Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mechanical Properties of Isolated Primary Cilia Measured by Micro-tensile Test and Atomic Force Microscopy

Mechanotransduction is a well-known mechanism by which cells sense their surrounding mechanical environment, convert mechanical stimuli into biochemical signals, and eventually change their morphology and functions. Primary cilia are believed to be mechanosensors existing on the surface of the cell membrane and support cells to sense surrounding mechanical signals. Knowing the mechanical properties of primary cilia is essential to understand their responses, such as sensitivity to mechanical stimuli. Previous studies have so far conducted flow experiments or optical trap techniques to measure the flexural rigidity EI (E: Young’s modulus, I: second moment of inertia) of primary cilia; however, the flexural rigidity is not a material property of materials and depends on mathematical models used in the determination, leading to a discrepancy between studies. For better characterization of primary cilia mechanics, Young’s modulus should be directly and precisely measured. In this study, the tensile Young’s modulus of isolated primary cilia is, for the first time, measured by using an in-house micro-tensile tester. The different strain rates of 0.01–0.3 s−1 were applied to isolated primary cilia, which showed a strain rate–dependent Young’s modulus in the range of 69.5–240.0 kPa on average. Atomic force microscopy was also performed to measure the local Young’s modulus of primary cilia, showing the Young’s modulus within the order of tens to hundreds of kPa. This study could directly provide the global and local Young’s moduli, which will benefit better understanding of primary cilia mechanics.
Elevated Serum Uric Acid is Associated With Poor Survival in Advanced HCC Patients and Febuxostat Improves Prognosis in HCC Rats

Objective: Serum uric acid is associated with tumor progression and hepatocarcinogenesis. Here, we aimed to determine whether serum uric acid is related to the survival time of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and whether the inhibition of uric acid production affects the progression and survival of rats with HCC. Methods: The follow-up data of 288 patients with advanced HCC were analyzed. Ten purine metabolites in serum and liver samples of diethylnitrosamine (DEN)-induced HCC rats were quantitatively determined by an established UPLC-MS/MS method. On this basis, febuxostat, a specific inhibitor of xanthine oxidase (XOD), was used to interfere with HCC rats. Results: The serum uric acid level of HCC patients was significantly negatively correlated with survival days (r = -0.155). The median survival time was 133.5 days in the high uric acid group (>360 μmol/L, n = 80) and 176.0 days in the normal serum uric acid group (<360 μmol/L, n = 208, p = 0.0013). The levels of hypoxanthine, guanine, and uric acid; XOD activity; and xanthine dehydrogenase mRNA expression in the serum or liver samples of HCC rats were significantly upregulated compared with those in the control group. After febuxostat intervention in DEN-induced HCC rats, the number of atypical cells and inflammatory cells decreased significantly; the serum alpha fetoprotein level and Fisher’s ratio tended to return to normal; the median survival time increased from 36 to 96 days (p = 0.08). In addition, serum malondialdehyde, superoxide dismutase, and glutathione activity nearly returned to the level of the healthy control group. Conclusion: The elevation of serum uric acid implies a risk of poor survival in advanced HCC patients and Febuxostat can reduce the generation of reactive oxygen species, thereby playing a role in delaying the progression of liver cancer.
Post-interventional Evaluation and Follow-Up in Children With Patent Ductus Arteriosus Complicated With Moderate to Severe Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension: A Retrospective Study

Background: Transcatheter closure is an important treatment for patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) complicated with moderate and severe pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). This report presents our experience with transcatheter closure of PDA complicated with moderate and severe PAH. Methods: The 49 cases of PDA complicated with moderate and severe PAH were collected in the Second Affiliated Hospital and Yuying Children's Hospital from January 2014 to December 2019 with transcatheter closure of PDA and follow-up. All patients were invited for transthoracic echocardiography, electrocardiogram, and thoracic radiography check-up. Results: Device implantation was successful in 48 of 49 patients (98.0%). Among them, 30 cases were in the PAH after defect correction (CD) group, and 19 examples were in the Non-PAH after defect correction (NCD) group. Pulmonary systolic pressure, left atrial diameter, and left ventricular end-diastolic diameter immediately after interventional therapy and 6 months later were lower than the pre-operative levels (p < 0.05). The incidence of the immediate residual shunt (RS) in this study was 34.9%, most of which were minimal amount shunt. RS disappeared in all patients within 1 year of therapy. Four patients had thrombocytopenia and one patient had left pulmonary artery stenosis. No other serious adverse event occurred during the follow-up period. The pressure gradient tricuspid valve regurgitation (PGTI) and the right heart catheterization (RHC) consistency points were 93.75% (15/16) and were within the 95% consistency limit by the Bland-Altman method. The Logistic regression analysis concluded that the pre-operative Pp/Ps and the narrowest diameter of PDA are risk factors for post-operative PAH (p < 0.05). The cut-off point of the pre-operative Pp/Ps and the narrowest diameter of PDA were calculated to be 0.595 and 4.75 mm, respectively. Conclusion: Interventional occlusion in children with PDA complicated with moderate and severe PAH is safe, effective, and has few complications. Targeted drug therapy has a good clinical effect. The narrowest diameter of PDA and the pre-operative Pp/Ps may be one of the risk factors of residual PAH after interventional therapy.
An International Case Study on Control Software Development in Large-Scale Plant Manufacturing Companies of One Industrial Sector at Different Locations

automated Production Systems (aPS) represent a special type of mechatronic system characterized by a high complexity in hardware and software, lifetimes of up to several decades, and strong coupling of the involved disciplines, i.e., mechanics, electrics/electronics, and control software. Questionnaire studies have proven to be a valuable means of identifying obstacles in industrial software development that hinder the implementation of emerging technologies in the context of Industry 4.0 and, thus, the realization of Cyber-Physical Production Systems. However, the heterogeneity of different industrial sectors in terms of, e.g., the type of production processes or legal specifications, makes it difficult to compare the maturity of control software development across companies, even within the same industry. A software maturity benchmark for companies operating in similar industries is, however, a prerequisite for assessing a company’s strengths and weaknesses and thereby applying tailored solutions to improve the software and, thus, the competitiveness. This paper describes the results of a questionnaire study in two international companies operating in the same industrial sector. Specifically, location-, company-, and industry-specific maturity characteristics are analyzed and discussed, and it is concluded that the selected questionnaire is capable of identifying deviations and similarities in software maturity, even in an international environment, given that the companies are prefiltered based on the covered supply chain step. Hence, assuming a sufficiently large number of participants per industry, it enables a questionnaire-based industry comparison in future work, which was not possible until now.
Computational Feasibility of Multi-objective Optimal Design Techniques for Grid-Connected Multi-cell Solid-State-Transformers

Despite some recent efforts towards multi-objective design optimization of multilevel converters, design optimization of solid-state-transformers (SSTs) are not presented much in the literature mainly because of the lack of computationally feasible techniques. This paper is dedicated towards a computational feasibility study of multi-objective design optimization techniques for medium-voltage (MV) grid-connected SSTs. After defining the application and scope of SST design optimization problem, a brief description of the possible solution techniques are discussed which shows the merits of semi-numerical/hybrid design optimization techniques. Subsequently, a machine learning (ML) aided hybrid optimization technique is executed for a 15 kVA single-stage SiC-based SST design. Suitable component modelling is presented and a strong agreement is observed between theoretical optimization and experimental results. Finally, a comparative evaluation of the analytical, numerical, standalone hybrid and ML-aided hybrid optimization techniques (deployed for the same 15 kVA SiC-based SST design) reveals that the ML-aided hybrid strategy is best suited for SST design optimization as it requires feasible computational time for <5% error.
A Novel In-Band Scattering Cancellation Technique for Vivaldi Antenna Array

In this paper, a novel technique based on a chessboard artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) surface with 180° reflection phase difference is developed to reduce the inband scattering level of Vivaldi antenna arrays. Owing to the designed AMC chessboard, an average of 5-10 dB in-band monostatic RCS reduction is realized while the radiation performance of the 6-18 GHz Vivaldi phased array with ±60° scanning range in E-/H-plane is preserved. It demonstrates the effectiveness of the in-band scattering technique for both normal and oblique incident waves with HH/VV polarized scattering.
A Virtual Inertia Control Strategy with Current Feedforward to Improve Voltage Stability for Power Router

The power router (PR) based on power electronic technology is the core equipment of the energy internet (EI). For the PR, the common direct current (DC) bus structure is drawing more and more attention, in which the DC voltage stability is of vital importance. In the PR with the energy storage system (ESS), the DC/DC converter of ESS has significant effects on the DC bus voltage stability. Droop control is commonly used in the control of DC/DC converters in ESS. However, conventional droop control fails to provide the inertia to meet the demand for voltage stability. Hence, a virtual inertia control strategy with load current feedforward is proposed in this paper to strengthen the voltage stability. Firstly, the small-signal model of ESS is derived to find out the key factors that affect the DC bus voltage stability. Secondly, based on the analysis, an inertial droop control strategy is presented to provide inertia to the DC bus voltage, while a load current feedforward method is proposed to improve the voltage response performance during load transients. The stability analysis is also carried out to guide the controller designing. The validity of the proposed control strategy has been verified by the results from both MATLAB/Simulink and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation.
Distributed Predictive Control using Frequency and Voltage Soft Constraints in AC Microgrids including Economic Dispatch of Generation

This paper proposes a distributed predictive secondary controller to tackle together frequency and voltage regulation, realize the economic dispatch and reactive power sharing of generation units in isolated AC microgrids. Contrary to most approaches, the proposed predictive controller achieves consensus objectives (economic dispatch of generation and reactive power sharing) with soft constraints (keep both frequency and average voltage within predefined bands instead of restoring them to their nominal values). Extensive simulation work validates the effectiveness of the predictive controller for communication problems and in the presence of plug-and-play scenarios.
DIAGNOSTIC ASSESSMENT OF DRIVER PROBLEMS. VOLUME I. THE STATE-OF-THE-ART IN DRIVER PROBLEM DIAGNOSIS

A review of the traffic safety literature was conducted to evaluate the potential of assessment techniques for identifying driver problems. The ultimate objective was to provide operational assessors with techniques which may be useful to identify specific driver problems. The state-of-the-art review was organized by levels of observation: Level 1 was defined as assessment variables primarily available from a driver licensing file; Level 2 included data from other agencies (e.g., mental health); and Level 3 contained information which was obtainable directly from the driver. Each of these levels of observation was further divided by conceptual area: Performance; Biographical; Psychological/Social/Attitude; Medical/Physiological; and Exposure.
Power signature analysis

Nonintrusive load monitoring (NILM) can determine operating schedule of electrical loads in a target system from measurements made at a centralized location, such as the electric utility service entry. NILM is an ideal platform for extracting useful information about any system that uses electromechanical devices. It has a low installation cost and high reliability because it uses a bare minimum of sensors. It is possible to use modem state and parameter estimation algorithms to verify remotely the "health" of electromechanical loads by using NILM to analyze measured waveforms associated with the operation of individual loads. NILM can also monitor the operation of the electrical distribution system itself, identifying situations where two or more otherwise healthy loads interfere with each other's operation through voltage waveform distortion or power quality problems. Strategies for nonintrusive monitoring have developed over the last 20 years. Advances in computing technology make a new wealth of computational tools useful in practical, field-based NILM systems. This article reviews techniques for high-performance nonintrusive load and diagnostic monitoring and illustrates key points with results from field tests.
Change Detection in Hyperdimensional Images Using Untrained Models

Deep transfer-learning-based change detection methods are dependent on the availability of sensor-specific pretrained feature extractors. Such feature extractors are not always available due to lack of training data, especially for hyperspectral sensors and other hyperdimensional images. Moreover models trained on easily available multispectral (RGB/RGB-NIR) images cannot be reused on such hyperdimensional images due to their irregular number of bands. While hyperdimensional images show large number of spectral bands, they generally show much less spatial complexity, thus reducing the requirement of large receptive fields of convolution filters. Recent works in the computer vision have shown that even untrained deep models can yield remarkable result in some tasks like super-resolution and surface reconstruction. This motivates us to make a bold proposition that untrained lightweight deep model, initialized with some weight initialization strategy, can be used to extract useful semantic features from bi-temporal hyperdimensional images. Based on this proposition, we design a novel change detection framework for hyperdimensional images by extracting bitemporal features using an untrained model and further comparing the extracted features using deep change vector analysis to distinguish changed pixels from the unchanged ones. We further use the deep change hypervectors to cluster the changed pixels into different semantic groups. We conduct experiments on four change detection datasets: three hyperspectral datasets and a hyperdimensional polarimetric synthetic aperture radar dataset. The results clearly demonstrate that the proposed method is suitable for change detection in hyperdimensional remote sensing data.
A Multi-target Tracking Algorithm for Fast-moving Workpieces Based on Event Camera

Multi-target tracking application for fast-moving workpieces has drawn increasing attention in the industrial field. For the dense, fast moving workpieces with few texture features, traditional cameras get poor quality images with dynamic blur and object adhesion, which makes the detection and tracking of workpieces unreliable. However, the event camera outputs events asynchronously at a microsecond speed when the pixel intensity changes, which can capture the contours of fast-moving workpieces well. In this paper, we propose a parallel two-pipe multi-target tracking algorithm based on the event camera for fast-moving workpieces. RGB-E image obtained by fusing the RGB image and the event solves the unreliable detection caused by dynamic blur and object adhesion. The parallel mechanism ensures that the low-speed detection pipeline does not have much impact on the speed of the high-speed tracking pipeline. Hungarian algorithm is used to associate the detection results obtained by the YOLOv4-tiny detector with the tracking results obtained by the KCF tracker. A correction algorithm based on pixel speed is proposed to synchronize detection results and tracking results. Experimental results prove the proposed algorithm can achieve reliable detection and tracking performance for fast-moving workpieces.
Privacy-preserving Computation for Large-scale Security-Constrained Optimal Power Flow Problem in Smart Grid

In this paper, we present a distributed privacy-preserving quadratic optimization algorithm to solve the Security Constrained Optimal Power Flow (SCOPF) problem in the smart grid. The SCOPF problem seeks the optimal dispatch subject to a set of postulated constraints under the normal and contingency conditions. However, due to the large problem size and real-time requirement, a fast and robust technique is required to solve this problem. Moreover, due to privacy concerns, it is important that the data remains confidential and processed on local computers. Therefore, a fully privacy-preserving algorithm is proposed which performs computation directly over the encrypted SCOPF problem. The SCOPF is decomposed into smaller subproblems corresponding to individual pre-contingency and post-contingency cases using the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) and gradient projection algorithms. Both algorithms are presented for solving the SCOPF problem in a privacy-preserving and distributed manner. Security analysis shows that our algorithm can preserve both system confidentiality and data privacy. Performance evaluations validate the correctness and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
Polarization-Insensitive Thermo-Optic Mach Zehnder Device Based on Silicon Oxinitride Waveguide with Fast Response Time

Abstract In this article, a thermo-optic structure with a silicon trench below the heater and stress-releasing grooves in both sides of the core is proposed for a thermo-optic Mach Zehnder switch using silicon oxinitride as a core and SiO2 as a cladding. It is seen from thermal analysis by using the implicit finite difference method that the absolute value of the temperature gradient of the proposed structure, which mainly causes the release of stress anisotropy, is approximately nine times more than that of a conventional structure. The response time of the thermo-optic Mach Zehnder device, based on the proposed structure with a switching power of ∼177 mW is estimated as 180 μs, which is about 100 times faster than that of the existing structure.
Variations in Intraocular Pressure Following Photorefractive Keratectomy in Different Degree of Myopia at Dr Yap Eye Hospital

Backgorund: To investigate the variations in intraocular pressure following PRK in different degree of myopia.Methods: Restrospective cohort study of 315 patients (429 eyes) who underwent photorefractive keratectomy at Yap Eye Hospital between January 2011 and December 2012. Visual acuity, refractive status, and intraocular pressure were examined before, 2, 4, 8, 12 weeks after photorefractive keratectomy. IOP was measured directly using non-contact tonometry and calculated using Changâ€™s formula (Î”P = -0.12 x refractive change â€“ 1.36 mmHg). Variations in IOP were assessed comparing follow-up to baseline IOP.Results: There were 225 men and 90 women with mean age 22,9 years. Overall, compared to IOP prior surgery (mean 15.6mmHg), there were significant variations in measured IOP at 2, 4, 8, and 12 weeks after the procedures (variations were -30-.6% (mean 11.0mmHg), -25.0% (11.7mmHg), -26.3 (mean 11.5mmHg), -29.5% (mean 11.0mmHg) consecutively; p for variations<0.001). However, these variations were also presents in low, moderate, and high myopia (all p for variations <0.001). However, there were almost none variations using converted IOP (overall -9.14% (14.9mmHg); low myopia -8.91% (14.3mmHg); moderate myopia -5.81% (14.6mmHg); high myopia 0% (15.5mmHg); p<0.01). Conclusion: PRK caused relatively decreased variations in measured IOP, however, with converted IOP these variations are very small (relatively no difference in pre and postoperative IOP).
C‐band fully integrated SiGe HBT superharmonic QVCO

This paper demonstrates a 4‐GHz monolithic SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor quadrature voltage‐controlled oscillator (QVCO) using superharmonic coupling topology. The QVCO at 4.17 GHz has phase noise of −116 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset frequency, output power of −6 dBm, and the figure of merit −179 dBc/Hz. The core current consumption is 3.2 mA at 3 V supply voltage. The die size is about 1.4 mm × 1.2 mm. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 49: 867–869, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI.10. 1002/mop.22256
Waterfalls, science and aesthetics

Waterfalls and rapids are a subject of study by scientists and scholars from a variety of academic and professional backgrounds. Unlike cave research, known as speleology, which also involves many different disciplines, the study of waterfalls is not generally regarded as a distinct branch of knowledge. Long neglected as subjects of research, waterfalls have received considerable attention since the 1980s. This paper traces the study of waterfalls from the late eighteenth century, a period when both a scientific and an aesthetic interest in landscape developed in Europe, to the present. The work of geographers, geologists and others who studied landforms and landscapes is examined, with particular attention to those who expressed a special interest in waterfalls, notably Alexander von Humboldt. The study argues that the scientific and aesthetic approaches to landscape research are not incompatible and supports the view that both are necessary for a full understanding and appreciation of the environment in which we live.
Wideband folded mushroom zeroth-order resonance antenna

In this study, a wideband folded mushroom zeroth-order resonance (ZOR) antenna is presented. To obtain a wide bandwidth, the frequency of the TM010 (λ0/2) mode is down-shifted to the frequency of the ZOR mode by folding a mushroom structure without any additional structure. Thus, the folded mushroom antenna operates over two modes, resulting in a wide bandwidth. The antenna has a dimension of 0. 365λ0 × 0. 247λ0 × 0. 182λ0 at the centre frequency. Its 10 dB fractional bandwidth is measured as 68.3%. The maximum gains of 3.32 and 3.41 dBi are measured at the ZOR mode and the TM010 mode, respectively. Finally, the measured results show good agreements with the simulated results.