates FBXW7 functions independent of its demethylase activity

Significance FBXW7 is a typical tumor suppressor by targeting many oncoproteins for ubiquitylation and degradation, whereas LSD1 has oncogenic activity. Whether and how FBXW7 and LSD1 interact, with what biological consequence, are unknown. Here, we report that LSD1 is a pseudosubstrate of FBXW7. Upon binding with FBXW7, LSD1, instead of being degraded, disrupts FBXW7 dimerization and promotes FBXW7 self-ubiquitylation and degradation via proteasome and lysosomal pathways in a manner independent of its demethylase activity. As such, LSD1 abrogates biological functions of FBXW7 in growth suppression, nonhomologous end-joining repair, and radioprotection. Our study reveals a novel oncogenic mechanism of LSD1 by targeting FBXW7 and provides a sound strategy to reactivate FBXW7 by PROTAC-based LSD1 degradation in human cancers harboring wild-type FBXW7 with overexpressed LSD1. FBXW7 acts as a typical tumor suppressor, with loss-of-function alterations in human cancers, by promoting ubiquitylation and degradation of many oncoproteins. Lysine-specific demethylase 1 (LSD1) is a well-characterized histone demethylase. Whether LSD1 has demethylase-independent activity remains elusive. Here we report that LSD1 directly binds to FBXW7 to destabilize FBXW7 independent of its demethylase activity. Specifically, LSD1 is a pseudosubstrate of FBXW7 and LSD1–FBXW7 binding does not trigger LSD1 ubiquitylation, but instead promotes FBXW7 self-ubiquitylation by preventing FBXW7 dimerization. The self-ubiquitylated FBXW7 is subjected to degradation by proteasome as well as lysosome in a manner dependent on autophagy protein p62/SQSTM1. Biologically, LSD1 destabilizes FBXW7 to abrogate its functions in growth suppression, nonhomologous end-joining repair, and radioprotection. Collectively, our study revealed a previously unknown activity of LSD1, which likely contributes to its oncogenic function. Targeting LSD1 protein, not only its demethylase activity, might be a unique approach for LSD1-based drug discovery for anticancer application.
Fiber Reshaping-Based Refractive Index Sensor Interrogated through Both Intensity and Wavelength Detection

A fiber reshaping-based refractive index (RI) sensor is proposed relying on both optical intensity variation and wavelength shift. The objective of this study is to completely reshape the core and to ultimately mimic a coreless fiber, thereby creating a highly efficient multimode interference (MMI) coupler. Thus, propagation modes are permitted to leak out into the cladding and eventually escape out of the fiber, depending on the surrounding environment. Two interrogation mechanisms based on both the intensity variation and wavelength shift are employed to investigate the performance of the RI sensor, with the assistance of leaky-mode and MMI theories. By monitoring the output intensity difference and the wavelength shift, the proposed RI sensor exhibits high average sensitivities of 185 dB/RIU and 3912 nm/RIU in a broad range from 1.339 to 1.443, respectively. The operating range and sensitivity can be adjusted by controlling the interaction length, which is appealing for a wide range of applications in industry and bioscience research.
Efficacy of Azoxystrobin on Mycotoxins and Related Fungi in Italian Paddy Rice

Abstract The efficacy of azoxystrobin was evaluated in the presence of mycotoxigenic fungi and relative mycotoxins in Italian paddy rice during the growing season in the field. Three experimental fields were considered and the applied experimental design was a strip plot with three replicates; rice samples were collected at four different growing stages. The efficacy of the fungicide treatment on rice fungal population was demonstrated with around 20% less total fungal incidence in sprayed samples compared to untreated ones; the same decrease was noted also in Fusarium spp. species but not in Aspergillus versicolor. Of the mycotoxins considered, ochratoxin A (OTA) and aflatoxins (AFBs) were never detected, deoxynivalenol (DON) was found in 46% of samples at levels always lower than 100 µg/kg, while sterigmatocystin (STC) occurred in all the paddy rice samples collected after flowering, with a maximum value of 15.5 µg/kg. Treatment with azoxystrobin was not effective in reducing DON contamination, but it had an important and significant effect on STC content, showing a decrease of 67% in the sprayed samples.
Inequalities in realised access to healthcare among recently arrived refugees depending on local access model: study protocol for a quasi-experimental study

Introduction In many countries, including Germany, newly arriving refugees face specific entitlement restrictions and access barriers to healthcare. While entitlement restrictions apply to all refugees who seek protection in Germany during the first months, the barriers to access depend on the model that the states and the municipalities implement locally. Currently, two different models exist: the healthcare voucher model (HcV) and the electronic health card model (eHC). The aim of the study is to analyse the consequences of these two different access models on newly arrived refugees’ realised access to healthcare. Methods and analysis The random assignment of refugees to municipalities allows for a quasi-experimental design by comparing realised access to healthcare among refugees in six municipalities in North Rhine-Westphalia which have implemented HcV or eHC. We compare realised access to healthcare using ambulatory care sensitive conditions and health expenditure as outcome indicators, and use of emergency care, preventive care, psychotherapeutic or psychiatric care, and of therapeutic devices as process indicators. Results will be adjusted for aggregated information on age, sex, socioeconomic structure of the municipalities and density of general practitioners or specialists. Ethics and dissemination We cooperated with local welfare offices and the statutory health insurance for data collection. Thereby, we were able to avoid recruiting large numbers of refugee patients immediately after arrival while their access and entitlement to healthcare are restricted. We developed an extensive data protection concept and ensured that all data collected are fully anonymised. Results will be published in peer-reviewed journals and summarised in reports to the funding agency.