Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Terahertz Antenna for 5G Cellular Communication Systems: A Holistic Review

The next cellular communication in the 5G and beyond can be in the sub-Terahertz (sub-THz) band, i.e. (100–350) GHz, because data rate of (20-100) Gbps is needed. Following atmospheric path loss in THz frequency band, which can reach more than 100 dB/km, there is a need to operate in frequency windows below 1 THz, where the atmospheric attenuation is relatively low, and the high-gain antennas that allow the propagation of the signal beyond 100 meters, because of lack of solid-state communication sources with a power of over 10 mW, as well as wide bandwidth (BW) antennas that will enable data rates of at least 20 Gbps. In this technical review, we explain what the demands and the challenges of antennas at 5G and beyond: how to improve the gain and BW of the antennas simultaneously, what is the minimum gain and BW of the antennas. According to the studies carried out in this field, the most preferable way is the planar microstrip antenna in future cellular communication systems in the sub-THz band, which have the advantages of small size, light weight, etc. According to the research that we have done, there are still no practical implementations of prototype planar microstrip array antennas (only designs and simulations with CST Microwave Studio or Ansoft HFSS) for sub-THz to validate the simulations results with practical measurements. The gain required for such antennas is at least (15.27–20.71) dB for frequency of (100-350) GHz @ BW=4.1 GHz for data rate of 20 Gbps, at least.
Switching in Cerebellar Stellate Cell Excitability in Response to a Pair of Inhibitory/Excitatory Presynaptic Inputs: A Dynamical System Perspective

Cerebellar stellate cells form inhibitory synapses with Purkinje cells, the sole output of the cerebellum. Upon stimulation by a pair of varying inhibitory and fixed excitatory presynaptic inputs, these cells do not respond to excitation (i.e., do not generate an action potential) when the magnitude of the inhibition is within a given range, but they do respond outside this range. We previously used a revised Hodgkin–Huxley type of model to study the nonmonotonic first-spike latency of these cells and their temporal increase in excitability in whole cell configuration (termed run-up). Here, we recompute these latency profiles using the same model by adapting an efficient computational technique, the two-point boundary value problem, that is combined with the continuation method. We then extend the study to investigate how switching in responsiveness, upon stimulation with presynaptic inputs, manifests itself in the context of run-up. A three-dimensional reduced model is initially derived from the original six-dimensional model and then analyzed to demonstrate that both models exhibit type 1 excitability possessing a saddle-node on an invariant cycle (SNIC) bifurcation when varying the amplitude of Iapp. Using slow-fast analysis, we show that the original model possesses three equilibria lying at the intersection of the critical manifold of the fast subsystem and the nullcline of the slow variable hA (the inactivation of the A-type K+ channel), the middle equilibrium is of saddle type with two-dimensional stable manifold (computed from the reduced model) acting as a boundary between the responsive and non-responsive regimes, and the (ghost of) SNIC is formed when the hA-nullcline is (nearly) tangential to the critical manifold. We also show that the slow dynamics associated with (the ghost of) the SNIC and the lower stable branch of the critical manifold are responsible for generating the nonmonotonic first-spike latency. These results thus provide important insight into the complex dynamics of stellate cells.
Electroacupuncture for Improving the CO_2 Pneumoperitoneum Stress Injury during Surgery

Objective: By detecting intraoperative gastric mucosal CO 2 partial pressure,the gastric ph value,interleukin-2 and epidermal growth factor changes in order to observe improvement effect of electroacupuncture on the CO 2 pneumoperitoneum intraoperative stress injury.Methods: 60 cases of gynecologic laparoscopic surgery,the patient admitted,line randomized,single-blind,controlled clinical trial.The patients were divided into two groups,30 patients in I group subjected to conventional general anesthesia,30 patients in II group were on the basis of conventional general anesthesia,composite point acupuncture from entering the operating room had been continued until the end of surgery.Reflect the CO 2 pneumoperitoneum stress injury related data,obtain at different time points used for evaluation.Results: Compared with different groups,according to gastric CO 2 partial pressure,gastric ph value,interleukin-2 and epidermal growth factor,there were significant differences(P 0.01). Conclusion: The application of electroacupuncture in gynecological laparoscopic surgery,anesthesia,can guarantee the oxygen supply of the gastric mucosa to prevent gastric mucosal ischemia or hypoperfusion,maintaining the physiological function of the gastric mucosal barrier,to alleviate CO 2 pneumoperitoneum stress injury.
Automotive-Range Characterization of a 11 Gb/s Transceiver for Automotive Microcontroller Applications with 8-Tap FFE, 1-Tap Unrolled/3-Tap DFE and Offset-Compensated Samplers

This paper presents the experimental characterization of a High-Speed Serial Interface (HSSI) for automotive microcontroller applications designed in 28 nm planar CMOS technology, verified over automotive corners and operating up to 11 Gb/s. The impedance of the full-rate voltage-mode transmitter can be tuned by activating several driver replicas. It also features an 8-tap Feed-Forward Equalizer (FFE) with taps programmable in steps of 1/16. The analog front-end of the receiver cascades a Variable-Gain Amplifier (VGA) and a Continuous-Time Linear Equalizer (CTLE), which can be individually tuned. The receiver is based on a half-rate architecture and features a 3-tap Decision-Feedback Equalizer (DFE), one tap being speculative to relax timing constraints; another VGA is embedded in the DFE summing node. The subsequent data and edge samplers are offset-compensated. The circuit is experimentally characterized over automotive corners at 6.25 Gb/s and 11 Gb/s on highly-reflecting PCB channels with up to 14.5 dB loss, demonstrating operations at bit-error ratio (BER) below 10−12 up to 11 Gb/s. The HSSI occupies an area of 0.08 mm2 and consumes 8.4 mW/Gb/s at 11 Gb/s and 6.2mW/Gb/s at 6.25 Gb/s.
Value-Free yet Policy-Relevant? The Normative Views of Climate Scientists and Their Bearing on Philosophy

This article contributes to the philosophical debate on values in science by exploring how scientists themselves understand the proper role of moral, political, and social values in expert practice. I present findings from interviews with climate scientists who have participated as authors in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The climate scientists subscribe to the value-free ideal as a regulative ideal that applies both to the provision of knowledge to policymakers and how they engage with political issues in the public sphere. Yet their views on the moral responsibility of scientists and the aim of providing policy-relevant output challenge the value-free ideal. The article suggests ways in which their views can be relevant to the philosophical discussion.
Mood Estimation as a Social Profile Predictor in an Autonomous, Multi-Session, Emotional Support Robot for Children

In this work, we created an end-to-end autonomous robotic platform to give emotional support to children in long-term, multi-session interactions. Using a mood estimation algorithm based on visual cues of the user’s behaviors through their facial expressions and body posture, a multidimensional model predicts a qualitative measure of the subject’s affective state. Using a novel Interactive Reinforcement Learning algorithm, the robot is able to learn over several sessions the social profile of the user, adjusting its behavior to match their preferences. Although the robot is completely autonomous, a third party can optionally provide feedback to the robot through an additional UI to accelerate its learning of the user’s preferences. To validate the proposed methodology, we evaluated the impact of the robot on elementary school aged children in a long-term, multi-session interaction setting. Our findings show that using this methodology, the robot is able to learn the social profile of the users over a number of sessions, either with or without external feedback as well as maintain the user in a positive mood, as shown by the consistently positive rewards received by the robot using our proposed learning algorithm.
A Novel Postprocessing Method for Robust Myoelectric Pattern-Recognition Control Through Movement Pattern Transition Detection

Pattern-recognition-based myoelectric control systems are not yet widely available due to their limited robustness in real-life situations. Some postprocessing methods were introduced to improve the robustness in previous studies, but there is lack of investigation into movement transition phases. This article presents a novel postprocessing method based on movement pattern transition (MPT) detection. An image-based index is used to quantify the similarity of adjacent feature matrices from high-density surface electromyogram (EMG) signals. MPT detection is implemented by applying a double threshold to the calculated index. The proposed postprocessing method is used to rectify the EMG pattern recognition decisions from the classifier by incorporating the detected information. Two representative testing schemes are used to verify the robustness of the proposed method against force level variation and consecutive nonstop task performance. The proposed method achieved mean classification accuracy improvements of 7.33% and 10.91% with respect to the baseline performance of a raw classifier (without any postprocessing) in the two testing schemes. It also outperformed other common postprocessing methods (p < 0.05). Considering both the accuracy improvement and time efficiency for rapid responses to MPT, the proposed method could be a potential option for postprocessing to enhance the robustness of myoelectric control.
PRINCIPLES AND METHODS OF PREPARATION OF PLATELET-RICH PLASMA (PRP) AND BONE MARROW (BM) – A REVIEW

Regenerative medicine is one of the fastest-growing areas of human and veterinary medicine in restorative medicine, orthopedics and neurology. Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and Bone marrow (BM) are one of the fastest growing regenerative methods for the treatment of various degenerative diseases of bones and soft tissues. Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and Bone marrow (BM) are the sources of a number of growth factors and proteins that accelerate the regeneration of damaged tissues and thus make them applicable to acute and chronic traumas. In modern regenerative medicine, there are numerous protocols for standardization and production of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and Bone marrow (BM). In this article, we review the different principles and methods for obtaining Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and Bone marrow (BM) based on available literature.
Deep Learning Prediction of Incoming Rainfalls: An Operational Service for the City of Beijing China

We developed a deep learning prototype for the purpose of rainfall prediction for the city of Beijing China. It predicts rainfall dynamics in the next two hours with spatial reso-lution of 1km and temporal resolution of 6 minutes. That is a magnitude better than traditional weather forecasting. The computation time is less than 10 seconds, several magnitudes of less computation time than traditional forecasting. This deep learning network combines the strengths of known structures such as U-Net, ResNet, Sqeeze-and-Excitation, and the spatial Attention mod-ule. We rely solely on full convolutional layers instead of RNN layers as used in other weather prediction ef-forts. Meteorologically assessment metrics suggest better performance by the FCN approach. The prototype is now up and running in anticipation for the summer rain season of 2019. This might be the first such service employed by a capital weather service.
An Indoor Navigation System using Stereo Vision, IMU and UWB Sensor Fusion

In recent years, indoor localization has found many applications in civil and military fields. As Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) are not available indoors, the state-of-art trend is to fuse low-cost/low-power accelerometer/gyroscope with other sensors such as vision sensors. To further enhance the accuracy, ranging technologies such as Ultra-wide-band (UWB) radio ranging have been introduced as an indoor replacement of GNSS. However, robust localization continues to be challenging as accelerometer/gyroscope sensors suffer from random biases. Similarly, UWB ranging suffers from noise and multipath. Visual sensors depend upon lighting conditions and they suffer from odometry drifts. To accurately and efficiently fuse these sensors, this paper presents a robust fusion framework based on Extended-Kalman Filter (EKF). The proposed design applies non-holonomic speed-aided motion constraints to minimize positional errors. This design enabled the direct fusion of speed estimated from stereo vision into EKF which is more immune to vision-related orientation errors. The overall positional drifts are further controlled by positional updates whenever a reliable UWB solution is available. Our developed system was tested in typical indoor environment using physical data and the experimental results showed robust sub-meter localization accuracy even under multiple outages.
Effect of vitamin D3 supplementation on vascular and metabolic health of vitamin D-deficient overweight and obese children: a randomized clinical trial.

BACKGROUND Obese children are vulnerable to vitamin D deficiency and impaired cardiovascular health; vitamin D replenishment might improve their cardiovascular health. OBJECTIVES The aims were to determine, in vitamin D-deficient overweight and obese children, whether supplementation with vitamin D3 1000 or 2000 IU/d is more effective than 600 IU/d in improving arterial endothelial function, arterial stiffness, central and systemic blood pressure (BP), insulin sensitivity (1/fasting insulin concentration), fasting glucose concentration, and lipid profile and to explore whether downregulation of adipocytokines and markers of systemic inflammation underlies vitamin D effects. METHODS We conducted a randomized, double-masked, controlled clinical trial in 225 10- to 18-y-old eligible children. Change in endothelial function at 6 mo was the primary outcome. RESULTS Dose-response increases in serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations were significant and tolerated without developing hypercalcemia. Changes at 3 and 6 mo in endothelial function, arterial stiffness, systemic-systolic BP, lipids, and inflammatory markers did not differ between children receiving 1000 or 2000 IU vitamin D and children receiving 600 IU. Some secondary outcomes differed between groups. Compared with the 600-IU group, central-systolic, central-diastolic, and systemic-diastolic BP was lower at 6 mo in the 1000-IU group [-2.66 (95% CI: -5.27, -0.046), -3.57 (-5.97, -1.17), and -3.28 (-5.55, -1.00) mm Hg, respectively]; insulin sensitivity increased at 3 and 6 mo and fasting glucose concentration declined at 6 mo (-2.67; 95% CI: -4.88, -0.46 mg/dL) in the 2000-IU group. CONCLUSIONS Correction of vitamin D deficiency in overweight and obese children by vitamin D3 supplementation with 1000 or 2000 IU/d versus 600 IU/d did not affect measures of arterial endothelial function or stiffness, systemic inflammation, or lipid profile, but resulted in reductions in BP and fasting glucose concentration and in improvements in insulin sensitivity. Optimization of children's vitamin D status may improve their cardiovascular health. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT01797302.
Perceptual Texture Similarity Estimation: An Evaluation of Computational Features

Estimation of texture similarity is fundamental to many material recognition tasks. This study uses fine-grained human perceptual similarity ground-truth to provide a comprehensive evaluation of 51 texture feature sets. We conduct two types of evaluation and both show that these features do not estimate similarity well when compared against human agreement rates, but that performances are improved when the features are combined using a Random Forest. Using a simple two-stage statistical model we show that few of the features capture long-range aperiodic relationships. We perform two psychophysical experiments which indicate that long-range interactions do provide humans with important cues for estimating texture similarity. This motivates an extension of the study to include Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) as they enable arbitrary features of large spatial extent to be learnt. Our conclusions derived from the use of two pre-trained CNNs are: that the large spatial extent exploited by the networks’ top convolutional and first fully-connected layers, together with the use of large numbers of filters, confers significant advantage for estimation of perceptual texture similarity.
Serine Protease Inhibitors—New Molecules for Modification of Polymeric Biomaterials

Three serine protease inhibitors (AEBSF, soy inhibitor, α1-antitrypsin) were covalently immobilized on the surface of three polymer prostheses with the optimized method. The immobilization efficiency ranged from 11 to 51%, depending on the chosen inhibitor and biomaterial. The highest activity for all inhibitors was observed in the case of immobilization on the surface of the polyester Uni-Graft prosthesis, and the preparations obtained showed high stability in the environment with different pH and temperature values. Modification of the Uni-Graft prosthesis surface with the synthetic AEBSF inhibitor and human α1-antitrypsin inhibited the adhesion and multiplication of Staphylococcus aureus subs. aureus ATCC® 25923TM and Candida albicans from the collection of the Department of Genetics and Microbiology, UMCS. Optical profilometry analysis indicated that, after the immobilization process on the surface of AEBSF-modified Uni-Graft prostheses, there were more structures with a high number of protrusions, while the introduction of modifications with a protein inhibitor led to the smoothing of their surface.
Correlation between Breast Self-Examination Practices and Demographic Characteristics, Risk Factors and Clinical Stage of Breast Cancer among Iraqi Patients

BACKGROUND: Breast Cancer (BC) is the most common cancer and the leading cause of cancer death among women globally. The disease can be cured with limited resources if detected early. Breast self-examination (BSE) is considered a cost-effective feasible approach for early detection of that cancer in developing countries. AIM: To determine the correlation between BSE performance and demographic characteristics, risk factors and clinical stage of BC among Iraqi patients. METHODS: This retrospective study included a total of 409 female patients diagnosed with BC at the Referral Training Center for Early Detection of Breast Cancer and the National Cancer Research Center in Baghdad. The studied variables included the age of the patient, occupation, marital and educational status, parity, history of lactation, contraceptive pill intake, family history of cancer and the clinical stage of the disease. RESULTS: Our findings revealed that the most important predictors for practicing BSE was family history of BC or any other cancers (OR = 3.87, P = 0.018) followed by being a governmental employee (OR = 1.87, P = 0.024), history of contraceptive use (OR = 1.80, P = 0.011) and the high level of education (OR = 1.73, P = 0.004). On the other hand, there was no significant correlation between the practice of BSE and the BC stage at the time of presentation. CONCLUSION: There is a relatively poor practice of BSE among Iraqi patients diagnosed with BC. It is mandatory to foster the national cancer control strategies that focus on raising the level of awareness among the community through public education as a major approach to the early detection of cancer in Iraq.
Whole blood gene expression profiling distinguishes systemic sclerosis‐overlap syndromes from other subsets

Among autoimmune rheumatic diseases, systemic sclerosis (SSc) is especially challenging due to its clinical diversity, reflected by the extent of skin and internal organ involvement 1 . Besides the two major subsets, limited and diffuse SSc (lcSSc, dcSSc), a substantial number of SSc cases exhibit overlap features of another rheumatic disease, summarized as SSc-overlap syndromes. A few of these are already well characterized by their specific clinical course and circulating antibodies (e.g., mixed connective tissue disease, polymyositis-scleroderma syndrome).
Decay of the coronal magnetic field can release sufficient energy to power a solar flare

Magnetic energy release in a solar flare Solar flares are bright flashes and associated eruptions of plasma from the Sun that are thought to be powered by violent rearrangement of the magnetic fields near sunspots. Fleishman et al. observed a bright solar flare with a microwave interferometer, allowing them to map the magnetic field in the solar corona and monitor how it changed during the flare. They found a large drop in the local field strength over 2 minutes, releasing enough magnetic energy to power the entire solar flare. Determining the origin of this energy will help to predict how strong future solar flares may be and their potential space weather impacts on Earth. Science, this issue p. 278 Microwave observations of a solar flare show a drop in the magnetic field, rapid enough to power the flare. Solar flares are powered by a rapid release of energy in the solar corona, thought to be produced by the decay of the coronal magnetic field strength. Direct quantitative measurements of the evolving magnetic field strength are required to test this. We report microwave observations of a solar flare, showing spatial and temporal changes in the coronal magnetic field. The field decays at a rate of ~5 Gauss per second for 2 minutes, as measured within a flare subvolume of ~1028 cubic centimeters. This fast rate of decay implies a sufficiently strong electric field to account for the particle acceleration that produces the microwave emission. The decrease in stored magnetic energy is enough to power the solar flare, including the associated eruption, particle acceleration, and plasma heating.