Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Current-sensorless power-angle-based MPPT for single-stage grid-connected photovoltaic voltage-source inverters

This paper proposes a current-sensorless power-angle-based MPPT for single-stage grid-connected photovoltaic voltage-source inverters. The proposed tracker eliminates the use of the current sensor by using only the voltage sensor: The current sensor is substituted with a new quantity, which is the sine value of the power-angle (the phase angle between the inverter output voltage and the power grid voltage). A theoretical proof for this quantity is developed and is provided. Then, the proposed tracker is designed in MATLAB Simulink and implemented using a fixed-point DSP. Moreover, a breadboard has been built-up for testing the use of the proposed tracker with a single-stage grid-connected photovoltaic voltage-source inverter. Both of simulation and experimental results show that the proposed tracker attains a satisfactory performance. On the other hand, it requires a good control tool to accurately achieve the arithmetic calculations. A substantial part of the manufacturing cost and complexity burdens of MPPTs involves the use of current sensors. Considering this investigation saves cost, decreases complexity, and therefore increases the power density of the MPPTs.
Multimodal investigation of fMRI and fNIRS derived breath hold BOLD signals with an expanded balloon model

Multimodal investigation of blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signals, using both functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), may give further insight to the underlying physiological principles and the detailed transient dynamics of the vascular response. Utilizing a breath hold task (BHT), we measured deoxy-hemoglobin (HbR) and oxy-hemoglobin (HbO) changes via fNIRS and blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) changes by fMRI. Measurements were taken in four volunteers asynchronously and carefully aligned for comparative analysis. In order to describe the main stimulus in BHT, partial pressure of carbon dioxide (PaCO2) parameter was integrated into the balloon model as the driving function of cerebral blood flow (CBF) which led to the development of an expanded balloon model (EBM). During BHT, the increase in HbR was observed later than the BOLD peak and coincided temporally with its post-stimulus undershoot. Further investigation of these transients with a PaCO2 integrated balloon model suggests that post-stimulus undershoot measured by fMRI is dominated by slow return of cerebral blood volume (CBV). This was confirmed by fNIRS measurements. In addition, the BOLD signal decreased with the increase of the initial level of PaCO2 derived from EBM, indicating an effect of basal CBF level on the BOLD signal. In conclusion, a multimodal approach with an appropriate biophysical model gave a comprehensive description of the hemodynamic response during BHT.
Simulation Study on the DS Forwarding Architectures

This paper presents the performance simulations of IP traffic marked with Differentiated Services [1,2] codepoints (DSCPs) [3] on the forwarding path of a Differentiated Services (DS) capable router. DS Internet Drafts [3,4,5,6,7,8] present several possible per-hopbehaviors (PHBs) and their example implementation mechanisms. These include one queue for each traffic class with higher priority classes having strict priority over the lower priority queues. Another possibility is to implement a PHB group with one queue per two PHBs. In this case there is a need for active queue management. Random early detection with in and out (RIO) is a good example. The extreme case would be having only one queue for each PHB group. In this case there is a need for weighted random early detection (WRED) queue management with different threshold values for each PHB. The simulation results reveal the true nature of each approach and guide vendors to select the right mechanism for each PHB. Index Terms — DS, DSCP, PHB
A Log Domain Pulse Model for Parametric Speech Synthesis

Most of the degradation in current Statistical Parametric Speech Synthesis (SPSS) results from the form of the vocoder. One of the main causes of degradation is the reconstruction of the noise. In this article, a new signal model is proposed that leads to a simple synthesizer, without the need for ad-hoc tuning of model parameters. The model is not based on the traditional additive linear source-filter model, it adopts a combination of speech components that are additive in the log domain. Also, the same representation for voiced and unvoiced segments is used, rather than relying on binary voicing decisions. This avoids voicing error discontinuities that can occur in many current vocoders. A simple binary mask is used to denote the presence of noise in the time-frequency domain, which is less sensitive to classification errors. Four experiments have been carried out to evaluate this new model. The first experiment examines the noise reconstruction issue. Three listening tests have also been carried out that demonstrate the advantages of this model: comparison with the STRAIGHT vocoder; the direct prediction of the binary noise mask by using a mixed output configuration; and partial improvements of creakiness using a mask correction mechanism.
Comparative in vitro evaluation of CAD/CAM vs conventional provisional crowns

ABSTRACT Objective This study compared the marginal gap, internal fit, fracture strength, and mode of fracture of CAD/CAM provisional crowns with that of direct provisional crowns. Material and Methods An upper right first premolar phantom tooth was prepared for full ceramic crown following tooth preparation guidelines. The materials tested were: VITA CAD-Temp®, Polyetheretherketone “PEEK”, Telio CAD-Temp, and Protemp™4 (control group). The crowns were divided into four groups (n=10), Group1: VITA CAD-Temp®, Group 2: PEEK, Group 3: Telio CAD-Temp, and Group 4: Protemp™4. Each crown was investigated for marginal and internal fit, fracture strength, and mode of fracture. Statistical analysis was performed using GraphPad Prism software version 6.0. Results The average marginal gap was: VITA CAD-Temp® 60.61 (±9.99) µm, PEEK 46.75 (±8.26) µm, Telio CAD-Temp 56.10 (±5.65) µm, and Protemp™4 193.07(±35.96) µm (P<0.001). The average internal fit was: VITA CAD-Temp® 124.94 (±22.96) µm, PEEK 113.14 (±23.55) µm, Telio CAD-Temp 110.95 (±11.64) µm, and Protemp™4 143.48(±26.74) µm. The average fracture strength was: VITA CAD-Temp® 361.01 (±21.61) N, PEEK 802.23 (±111.29) N, Telio CAD-Temp 719.24 (±95.17) N, and Protemp™4 416.40 (±69.14) N. One-way ANOVA test showed a statistically significant difference for marginal gap, internal gap, and fracture strength between all groups (p<0.001). However, the mode of fracture showed no differences between the groups (p>0.05). Conclusions CAD/CAM fabricated provisional crowns demonstrated superior fit and better strength than direct provisional crowns.
Health Behavior Models in Utilizing Water Resources to Tidal Waters Community

Water is a basic need of all living things, including human. However, living in tidal areas with large bodies of water does not necessarily mean a society can fulfill their need for water. This happened in Maura Padang sub-district, Indonesia. A large number of areas are peat bogs and deltas of the Musi river. The water sources are acidic, smelly, sticky, and unfit for consumption. This attracted researcher to analyze public health behavior based on water resource utilization in daily needs. It is descriptive qualitative research through interviews, FGD, observations, and study documents. Researchers interviewed migrants, natives, medical workers, communities, and religious leaders. The results found that migrant communities can survive in this area. Nevertheless, part of them return to their hometown since they’re unable to adapt to the physical environment. Government programs contribute artificial water reservoirs for families and communities. Due to limitations of water resources, they use rainwater for household consumption and ground water (river, well, and ditch water) to flush their yard, wash their food and clothes, and bathe. Socioeconomic status and environment impact health behavior, including such treatment. This paper is beneficial for residents in tidal areas, the Banyuasin District health office and the University in providing socialization, promoting health living and help the fulfillment of clean water.
Sensitive Method for Detection of Human Herpesviruses 6 and 7 in Saliva Collected in Field Studies

ABSTRACT To facilitate studies of the epidemiology and natural history of human herpesviruses 6 and 7 in infants, a practical method for collecting and quantifying the DNA of these viruses was developed. Saliva was collected using small strips of filter paper, and virus was detected using a real-time quantitative fluorescent-probe PCR assay. The sensitivity and specificity of this method even after prolonged drying of the specimens compared favorably to those of our traditional method of collecting and assaying saliva.
SIGGRAPH 2002 Course Notes "Sounds Good to Me!" Computational Sound for Graphics, Virtual Reality, and Interactive Systems

This course covers concepts, models, techniques, and systems for simulation and rendering of sound in virtual environments. It will focus on real-time methods for spatializing sounds in interactive systems. Discussion will include both technical aspects of algorithms and practical aspects of applications. So, the course is appropriate both for researchers interested in learning about sound simulation and developers interested in including spatialized sounds in their virtual environments.
Demo Abstract: A Cross-Device Testing and Reporting System for Large-Scale Real-Time Wireless Networks

We designed a crossdevice testing and reporting system, called cross-device testing and reporting system (CD-TRS), to facilitate the functional validation of protocol and application design in large-scale RTWNs. CD-TRS leverages the nice property of RTWNs that all devices in the network are fully synchronized. By specifying and retrieving events and device status from multiple devices in the runtime simultaneously, CD-TRS can further assemble them into a network-wide report on the detailed system behavior by aligning the records according to their associated network timestamps (or absolute slot number (ASN) in most RTWNs). By comparing this runtime network behavior report with the required protocol and application specifications, abnormal device/network behavior can be observed and their root cause(s) can be effectively located. This thus can significantly reduce the complexity of RTWN testing and reporting. In the following, we first describe the overall architecture of CD-TRS, and then demonstrate how CD-TRS helps with the functional validation of D2-PaS, a distributed and dynamic packet scheduling framework we recently developed for handling disturbances in real-time wireless networks.
A General Theory for Deadlock Avoidance in Wormhole-Routed Networks

Most machines of the last generation of distributed memory parallel computers possess specific routers which are used to exchange messages between nonneighboring nodes in the network. Among the several technologies, wormhole routing is usually preferred because it allows low channel-setup time and reduces the dependency between latency and internode distance. However, wormhole routing is very susceptible to deadlock because messages are allowed to hold many resources while requesting others. Therefore, designing deadlock-free routing algorithms using few hardware facilities is a major problem for wormhole-routed networks. In this paper, we describe a general theoretical framework for the study of deadlock-free routing functions. We give a general definition of what can be a routing function. This definition captures many specific definitions of the literature (e.g., vertex dependent, input-dependent, source-dependent, path-dependent etc.). Using our definition, we give a necessary and sufficient condition which characterizes deadlock-free routing functions. Our theory embraces, at a high level, most of the theories related to deadlock avoidance in wormhole-routed networks previously derived in the literature. In particular, it applies not only to one-to-one routing, but also to one-to-many routing. The latter paradigm is used to solve the multicast problem with the path-based or tree-based facility.
FoxO1 Deacetylation Regulates Thyroid Hormone-induced Transcription of Key Hepatic Gluconeogenic Genes*

Background: Thyroid hormone (TH) is known to induce transcription of hepatic gluconeogenic genes. Results: TH stimulates FoxO1 deacetylation to increase PCK1 and G6PC transcription. Conclusion: FoxO1 deacetylation by SirT1 is crucial for TH induction of its target genes, PCK1 and G6PC. Significance: This study demonstrates a novel role of FoxO1 in TH-mediated transcription that may explain some of the pleiotropic actions by TH. Hepatic gluconeogenesis is a concerted process that integrates transcriptional regulation with hormonal signals. A major regulator is thyroid hormone (TH), which acts through its nuclear receptor (TR) to induce the expression of the hepatic gluconeogenic genes, phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PCK1) and glucose-6-phosphatase (G6PC). Forkhead transcription factor FoxO1 also is an important regulator of these genes; however, its functional interactions with TR are not known. Here, we report that TR-mediated transcriptional activation of PCK1 and G6PC in human hepatic cells and mouse liver was FoxO1-dependent and furthermore required FoxO1 deacetylation by the NAD+-dependent deacetylase, SirT1. siRNA knockdown of FoxO1 decreased, whereas overexpression of FoxO1 increased, TH-dependent transcriptional activation of PCK1 and G6PC in cultured hepatic cells. FoxO1 siRNA knockdown also decreased TH-mediated transcription in vivo. Additionally, TH was unable to induce FoxO1 deacetylation or hepatic PCK1 gene expression in TH receptor β-null (TRβ−/−) mice. Moreover, TH stimulated FoxO1 recruitment to the PCK1 and G6PC gene promoters in a SirT1-dependent manner. In summary, our results show that TH-dependent deacetylation of a second metabolically regulated transcription factor represents a novel mechanism for transcriptional integration of nuclear hormone action with cellular energy status.
Optimizing replication, communication, and capacity allocation in CMPs

Chip multiprocessors substantially increase capacity pressure on the on-chip memory hierarchy while requiring fast access. Neither private nor shared caches can provide both large capacity and fast access in CMPs. We observe that compared to symmetric multiprocessors (SMPs), CMPs change the latency capacity tradeoff in two significant ways. We propose three novel ideas to exploit the changes: (1) Through placing copies close to requestors allows fast access for read-only sharing, the copies also reduce the already-limited on-chip capacity in CMPs. We propose controlled replication to reduce capacity pressure by not making extra copies in some cases, and obtaining the data from an existing on-chip copy. This option is not suitable for SMPs because obtaining data from another processor is expensive and capacity is not limited to on-chip storage. (2) Unlike SMPs, CMPs allow fast on-chip communication between processors for read-write sharing. Instead of incurring slow access to read-write shared data through coherence misses as do SMPs, we propose in situ communication to provide fast access without making copies or incurring coherence misses. (3) Accessing neighbor's caches is not as expensive in CMPs as it is in SMPs. We propose capacity stealing in which private data that exceeds a core's capacity is placed in a neighboring cache with less capacity demand. To incorporate our ideas, we use a hybrid of private, per-processor tag arrays and a shared data array. Because the shared data is slow, we employ non-uniform access and distance associativity from previous proposals to hold frequently-accessed data in regions close to the requestor. We extend the previously-proposed non-uniform access with replacement and placement using distance associativity (NuRAPID) ro CMPs, and call our cache CMP-NuRAPID. Our result show that for a 4-core CMP with 8 MB cache, CMP-NuRAPID improves performance by 13% over a shared cache and 8% over private caches for three commercial multithreaded workloads.
Aflatoxin B1 in Affecting Broiler’s Performance, Immunity, and Gastrointestinal Tract: A Review of History and Contemporary Issues

Aflatoxin B1 is a common contaminant of poultry feeds in tropical and subtropical climates. Research during the last five decades has well established the negative effects of the mycotoxin on health of poultry. However, the last ten years of relevant data have accentuated the potential of low levels of aflatoxin B1 to deteriorate broiler performance. In this regard, any attempt to establish a dose-effect relationship between aflatoxin B1 level and broiler performance is also complicated due to differences in types of broilers and length of exposure to the mycotoxin in different studies. Contrary to the prevalent notion regarding literature saturation with respect to aflatoxicosis of chicken, many areas of aflatoxicosis still need to be explored. Literature regarding effects of the mycotoxin on the gastrointestinal tract in this regard is particular scanty and non-conclusive. In addition to these issues, the metabolism of aflatoxin B1 and recently proposed hypotheses regarding biphasic effects of the mycotoxin in broilers are briefly discussed.
Evidence of apoptosis in human primordial and primary follicles.

BACKGROUND Apoptosis may operate the 'selection' between follicles destined for atresia and follicles that will remain available for ovulation. The aim of this study is to assess the expression of apoptosis in quiescent follicles. METHODS Ovarian cortex samples from women of reproductive age, fixed in formalin, were used for immunohistochemical and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated deoxy-UTP nick end labelling (TUNEL) methods. In histological sections the follicles were classified as primordial, primary, secondary and antral. Follicle density was defined as the total number of follicles/0.5 cm(2) of ovarian cortical tissue. Mab DO-7 (anti-p53) and Mab 124 (anti-bcl-2) were used in the immunohistochemical study. RESULTS TUNEL was positive in 23.4% of the primordial follicles, and in 23.2% of the primary follicles, both in oocytes and granulosa cells, whereas all secondary follicles were negative. Bcl-2 activity was expressed in 75% of secondary follicles. p53 was negative in all samples. CONCLUSIONS Apoptosis could be the process responsible for atresia of quiescent follicles and hence depletion of the ovarian germ stockpile. Follicular cells expressing Bcl-2 may therefore be the viable cells that escape the apoptotic process. Negative p53 patterns may be a favourable prognostic finding showing genome integrity in the replicating follicular cells of women of reproductive age.
GIT2 Acts as a Systems-Level Coordinator of Neurometabolic Activity and Pathophysiological Aging

Aging represents one of the most complicated and highly integrated somatic processes. Healthy aging is suggested to rely upon the coherent regulation of hormonal and neuronal communication between the central nervous system and peripheral tissues. The hypothalamus is one of the main structures in the body responsible for sustaining an efficient interaction between energy balance and neurological activity and therefore likely coordinates multiple systems in the aging process. We previously identified, in hypothalamic and peripheral tissues, the G protein-coupled receptor kinase interacting protein 2 (GIT2) as a stress response and aging regulator. As metabolic status profoundly affects aging trajectories, we investigated the role of GIT2 in regulating metabolic activity. We found that genomic deletion of GIT2 alters hypothalamic transcriptomic signatures related to diabetes and metabolic pathways. Deletion of GIT2 reduced whole animal respiratory exchange ratios away from those related to primary glucose usage for energy homeostasis. GIT2 knockout (GIT2KO) mice demonstrated lower insulin secretion levels, disruption of pancreatic islet beta cell mass, elevated plasma glucose, and insulin resistance. High-dimensionality transcriptomic signatures from islets isolated from GIT2KO mice indicated a disruption of beta cell development. Additionally, GIT2 expression was prematurely elevated in pancreatic and hypothalamic tissues from diabetic-state mice (db/db), compared to age-matched wild type (WT) controls, further supporting the role of GIT2 in metabolic regulation and aging. We also found that the physical interaction of pancreatic GIT2 with the insulin receptor and insulin receptor substrate 2 was diminished in db/db mice compared to WT mice. Therefore, GIT2 appears to exert a multidimensional “keystone” role in regulating the aging process by coordinating somatic responses to energy deficits.
Performance Evaluation of an Advanced XRF Elemental Mapping System Featuring a Novel Ring-Shaped Monolithic Array of Silicon Drift Detectors

This paper introduces an ultra-fast X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometer based on a novel ring-shaped semiconductor drift detector (SDD) and on a novel readout and processing electronics and discusses its performance. The new detector is based on 4 independent "droplet" type SDDs monolithically integrated on the same chip. The detector shape optimizes the collection angle of the fluorescence radiation. The X-ray excitation beam is focused on the sample by means of a polycapillary lens through the hole cut in the center of the detector. The "droplet" type SDD is characterized by a better energy resolution and a better peak-to-valley ratio with respect to the ones of "conventional" SDDs. The energy resolution is of the order of 140 eV FWHM on the Mn Kalpha line with 1 mus shaping time at -15degC and the peak-to-valley ratio is of the order of 6000. In order to fully exploit the detection rate performance of this detector we have developed a novel read-out electronic unit with selectable shaping time and on-board histogramming capability.
A methodology for learning players' styles from game records

We describe a preliminary investigation into learning a Chess player|s style from game records. The method is based on attempting to learn features of a player|s individual evaluation function using the method of temporal differences, with the aid of a conventional Chess engine architecture. Some encouraging results were obtained in learning the styles of two Chess world champions, and we report on our attempt to use the learnt styles to discriminate between the players from game records, by trying to detect who was playing white and who was playing black. We also discuss some limitations of our approach.