Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Forward Conduction Mode Controlled Piezoelectric Transformer-Based PFC LED Drive

Light-emitting diode (LED) illumination is getting more and more common; as LED's performance is rising, the price is falling and is getting competitive. Some of the challenges of ac mains supplied illumination are the requirement of power factor correction (PFC) and the competitiveness of a low priced market. In this paper, a new forward conduction mode (FCM) control method for piezoelectric transformer (PT)-based power converters is proposed. A PT-based LED drive facilitating passive PFC is developed, utilizing and validating the FCM control method. The drive utilizes an inductorless half-bridge topology and for circuit minimization and simplicity it has no load regulation and has a 100-Hz output modulation. The proposed FCM control method ensures that the PT is operated at its optimal operation frequency, which ensures soft-switching operation and a constant gain. As a result a 6.5-W PT-based PFC LED drive has been developed, supplied from 230-V 50-Hz ac mains, achieving a power factor of 0.96.
Production by Clostridium spiroforme of an iotalike toxin that possesses mono(ADP-ribosyl)transferase activity: identification of a novel class of ADP-ribosyltransferases

Clostridium spiroforme iotalike toxin produced time- and concentration-dependent incorporation of ADP-ribose into homo-poly-L-arginine. Polyasparagine, polyglutamic acid, polylysine, and agmatine were poor substrates. Enzyme activity was associated with the light-chain polypeptide of the toxin. The heavy chain did not possess ADP-ribosyltransferase activity, nor did it enhance or inhibit activity of the light chain. In broken-cell assays, the toxin acted mainly on G-actin, rather than F-actin. A single ADP-ribose group was transferred to each substrate molecule (G-actin). The enzyme was heat sensitive, had a pH optimum in the range of 7 to 8, was inhibited by high concentrations of nicotinamide, and was reversibly denatured by urea and guanidine. Physiological levels of nucleotides (AMP, ADP, ATP, and ADP-ribose) and cations (Na+, K+, Ca2+, and Mg2+) were not very active as enzyme inhibitors. The toxin was structurally and functionally similar to Clostridium botulinum type C2 toxin and Clostridium perfringens iota toxin. When combined with previous findings, the data suggest that a new class of mono(ADP-ribosyl)ating toxins has been found and that these agents belong to a related and possibly homologous series of binary toxins.
Propolis mouthwash: A new beginning

Background: This study was carried out to investigate the effectiveness of a propolis-containing mouthrinse in inhibition of plaque formation and improvement of gingival health. Materials and Methods: Thirty subjects were selected and randomly assigned into three groups of ten subjects each, which received a propolis-containing mouthrinse, or a negative control (Saline) or a positive control (Chlorhexidine 0.2%). Plaque index and gingival index were assessed at baseline and at a five-day interval. Results: Chlorhexidine mouthwash was found to be better than propolis and saline in inhibiting plaque formation. Propolis was found to be only marginally better than chlorhexidine in improving gingival scores. Conclusion: The present study suggests that propolis might be used as a natural mouthwash, an alternative to chemical mouthwashes, e.g., chlorhexidine. Further, long term trials are required for more accurate data and any conclusive evidence.
Calcium Antagonists and Lipolysis in Isolated Rat Epididymal Adipocytes: Effects of Tetracaine, Manganese, Cobaltous and Lanthanum Ions and D600

The present study reports the effects on lipolysis occurring in isolated rat epididymal adipocytes of several agents which have each been found to interfere with membrane calcium transport in a variety of tissues. As reported by other workers, the local tetracaine was a strong inhibitor of hormone accelerated but not of basal lipolysis. The bivalent cations Mn2+ and Co2+ were similarly found to inhibit lipolysis stimulated with either epinephrine, ACTH, theophylline or dibutyryl cyclic AMP, whereas basal lipolysis was not markedly altered. This effect of Mn2+ and Co2+ was not mimicked by either Sr2+, Ba2+, Mg2+ or Ca2+. Cyclic AMP levels in adipocytes stimulated with epinephrine or ACTH tended to be higher in the presence of Mn2+ and Co2+. It is concluded, therefore, that Mn2+ and Co2+ inhibit lipolysis by uncoupling cyclic AMP accumulation from activation of triglyceride lipase. In contrast to Mn2+ and Co2+, the calcium antagonists La3+ and D600 were without effect on lipolysis. The antilipolytic effect of tetracaine, Mn2+ and Co2+ was found to persist in the absence of extracellular calcium, suggesting therefore that the antilipolytic effect of these drugs is unrelated to inhibition of calcium influx into adipocytes. The possibility is discussed that lipolytic agents cause an intracellular redistribution of calcium ion and that local anesthetics, Mn2+ and Co2+ interfere with lipolysis by preventing this intracellular redistribution of calcium.
Predicting time to prostate cancer recurrence based on joint models for non‐linear longitudinal biomarkers and event time outcomes

Biological markers that are both sensitive and specific for tumour regrowth or metastasis are increasingly becoming available and routinely monitored during the regular follow‐up of patients treated for cancer. Obtained by a simple blood test, these markers provide an inexpensive non‐invasive means for the early detection of recurrence (or progression). Currently, the longitudinal behaviour of the marker is viewed as an indicator of early disease progression, and is applied by a physician in making clinical decisions. One marker that has been studied for use in both population screening for early disease and for detection of recurrence in prostate cancer patients is PSA. The elevation of PSA levels is known to precede clinically detectable recurrence by 2 to 5 years, and current clinical practice often relies partially on multiple recent rises in PSA to trigger a change in treatment. However, the longitudinal trajectory for individual markers is often non‐linear; in many cases there is a decline immediately following radiation therapy or surgery, a plateau during remission, followed by an exponential rise following the recurrence of the cancer. The aim of this article is to determine the multiple aspects of the longitudinal PSA biomarker trajectory that can be most sensitive for predicting time to clinical recurrence. Joint Bayesian models for the longitudinal measures and event times are utilized based on non‐linear hierarchical models, implied by unknown change‐points, for the longitudinal trajectories, and a Cox proportional hazard model for progression times, with functionals of the longitudinal parameters as covariates in the Cox model. Using Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling schemes, the joint model is fit to longitudinal PSA measures from 676 patients treated at Massachusetts General Hospital between the years 1988 and 1995 with follow‐up to 1999. Based on these data, predictive schemes for detecting cancer recurrence in new patients based on their longitudinal trajectory are derived. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Foreign body infections due to Staphylococcus epidermidis

Staphylococcal infections are one of the main causes of complications in patients with implanted foreign prosthetic material. Implants are associated with a significant reduction of the threshold at which contaminating Gram-positive bacteria, particularly Staphylococcus epidermidis, become infectious and develop a biofilm with phenotypic resistance to almost all antibiotics. A 1000-fold increase in minimal bactericidal levels against most antibiotics except rifampin has been repeatedly observed. Since only removal of the foreign material reverses these phenomena, the clinical challenge consists in finding approaches to cure the infection without removal of the implanted device. Rifampin combinations with other antibiotics, administration of exceedingly high antibiotic concentrations in situ, and early therapy before biofilm development are efficacious. Although these strategies have dramatically improved the outcome of foreign body infections, an improved understanding of biofilm-grown S. epidermidis is necessary to develop new antibacterial agents. Here, we review the pathogenesis, prevention, and treatment of implant infections due to S. epidermidis and highlight some new compounds with already promising in vitro results.
Prognostic microRNAs modulate the RHO adhesion pathway: A potential therapeutic target in undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcomas

A common and aggressive subtype of soft-tissue sarcoma, undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma (UPS) was examined to determine the role of micro-RNAs (miRNAs) in modulating distant metastasis. Following histopathologic review, 110 fresh frozen clinically annotated UPS samples were divided into two independent cohorts for Training (42 patients), and Validation (68 patients) analyses. Global miRNA profiling on the Training Set and functional analysis in vitro suggested that miRNA-138 and its downstream RHO-ROCK cell adhesion pathway was a convergent target of miRNAs associated with the development of metastasis. A six-miRNA signature set prognostic of distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) was developed from Training Set miRNA expression values. Using the six-miRNA signature, patients were successfully categorized into high- and low-risk groups for DMFS in an independent Validation Set, with a hazard ratio (HR) of 2.25 (p = 0.048). After adjusting for other known prognostic variables such as age, gender, tumor grade, size, depth, and treatment with radiotherapy, the six-miRNA signature retained prognostic value with a HR of 3.46 (p < 0.001). A prognostic miRNA biomarker for clinical validation was thus identified along with a functional pathway that modulates UPS metastatic phenotype.
Incremental Learning on Sentiment Analysis Using Weakly Supervised Learning Techniques

Due to the advanced technologies of Web 2.0, people are participating in and exchanging opinions through social media sites such as Web forums and Weblogs etc., Classification and Analysis of such opinions and sentiment information is potentially important for both service and product providers, users because this analysis is used for making valuable decisions. Sentiment is expressed differently in different domains. Applying a sentiment classifiers trained on source domain does not produce good performance on target domain because words that occur in the train domain might not appear in the test domain. We propose a hybrid model to detect sentiment and topics from text by using weakly supervised learning technique. First we create sentiment sensitive thesaurus using both labeled and unlabeled data from multiple domains. The created thesaurus is then used to classify sentiments from text. This model is highly portable to various domains. This is verified by experimental results from four different domains where the hybrid model even outperforms existing semi-supervised approaches.
Decrement of the Brentano Müller-Lyer Illusion as a Function of Inspection Time

Two experiments are reported in which the decline or decrement in the magnitude of the Brentano Müller-Lyer illusion was measured. Observers made a pre-test judgment and, after a variable intervening time period, a post-test judgment of illusion magnitude. In experiment 1, the intervening time periods were 1, 2, and 3 min during which time the independent groups of observers allocated to each of the three time periods either systematically scanned the Brentano figure (inspection conditions) or waited until the intervening period had elapsed (no-inspection conditions). Experiment 2, which included an additional 5 min intervening time period, evaluated a response-bias explanation for the results of the inspection conditions of experiment 1. Taken together, the findings of the two experiments indicate that sheer inspection of the Brentano figure produces illusion decrement. However, illusion decrement was independent of the duration of the inspection period, with equivalent amounts of decrement occurring across the range of viewing times examined in the two experiments. The pattern of these results suggests that theories of Müller-Lyer decrement must incorporate a factor attributable to, or correlated with, inspection time, whose effect in reducing illusion magnitude is confined mainly to the first 1 or 2 min of active visual inspection of the Brentano illusion figure.
Thermal-equilibrium defect processes in hydrogenated amorphous silicon.

Mise en evidence experimentale d'une densite de defauts en equilibre thermique dans a-Si: H non dope, au dessus de 200°C, les defauts observes a la temperature ambiante etant dus, essentiellement, au gel durant le refroidissement; augmentation reversible de la densite de defauts par trempe rapide, diminution reversible par prevention du processus de generation des defauts (recombinaison des porteurs)
A configurable packet classification architecture for Software-Defined Networking

Network management tools must be able to monitor and analyze traffic flowing through network systems. According to the OpenFlow protocol applied in Software-Defined Networking (SDN), packets are classified into flows that are searched in flow tables. Further actions, such as packet forwarding, modification, and redirection to a group table, are made in the flow table with respect to the search results. A novel hardware solution for SDN-enabled packet classification is presented in this paper. The proposed scheme is focused on a label-based search method, achieving high flexibility in memory usage. The implemented hardware architecture provides optimal lookup performance by configuring the search algorithm and by performing fast incremental update as programmed the software controller.
Fluorescence localization after photobleaching (FLAP): a new method for studying protein dynamics in living cells

FLAP is a new method for localized photo‐labelling and subsequent tracking of specific molecules within living cells. It is simple in principle, easy to implement and has a wide potential application. The molecule to be located carries two fluorophores: one to be photobleached and the other to act as a reference label. Unlike the related methods of fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) and fluorescence loss in photobleaching (FLIP), the use of a reference fluorophore permits the distribution of the photo‐labelled molecules themselves to be tracked by simple image differencing. In effect, FLAP is therefore comparable with methods of photoactivation. Its chief advantage over the method of caged fluorescent probes is that it can be used to track chimaeric fluorescent proteins directly expressed by the cells. Although methods are being developed to track fluorescent proteins by direct photoactivation, these still have serious drawbacks. In order to demonstrate FLAP, we have used nuclear microinjection of cDNA fusion constructs of β‐actin with yellow (YFP) and cyan (CFP) fluorescent proteins to follow both the fast relocation dynamics of monomeric (globular) G‐actin and the much slower dynamics of filamentous F‐actin simultaneously in living cells.
A 2.5-Gbps De-Skew Chip for Very Short Reach (VSR) Interconnects

We designed and implemented a de-skew chip for parallel optical interconnects. The de-skew ability is limited by the line rate and rising/falling time. We modeled and tested the upper boundary of the maximum allowed channel skew that can be corrected by using this method. This is proved to be a simple and effective way at low line rates at around 2.5 Gbps. For higher line rates, per-pin de-skew scheme is necessary to successfully de-skew all channels with excessive amount of channel skew
Trajectories of dementia-related cognitive decline in a large mental health records derived patient cohort

Background Modeling trajectories of decline can help describe the variability in progression of cognitive impairment in dementia. Better characterisation of these trajectories has significant implications for understanding disease progression, trial design and care planning. Methods Patients with at least three Mini-mental State Examination (MMSE) scores recorded in the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust Electronic Health Records, UK were selected (N = 3441) to form a retrospective cohort. Trajectories of cognitive decline were identified through latent class growth analysis of longitudinal MMSE scores. Demographics, Health of Nation Outcome Scales and medications were compared across trajectories identified. Results Four of the six trajectories showed increased rate of decline with lower baseline MMSE. Two trajectories had similar initial MMSE scores but different rates of decline. In the faster declining trajectory of the two, a higher incidence of both behavioral problems and sertraline prescription were present. Conclusions We find suggestive evidence for association of behavioral problems and sertraline prescription with rate of decline. Further work is needed to determine whether trajectories replicate in other datasets.
euronal synchronization during auditory emotional perception

The brain regions subserving the processing of emotional prosody have been investigated using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) but few studies investigated direct electrical neuronal activity using intracranial recordings in humans. Previous studies have shown the involvement of the amygdala and the orbito-frontal cortex (OFC) in the processing of emotional prosody. In this paper we present first evidence of functional neuronal coupling between these two regions in response to different kinds of emotional prosody
Adding tactile reaction to hologram

In this paper, a hologram with tactile reactions is presented. The developed system consists of three components; a holographic display, a hand tracker, and a tactile display. The tactile display, which is our original device, produces force on user's bare hand without any contact by using radiation pressure of airborne ultrasound. It adds the sense of touch to optical images floating in mid-air. In order to represent the feeling of impact, some improvements are added to the tactile display. As a result, the tactile display has an ability to produce up to 4.8 gf without air flow.
Population subdivision with respect to multiple alleles

In view of the current interest in studying human isolated populations and the fact that many human gene markers have multiple alleles, the writer thought that it would be helpful to have the problem of population subdivision discussed in more detail and hence stimulate further investigation. Although the problem under consideration seems at first sight purely genetical, an appropriate change of a few technical terms will render the problem identical with those of epidemiologists and sociologists studying the association of certain traits or diseases in specific (homogeneous) groups and in the combined (heterogeneous) group. It may be said that these problems are ‘isomorphic’. Thus, an investigationin one area has similar implications in the others. We shall illustrate these ideas very briefly for the case of two alleles before introducing multiple alleles.
An activeness-based data forwarding protocol for named data DTN

Named Data Networking (NDN) has been drawing increasing attention in both academia and industry. Data forwarding is one of the key issues in relation to efficient content retrieval in named data DTN. In this paper, we propose an activeness-based data forwarding protocol, named as ADF, to support efficient content retrieval in named data delay tolerant networks. Using the real movement trajectory data in experiment, the simulation results show that the ADF protocol can effectively reduce the transmission delay and network overhead while acquiring the similar success rate, compared to the Epidemic protocol in the case of larger Data packet.
Identifying Changes in Myocardial Microstructure via a Novel Sonographic Imaging Algorithm

We developed a novel ultrasound-based image analysis algorithm designed to differentiate microstructural characteristics of left ventricular (LV) myocardium. The algorithm analyzes sonographic signal distributions and produces a marker termed the signal intensity coefficient (SIC), which can serve as an enhanced surrogate measure of myocardial microstructure. We evaluated our algorithm in two disease processes that are characterized by progressive LV remodeling from microstructural to global myocardial changes: hypertensive heart disease and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Results demonstrate that the SIC was significantly higher in hypertensive compared to non-hypertensive myocardium in both mice and humans, and was positively associated with increasing levels of exposure to afterload stress in humans and mice. Furthermore, in a cohort of sarcomere mutation carriers with different phenotypes of HCM, the SIC was able to distinguish between individuals with overt HCM, subclinical HCM, and healthy controls. The SIC demonstrated stronger associations with both degree of blood pressure and MRI-based ECV compared to established echocardiographic measures of adverse LV remodeling. Overall, our results demonstrate the potential of an imaging algorithm to identify the presence and extent of microstructural changes that can arise early in development of cardiac remodeling, in response to chronic exposure to afterload stress as well as genetic mutations.
Measurement of Brain and Spinal Cord Atrophy by Magnetic Resonance Imaging as a Tool to Monitor Multiple Sclerosis

Evaluation of brain and spinal cord atrophy by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has become an increasingly important component of understanding the multiple sclerosis (MS) disease process. These destructive aspects of the disease develop early in the disease course. A growing body of data links brain and spinal cord atrophy to clinical impairment more closely than can be linked with conventional measures of overt lesions. Thus, irreversible tissue damage may be a key factor leading to disease progression. In this review, the authors present the proposed mechanisms leading to central nervous system (CNS) atrophy. They describe the available MRI‐based techniques to measure regional and global atrophy of the brain and spinal cord. They compare the rate of atrophy among MS phenotypes and summarize the emerging data linking atrophy to neurological and neuropsychological impairment. Finally, they discuss the effect of disease‐modifying immunotherapies on the rate of CNS atrophy in patients with MS. Future research to clarify the etiology and pathophysiology of brain and spinal cord atrophy should provide new targets for therapeutic development.