Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Genomic loss of HLA alleles may affect the clinical outcome in low-risk myelodysplastic syndrome patients

The Revised International Prognostic Score and some somatic mutations in myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) are independently associated with transformation to acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Immunity has also been implicated in the pathogenesis of MDS, although the underlying mechanism remains unclear. We performed a SNP array on chromosome 6 in CD34+ purified blasts from 19 patients diagnosed with advanced MDS and 8 patients with other myeloid malignancies to evaluate the presence of loss of heterozygosity (LOH) in HLA and its impact on disease progression. Three patients had acquired copy-neutral LOH (CN-LOH) on 6p arms, which may disrupt antigen presentation and act as a mechanism for immune system evasion. Interestingly, these patients had previously been classified at low risk of AML progression, and the poor outcome cannot be explained by the acquisition of adverse mutations. LOH HLA was not detected in the remaining 24 patients, who all had adverse risk factors. In summary, the clinical outcome of patients with advanced MDS might be influenced by HLA allelic loss, wich allows subclonal expansions to evade cytotoxic-T and NK cell attack. CN-LOH HLA may therefore be a factor favoring MDS progression to AML independently of the somatic tumor mutation load.
Effects of febuxostat on serum cytokines IL-1, IL-4, IL-6, IL-8, TNF-α and COX-2

Effects of febuxostat on serum cytokines interleukin (IL)-1, IL-4, IL-6, IL-8, tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) in patients with gout were investigated. A total of 80 patients with gout admitted and treated in the Affiliated Zhongshan Hospital of Dalian University from January 2015 to September 2017 were selected and divided into two groups by virtue of a random number table, with 40 patients in each group. All the enrolled patients received strict gout diet adjustment and took colchicine at the same time. Patients in the control group were additionally treated with allopurinol, while those in the the observation group were administered with febuxostat. The serum uric acid levels were compared between the two groups. The number of gout attacks and adverse reactions were recorded, and the variations in COX-2 positive value integral were clarified. At different time-points of observation, the serum uric acid levels in the observation group were significantly lower than those in the control group (p<0.05). Moreover, at 3 months after treatment, the levels of inflammatory cytokines in the serum in the observation group were decreased compared with those in the control group (p<0.05). The IL-1 and TNF-α levels were lower in the observation group at 1 week, 1 and 3 months after treatment compared with those in the control group (p<0.05). Furthermore, it was discovered that at 3 months after treatment, the COX-2 positive value integral in the observation group was superior to that in the control group (p<0.05). During follow-up, the number of gout attacks that needed medical intervention in the observation group was smaller than that in the control group (p<0.05). Compared with allopurinol therapy, febuxostat therapy can remarkably inhibit inflammatory responses in the body, relieve clinical symptoms and reduce relapse of the patients with gout.
A Method of Biomimetic Visual Perception and Image Reconstruction Based on Pulse Sequence of Events

A method of biomimetic visual perception and image reconstruction based on pulse sequence of events is proposed, and the proposed method facilitates a behavioral model of vision image sensing. Based on the model, the relationship between light condition and quality of reconstructed videos is analyzed. In this sensing method, pulse sequence is defined as synchronous pulse sequence. The sensing method adopts a synchronous pulse sequence readout and asynchronous pixel level sensing mechanism. Light intensity can be calculated by pulse sequences and image or video can be further reconstructed. As the photocurrent increases, the real-time performance of reconstructed image increases, but the depth of the reconstructed image decreases. Experiments are performed on sensing models with two types of pulse sequence generating methods. Method 1 adopts 1-bit data for each pixel, and Method 2 adopts 1-bit data accompanied by 3-bit time label which enables a lower frame rate. In the experiment with static images, the reconstructed images show better image depth under lower photocurrent. The mean square error (MSE) of the reconstructed image with 450 fA maximum photocurrent on Method 1 is 0.0737, whereas the MSE in the same condition on Method 2 is 0.0083. In the experiment with high-speed videos of 20000 f/s, the reconstructed videos with various photocurrents are evaluated by MSE analysis. When maximum photocurrent is between 6750 and 8250 fA as well as between 11250 and 16500 fA, the reconstructed high-speed videos have good MSE results, where video real-time and image depth are balanced.
Spinal Shox2 interneuron interconnectivity related to function and development

Neuronal networks generating hindlimb locomotion are located in the spinal cord. The mechanisms underlying spinal rhythmogenesis are unknown but network activity and interconnectivity of excitatory interneurons likely play prominent roles. Here, we investigate interconnectivity within the Shox2 interneuron population, a subset of which has been suggested to be involved in locomotor rhythm generation, using paired recordings in isolated spinal cords or slices from transgenic mice. Sparse unidirectional connections consistent with chemical synaptic transmission and prominent bidirectional connections mediated by electrical synapses were present within distinct subsets of Shox2 interneurons. Moreover, bidirectional electrical connections were preferentially found between functionally-related Shox2 interneurons. Though prevalent in neonatal mice, electrical coupling began to decline in incidence and strength in mice ~ 3 weeks of age. Overall, our data suggest that gap junctional coupling promotes synchronization of Shox2 interneurons, and may be implicated in locomotor rhythmicity in developing mice.
Light-Shield Layers Free Photosensitive Inverters Comprising GaN-Drivers and Multi-Layered MoS2-Loads

Herein, GaN driver FETs with a high-energy bandgap are employed in photosensitive inverters to eliminate light-shield layers (LSLs). This configuration exhibits the full-swing characteristics of photosensitive inverters comprised of multi-layered MoS2 FET loads in the photosensitive pseudo-depletion mode. The GaN FETs provide both high current drivability and excellent photo-leakage immunity under visible light. This allows the photosensitive inverters to be successfully operational without LSLs. The relative degradation (%) of voltage gain for photosensitive inverters with GaN drivers from dark to blue light exposure is improved from 67.7% to 53.0%, as compared to previously reported MoS2 inverters with LSLs.
Internet of Robotic Things: Driving Intelligent Robotics of Future - Concept, Architecture, Applications and Technologies

Internet of Things (IoT) provides a strong platform to connect objects to the Internet for facilitating Machine to Machine (M2M) communication and transferring data using standard network protocols like TCP/IP. IoT is gaining rapidly day by day and till date, billions of devices are already connected and in the coming few years, the number can even touch trillions. With consistent advancements, lots of areas like Military, Agriculture, Industry, Healthcare, Robotics, Nanotechnology are adapting IoT for advanced solutions. The research paper proposes a comprehensive view of the new concept of IoT especially proposed for robotics i.e. Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT). IoRT is a mix of diverse technologies like Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning and Internet of Things (IoT). The paper also discusses architecture which plays a significant role in design of Multi-Role Robotic Systems for IoRT. In addition to this, enlists technologies behind IoRT, applications of IoRT and existing robotic systems based on Humanoid, Mobile, Flying and Swarm envisaged for future IoRT systems. The paper provides a strong base for researchers to envision the concept of IoRT and enable them to think out-of-the-box to design and implement IoRT based robotic systems in real-world applications.
Impact of Weekly Climatic Variables on Weekly Malaria Incidence throughout Thailand: A Country-Based Six-Year Retrospective Study

Purpose. This study aimed to evaluate climatic data, including mean temperature, relative humidity, and rainfall, and their association with malaria incidence throughout Thailand from 2012 to 2017. The correlation of climatic parameters including temperature, relative humidity, and rainfall in each province and the weekly malaria incidence was analyzed using Spearman's rank correlation. The results showed that the mean temperature correlated with malaria incidence (p value < 0.05) in 44 provinces in Thailand. These correlations were frequently found in the western and southern parts of Thailand. Relative humidity correlated with malaria incidence (p value < 0.05) in 35 provinces. These correlations were frequently found in the northern and northeastern parts of Thailand. Rainfall correlated with malaria incidence (p value < 0.05) in 38 provinces. These correlations were frequently found in the northern parts and some western parts of Thailand. The impacts of the mean temperature, relative humidity, and rainfall were observed frequently in specific provinces, including Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Trat, Kanchanaburi, Ubonratchathani, and Si Sa Ket. This is the first study to report areas where climatic data are associated with malaria incidence throughout Thailand from 2012 to 2017. These results can map out the climatic change process over time and across the country, which is the foundation for effective early warning systems for malaria, public health awareness campaigns, and the adoption of proper adaption measures that will help in malaria detection, diagnosis, and treatment.
Expression and role of EGFR, cyclin D1 and KRAS in laryngocarcinoma tissues

Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), cyclin D1 and KRAS proto-oncogene, GTPase (KRAS) genes serve roles in the occurrence and development of tumors. The aim of the current study was to investigate the expression levels of EGFR, cyclin D1 and KRAS in laryngocarcinoma tissues and their association with clinical features. In addition, correlation between the expression levels of EGFR, cyclin D1 and KRAS was analyzed in laryngocarcinoma tissues. The expression levels of EGFR, cyclin D1 and KRAS in 46 patients with laryngocarcinoma and 20 patients with vocal cord polyps as the control group were determined using Super Vision immunohistochemical staining assay kits. The differences in clinical and pathological parameters between groups were statistically analyzed using SPSS software version 16.0. The expression rates of EGFR, cyclin D1 and KRAS were 71.7, 52.2 and 39.1%, respectively in laryngocarcinoma tissues, and 10.0, 5.0 and 10.0%, respectively in vocal cord polyps. There was a positive correlation between the expression levels of EGFR, cyclin D1 and KRAS. The expression of these genes was also closely associated with the clinical stage, treatment response and prognosis of patients with laryngocarcinoma. Multivariate analysis of prognosis using the Cox regression model indicated that EGFR expression in laryngocarcinoma tissues and the clinical stage of patients with laryngocarcinoma were closely associated with patient prognosis. The results of the current study indicated that EGFR, cyclin D1 and KRAS were synergistically involved in the occurrence and development of laryngocarcinoma, directly affecting the prognosis of patients. Additionally, high expression of EGFR, cyclin D1 and KRAS facilitated the invasion and metastasis of laryngocarcinoma cells. The expression of EGFR in laryngocarcinoma tissues and clinical stage were two independent risk factors affecting the prognosis of patients.
Abnormalities of diffusional kurtosis imaging and regional homogeneity in idiopathic generalized epilepsy with generalized tonic-clonic seizures

Neuroimaging techniques have been used to investigate idiopathic generalized epilepsy with generalized tonic-clonic seizures (IGE-GTCS) and different studies employing these methods have produced varying results. However, there have been few studies exploring diffusional kurtosis imaging (DKI) and regional homogeneity (ReHo) techniques in patients with IGE-GTCS. In the current study, resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and DKI data were collected from 28 patients with IGE-GTCS and 28 healthy controls. The ReHo method and tract-based spatial statistical (TBSS) analysis were performed to compare differences between the groups. Compared with healthy controls, patients with IGE-GTCS exhibited markedly increased ReHo in the bilateral putamen, the thalamus, right pallidum, right supplementary motor area and the bilateral paracentral lobules. Compared with healthy controls, patients with IGE-GTCS also exhibited markedly decreased ReHo in the posterior cingulate/precuneus, left angular gyrus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. In patients with IGE-GTCS, DKI revealed lower fractional anisotropy in the left anterior/superior corona radiata, left superior longitudinal fasciculus and genu/body of the corpus callosum. Higher mean diffusivity was detected in the bilateral anterior corona radiata, left superior corona radiata, left cingulum, and genu/body/splenium of the corpus callosum. Furthermore, reduced mean kurtosis values were identified over the bilateral superior/posterior corona radiate, left anterior corona radiata, right superior longitudinal fasciculus, left posterior thalamic radiation and the genu/body/splenium of the corpus callosum. Therefore, the results of the current study revealed abnormalities in spontaneous activity in the gray and white matter tracts in patients with IGE-GTCS. These results suggest that novel MRI technology may be useful to help determine the pathogenesis of IGE-GTCS.
A Verification of Improved Distributed Control in DC Microgrid based on Hardware-in-the-loop Simulation

An improved distributed control is proposed for enhancing a flexibility of changing the control strategy depending on the dc microgrid situation. The conventional distributed control has the limitation of changing control strategy because of its control method. In the proposed control method, a local controller of conventional distributed control divided into two layers. First, the local layer performs inner voltage and current loops. Second, the flexible layer performs the primary and secondary control. Since the flexible layer performs most of the control for operating dc microgrid, the control strategy can be changed easily by changing the primary and secondary control in this layer. Moreover, the burden of data processing at the local controller is reduced through the flexible layer of the proposed method. Therefore, it becomes easy to manufacture converters in multi-vendor without control platform standardization. The experimental results based on Typhoon HIL 402 are presented to demonstrate the proposed approach.
Improving Stability of Negative Capacitors for use in Active Metamaterials and Antennas

The most challenging issue in implementation of negative capacitors and negative inductors (non-Foster elements) in active metamaterials and antennas is their proneness to instability. Recently, it was suggested that the ‘band-pass' design of a negative element may remove inherent unstable DC pole and, therefore, significantly improve stability properties. This paper reports analytical, numerical and experimental verification of aforementioned idea.
Motion Control of a Hovering Biomimetic Four-Fin Underwater Robot

U-CAT is a highly maneuverable biomimetic four-fin underwater robot for operating in confined spaces. Because of its novel mechanical design and specialized purpose, the traditional autonomous underwater robot control methods are not directly applicable on U-CAT. This paper proposes a novel modular control architecture that can be adopted for different application scenarios. Within this framework, we implement and test several 2-degree-of-freedom (DOF) controllers and discuss the test results. Furthermore, we describe and implement an actuation coupling method by prioritizing the selection of DOF with fuzzy membership functions and demonstrate the approach for 3-DOF control. The results show that the proposed DOF prioritization approach helps us to improve tracking both in the case of human in the loop and automatic control. Finally, we describe long-duration field experiments in realistic environmental conditions.
Comparative efficacy of chemiluminescence and toluidine blue in the detection of potentially malignant and malignant disorders of the oral cavity

Context: Early detection of oral cancer is of paramount importance in determining the prognosis of oral cancer. Literature suggests that several diagnostic modalities have been proposed to aid a clinician in early detection of oral cancer without much conclusive evidence. Aims: The present study aims to compare toluidine blue and chemiluminescence screening methods in early detection of carcinoma in North Indian population and also to evaluate these methods with histopathological diagnosis. Methods: In this prospective study, 42 patients with clinically visible premalignant lesions were included. Demographic data were collected, and suspicious lesions were examined by chemiluminescence light (Vizilite) and followed by local application of toluidine blue (Mashberg's recommendation). Findings were recorded for each lesion under standard incandescent light as positive or negative. Biopsy and histopathological analysis of the tissues were performed. Statistical Analysis: Sensitivity, specificity and positive and negative predictive values for the chemiluminescence technique and toluidine blue were calculated for diagnostic tests. Results and Conclusions: In the present study, toluidine blue test was found to be moderately sensitive (63.33%) whereas chemiluminescence test (Vizilite) was found to be highly sensitive (90%); however, the test has limited specificity (50%). Thus, the study concluded that both toluidine blue and Vizilite can be used as an adjunct to simple, conventional visual examination and in screening procedure for oral potentially malignant disorders.
Performance Analysis of Single-Receiver Matched-Mode Localization

Acoustic propagation in shallow water at low frequency is characterized by a few propagating modes. When the source is impulsive or short enough, the modes can be extracted from the signal received on a single sensor using a warping operator. This opens the door to single-receiver matched-mode processing (SR-MMP) as a means to estimate source location and/or ocean environmental parameters. While the applicability of SR-MMP has been demonstrated through several experiments, prediction of its achievable performance has not been fully investigated. In this paper, performance analysis of SR-MMP is carried out using numerical simulations of a typical shallow water environment, incorporating possible environmental mismatch as well as degradations resulting from nonideal modal filtering. SR-MMP is a nonlinear estimation problem that presents three regions of operation: the high SNR asymptotic region driven by local errors, the intermediate SNR threshold region driven by sidelobe ambiguities and the low SNR no-information region. The method of interval errors, which gives computationally efficient and reliable mean squared error performance prediction, is used to conduct the analysis. The results suggest that the SR-MMP performance depends strongly on the source/receiver depth. A significant loss in performance is observed when the receiver is located at a node common to two modes. Receiver depth must therefore be chosen with care. SR-MMP seems to be quite robust to mismatch on the seabed properties alone but does not handle well the combined effect of seabed and water column mismatches. Nonideal modal filtering has a moderate impact on performance.
Battery-Based Energy Storage Systems for Catenary-Free Electric Trains

This paper focuses on three alternative railway systems (i.e., railway, urban metro and city tram). An approach to assess the size of an on-board energy storage unit is proposed. The unit is designed to supply the three trains along a catenary-free track. The equations of motion are formulated in a common case. The approach solves the system of equations by means of an optimization procedure where a set of constraints on the representative variables is assigned. Service duty cycle and energy requirements are characteristics of the three alternative systems. The results of the numerical simulations focus on the design of a battery-based storage unit to be equipped in the rolling stock vehicles. Specifically, the performance required to the storage units in the three alternative configurations are investigated and compared. Some final notes pointed out the impact of the design constraints on the unit sizing.
Comparison of Antenna Patterns from Active and Passive Measurements

Patterns are the most challenging antenna parameter to estimate. The pattern detail is critical for high gain satellite systems and also essential for evaluating low gain diversity antennas for MIMO systems. For small devices with integrated antennas, such as mobile phones and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, antenna pattern measurement is usually done by attaching a coaxial test cable directly to the antenna port (often through a matching network), bypassing the rest of the system making the measurement passive. The test cable must be carefully routed to best suppress the cable's structural scattering contribution. With present measurement systems, it is possible to estimate a pattern using active, over-the-air (OTA) tests. In this paper we compare the results from passive and active tests. Then, by computing the correlation between the measured patterns, we demonstrate the effect of the test cable. This study also demonstrates the potential of antenna pattern estimation from active testing, which is regarded as necessary at higher microwave and mm-wave frequencies where the test fixture can significantly modify the radiation characteristics making the passive measurement inaccurate and in some cases essentially useless.
Implementation of a Self-matched 40:1 two arm Archimedean Spiral Antenna

The two arm Archimedean Spiral antenna is revisited in an attempt to improve the operating bandwidth and input impedance characteristics. Each arm is placed on either side of the substrate and the width of the arms has been increased to allow direct attachment of a coaxial connector at the center of the structure. Simulated results show S11less than −10.5dB across the band from 700MHz to 20GHz. The input impedance varies from 30Ω to 82Ω in the same band. Acceptable 3D gain pattern is observed on simulation at 30GHz which successfully sanctions the idea of this paper.
New Normal Parameter Reduction Method in Fuzzy Soft Set Theory

Soft set theory is a good tool to deal with uncertain problems. The study of reduction problem is an important part of soft set theory. Different decision-making criteria lead to different reduction methods. In this paper, the problem of parameter reduction of soft sets is studied based on the score decision criteria. Four cases of dispensable sets are discussed in parameter reduction. Then, a newly parameter reduction method is proposed. Finally, a comparison is shown between the new proposed parameter reduction method and the previous parameter reduction method based on the choice value decision criteria, and remarks are given.