Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Direct writing of planar ultracapacitors by laser forward transfer processing

We employ a novel laser forward transfer process, Matrix Assisted Pulsed Laser Evaporation Direct Write, in combination with UV laser micromachining, to fabricate mesoscale ultracapacitors and micro batteries under ambient temperature and atmospheric conditions. Our laser engineering approach enables the deposition of hydrous ruthenium oxide films with the desired high surface area morphology, without compromising the electrochemical performance of this high specific capacitance material. We compare three different desorption formulations incorporating ethylene glycol, glycerol, or sulfuric acid. The best electrochemical performance is achieved using a mixture of sulfuric acid with RuO2 0.5 H2O electrode material. Our ultracapacitors exhibit the expected linear discharge behavior under a constant current drain, and the electrochemical properties of these cells scale proportionately when combined in parallel and series.
Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO)

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is increasingly being employed in South African intensive care units for the management of patients with refractory hypoxaemia and for haemodynamic support, particularly following cardiothoracic procedures. ECMO is expensive, however, and there is a danger that this rescue modality may be abused or utilised unnecessarily or in situations where further intensive therapy is futile. This brief review provides an overview of the techniques available, and the recommended indications and exclusions for venovenous ECMO in particular.
Green fluorescent proteins as optically controllable elements in bioelectronics

A single-biomolecule optical toggle switch is demonstrated based on a mutated green fluorescent protein (GFP). We have exploited molecular biology techniques to tailor the GFP molecular structure and photophysical properties and to give it optically controlled bistability between two distinct states. We present optical control of the fluorescence dynamics with two laser beams at 476 and 350 nm down to the ultimate limit of single molecules. These results indicate that GFP-class fluorophores are promising candidates for the realization of biomolecular devices such as volumetric optical memories and optical switches.
Evaluating Performance Tradeoffs in a One-to-Many Peer Content Distribution Architecture

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) content exchange has recently gained attention from both the research and industrial communities. The dynamic nature of peer networks and the resource constraints of peer hosts have introduced a number of unique technical challenges that must be addressed to make large-scale P2P content exchange applications more efficient. In this work, we expand our previous work on Pixie, an architecture that integrates one-to-many distribution of content and peer networks. Pixie uses a jukebox-style scheduling mechanism to provide a valuable data location service. Users can browse a listing of all content scheduled to be distributed across the network thus reducing search overhead. Moreover, Pixie’s use of one-to-many content distribution provides additional scalability. Our results indicate that, using Pixie, we can significantly reduce the resources required to locate and distribute content in peer networks. The properties Pixie embodies will become increasingly important as peer content exchange is extended to support more advanced, and possibly commercial applications.
Mycobacterium avium lung disease combined with a bronchogenic cyst in an immunocompetent young adult

We report a very rare case of a bronchogenic cyst combined with nontuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary disease in an immunocompetent patient. A 21-year-old male was referred to our institution because of a cough, fever, and worsening of abnormalities on his chest radiograph, despite anti-tuberculosis treatment. Computed tomography of the chest showed a large multi-cystic mass over the right-upper lobe. Pathological examination of the excised lobe showed a bronchogenic cyst combined with a destructive cavitary lesion with granulomatous inflammation. Microbiological culture of sputum and lung tissue yielded Mycobacterium avium. The patient was administered anti-mycobacterial treatment that included clarithromycin.
Reverberation-Time Prediction Method for Room Impulse Responses Simulated with the Image-Source Model

The image-source method has become a ubiquitous tool in many fields of acoustics and signal processing. A technique was recently proposed to predict the energy decay (energy-time curve) in room impulse responses simulated using the image-source model. The present paper demonstrates how this technique can be efficiently used to determine the enclosure's absorption coefficients in order to achieve a desired reverberation level, even with a non-uniform distribution of the sound absorption in the room. As shown in this work, classical expressions for the prediction of an enclosure's reverberation time, such as Sabine and Eyring's formulae, do not provide accurate results when used in conjunction with the image method. The proposed approach hence ensures that the image-source model effectively generates impulse responses with a proper reverberation time, which is of particular importance, for instance, for the purpose of assessing the performance of audio signal processing algorithms operating in reverberant conditions.
Real-world SIP Interoperability: Still an Elusive Quest

With more than a decade of development led by the IETF, and a plethora of devices and software systems speaking its dialect, SIP together with its related standards has grown in size and scale, raising concerns over interoperability. In this paper, we explore SIP interoperability (or lack thereof) by proposing systematic methodologies for identifying and analyzing the basic-level protocol interoperability issues that plague SIP usage in the real-world. We also dissect and describe a few of the commonly observed SIP interoperability issues and their implications. Our test results clearly indicate that even the basic- level of SIP interoperability is far from ideal.
With or without you: Partnership context of first conceptions and births in Hungary

Using notions from the Second Demographic Transition theory and the Pattern of Disadvantage argument, I study how women’s risk of a first conception within different union types (single, cohabitation, marriage) is influenced by education in Hungary and whether this influence has changed over time. Additionally, I examine the transition to marriage among women who experienced a non-marital conception. Using the first wave of the Hungarian Generations and Gender Survey from 2004, I conduct discrete time survival analyses and logistic regression. I find a positive educational gradient of marital conceptions, while this gradient is negative for cohabiting conceptions. Moreover, highly educated women are less likely to experience a cohabiting or a single conception than a marital conception compared to their medium educated counterparts. Furthermore, the impact of education on the risk of a single and marital conception changes over time. The positive gradient of education on the risk of a single conception emerged after the transition, while it declined for marital conceptions. No consistent patterns are found for cohabiting conceptions. Additionally, highly educated women and those who experienced a conception while being single are more likely to marry than their lower educated counterparts and those who experienced a cohabiting conception.
Arterial endothelial function is impaired in treated depression

Objectives: To determine whether patients with treated depression but no other risk factors for coronary heart disease (CHD) have abnormal arterial endothelial function, an abnormality that is common to other acquired risk factors for CHD. Design: Case–control study. Setting: Secondary care departments of cardiology and psychiatry in a single centre and the surrounding community. Participants: Patients with treated depression and matched healthy controls, aged 18–55 years, without conventional acquired risk factors for CHD. These were recruited from local community mental health clinics, general practices, and patient support groups, and through posters placed in public areas of the hospital. Patients had major depression as defined in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, fourth edition. Fifteen patients and 12 controls were recruited, and 12 patients and 10 controls completed the study. Outcomes: Brachial artery flow mediated dilatation and baroreflex sensitivity. Results: Arterial endothelial function measured by flow mediated dilatation was impaired in depression (mean (SEM) −0.7% (1.7%)) compared with controls (5.7% (0.9%), p = 0.005 by non-paired t test). Baroreflex sensitivity did not differ significantly between the groups. Conclusion: Arterial endothelial function is impaired in treated depression. This abnormality may contribute to the increased risk of CHD seen in depression.
Inflammaging and Frailty Status Do Not Result in an Increased Extracellular Vesicle Concentration in Circulation

In the last decades extracellular vesicles (EVs) have emerged as key players for intercellular communication. In the case of inflammation, several studies have reported that EV levels are increased in circulation during inflammatory episodes. Based on this, we investigated whether aging results in elevated EV number, as a basal proinflammatory status termed “inflammaging” has been described in aged individuals. Moreover, we also hypothesized that frailty and dependence conditions of the elderly could affect EV concentration in plasma. Results showed that inflammaging, frailty or dependence status do not result in EV increase, at least in the total number of EVs in circulation. These results open a new perspective for investigating the role of EVs in human aging and in the inflammaging process.
AAO2: a general purpose CCD controller for the AAT

The Anglo-Australian Observatory has developed a 2nd generation optical CCD controller to replace an earlier controller used now for almost twenty years. The new AAO2 controller builds on the considerable experience gained with the first controller, the new technologies now available and the techniques developed and successfully implemented in AAO's IRIS2 detector controller. The AAO2 controller has been designed to operate a wide variety of detectors and to achieve as near to detector limited performance as possible. It is capable of reading out CCDs with one, two or four output amplifiers, each output having its own video processor and high speed 16-bit ADC. The video processor is a correlated double sampler that may be switched between low noise dual slope integration or high speed clamp and sample modes. Programmable features include low noise DAC biases, horizontal clocks with DAC controllable levels and slopes and vertical clocks with DAC controllable arbitrary waveshapes. The controller uses two DSPs; one for overall control and the other for clock signal generation, which is highly programmable, with downloadable sequences of waveform patterns. The controller incorporates a precision detector temperature controller and provides accurate exposure time control. Telemetry is provided of all DAC generated voltages, many derived voltages, power supply voltages, detector temperature and detector identification. A high speed, full duplex fibre optic interface connects the controller to a host computer. The modular design uses six to ten circuit boards, plugged in to common backplanes. Two backplanes separate noisy digital signals from low noise analog signals.
Advanced Impulse Detection & Reduction Based on Multimodal Filter

Impulse noises are occurred in the images during image signal acquisition and processing from one location to another location. In this paper, the optimal detector noise filtering algorithm and its efficient hardware architecture is presented. The proposed architecture comprises of orthogonal direction pattern generation, sorter, thresholder, local binary converter, multimodal filter and pixel converter units respectively. The local binary converter unit detects and corrects the noise pixel efficiently using a simple logic circuit. The design possesses only two line memory buffers with very low computational complexity, thereby reducing the hardware cost and appropriate for several real-time applications.
Palirria: accurate on‐line parallelism estimation for adaptive work‐stealing

We present Palirria, a self‐adapting work‐stealing scheduling method for nested fork/join parallelism that can be used to estimate the number of utilizable workers and self‐adapt accordingly. The estimation mechanism is optimized for accuracy, minimizing the requested resources without degrading performance. We implemented Palirria for both the Linux and Barrelfish operating systems and evaluated it on two platforms: a 48‐core Non‐Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) multiprocessor and a simulated 32‐core system. Compared with state‐of‐the‐art, we observed higher accuracy in estimating resource requirements. This leads to improved resource utilization and performance on par or better to executing with fixed resource allotments. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Meta-analysis of the Efficacy and Safety of Adjunctive Rosuvastatin for Dyslipidemia in Patients with Schizophrenia

Background Metabolic syndrome in patients with schizophrenia is a major health concern. The efficacy and safety of adjunctive rosuvastatin in treating dyslipidemia were controversial. Aims To assess the efficacy and safety of adjunctive rosuvastatin for dyslipidemia in patients with schizophrenia. Methods We systematically searched for relevant controlled clinical trials from the following databases: PubMed, PsycINFO, Cochrane Library, China Knowledge Network, WanFang Database and Chinese Biomedical Database up to September 28, 2017. Standardized mean difference (SMD) and risk ratio (RR) along with their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated. The quality of the included studies was assessed using the Cochrane risk of bias assessment tool. The GRADE (Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation) system recommendation grading method was used as the reference standard. Results Four studies (n=274) comparing rosuvastatin (n=138) and control (n=136) groups were identified and analyzed. Adjunctive rosuvastatin showed greater efficacy than control group in low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) [4 trials, n=272, SMD: -1.31 (95%CI: -1.93, -0.70), I2=81%], total cholesterol (2 trials, n=164, SMD: -2.00 (95%CI: -2.79, -1.21); I2=76%) and triglycerides (2 trials, n=164, SMD: -1.05 (95%CI: -1.38, -0.72); I2=0%), but not in high density lipoprotein cholesterol (2 trials, n=164, SMD: 0.14 (95%CI: -0.16, 0.45); I2=0%). After removing one study without randomization for LDL-C, significance remained [3 trials, n=172, SMD:-1.07 (95%CI: -1.60, -0.53); I2=63%]. No significant group differences regarding body weight (3 trials, n=208, SMD: -0.40 (95%CI:-1.29, 0.49); I2=89%), body mass index (2 trials, n=164, SMD: -0.34 (95%CI: -1.23, 0.56); I2=87%), waist circumference (3 trials, n=208, SMD: -0.43 (95%CI: -1.31, 0.46); I2=89%), and fasting glucose (4 trials, n=272, SMD: -0.25 (95%CI: -0.65, 0.15); I2=62%) were observed. The adverse reactions and any cause discontinuation rate were similar between the groups. According to the GRADE approach, the evidence levels of main outcomes were rated as “very low” (35.3%) to “low” (64.7%). Of them, the primary outcome (LDL-C) was rated as “very low”. Conclusions The data available on the effectiveness and safety of adjunctive rosuvastatin in treating dyslipidemia for patients with schizophrenia is insufficient to come to a definitive interpretation about its efficacy and safety. Further high quality RCTs with extended treatment duration are warranted to confirm the findings. Review registration PROSPERO: CRD42017078230
Inferring non-suspension conditions for logic programs with dynamic scheduling

A logic program consists of a logic component and a control component. The former is a specification in predicate logic whereas the latter defines the order of subgoal selection. The order of subgoal selection is often controlled with delay declarations that specify that a subgoal is to suspend until some condition on its arguments is satisfied. Reasoning about delay declarations is notoriously difficult for the programmer and it is not unusual for a program and a goal to reduce to a state that contains a subgoal that suspends indefinitely. Suspending subgoals are usually unintended and often indicate an error in the logic or the control. A number of abstract interpretation schemes have therefore been proposed for checking that a given program and goal cannot reduce to such a state. This article considers a reversal of this problem, advocating an analysis that for a given program infers a class of goals that do not lead to suspension. This article shows that this more general approach can have computational, implementational and user-interface advantages. In terms of user-interface, this approach leads to a lightweight point-and-click mode of operation in which, after directing the analyser at a file, the user merely has to inspect the results inferred by the analysis. In terms of implementation, the analysis can be straightforwardly realized as two simple fixpoint computations. In terms of computation, by modeling n! different schedulings of n subgoals with a single Boolean function, it is possible to reason about the suspension behavior of large programs. In particular, the analysis is fast enough to be applied repeatedly within the program development cycle. The article also demonstrates that the method is precise enough to locate bugs in existing programs.
OPTIMIZED SHAPE ADAPTIVE WAVELETS WITH REDUCED COMPUTATIONAL COST

Wavelets are often characterized through their number of vanishing moments. The more vanishing moments a wavelet has the better are the compaction properties for low-order polynomial signals. However, when bounding wavelets on intervals in order to define wavelet transforms over regions of arbitrary support, some of the moment properties get lost. This is typically accompanied with a loss of compaction gain and other unwanted effects. In this paper, we present methods for recovering the moment properties in the boundary regions. The approach recovers the moments step by step, requires a low number of computations and is well suited for the implementation with finite-precision arithmetic.
Pivotal Advance: Inhibition of MyD88 dimerization and recruitment of IRAK1 and IRAK4 by a novel peptidomimetic compound

MyD88 is an adaptor protein, which plays an essential role in the intracellular signaling elicited by IL‐1R and several TLRs. Central to its function is the ability of its Toll/IL‐1R translation initiation region (TIR) domain to heterodimerize with the receptor and to homodimerize with another MyD88 molecule to favor the recruitment of downstream signaling molecules such as the serine/threonine kinases IL‐1R‐associated kinase 1 (IRAK1) and IRAK4. Herein, we have synthesized and tested the activity of a synthetic peptido‐mimetic compound (ST2825) modeled after the structure of a heptapeptide in the BB‐loop of the MyD88‐tIR domain, which interferes with MyD88 signaling. ST2825 inhibited MyD88 dimerization in coimmunoprecipitation experiments. This effect was specific for homodimerization of the TIR domains and did not affect homodimerization of the death domains. Moreover, ST2825 interfered with recruitment of IRAK1 and IRAK4 by MyD88, causing inhibition of IL‐1β‐mediated activation of NF‐κB transcriptional activity. After oral administration, ST2825 dose‐dependently inhibited IL‐1β‐induced production of IL‐6 in treated mice. Finally, we observed that ST2825 suppressed B cell proliferation and differentiation into plasma cells in response to CpG‐induced activation of TLR9, a receptor that requires MyD88 for intracellular signaling. Our results indicate that ST2825 blocks IL‐1R/TLR signaling by interfering with MyD88 homodimerization and suggest that it may have therapeutic potential in treatment of chronic inflammatory diseases.
Safety-critical Java in Circus

This position paper proposes a refinement technique for the development of Safety-Critical Java (SCJ) programs. It is based on the Circus family of languages, which comprises constructs from Z, CSP, Timed CSP, and object-orientation. We cater for the specification of timing requirements, and their decomposition towards the structure of missions and event handlers of SCJ. We also consider the integrated refinement of value-based specifications into class-based designs using SCJ scoped memory areas. We present a refinement strategy, and a Circus variant that captures the essence of the SCJ paradigm independently from Java.
Pricing and Hedging American Options: A Recursive Integration Method

In this article, we present a new method for pricing and hedging American options along with an efficient implementation procedure. The proposed method is efficient and accurate in computing both option values and various option hedge parameters. We demonstrate the computational accuracy and efficiency of this numerical procedure in relation to other competing approaches. We also suggest how the method can be applied to the case of any American option for which a closed-form solution exists for the corresponding European option. Article published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Financial Studies in its journal, The Review of Financial Studies.
Lifecourse Adversity and Physical Performance across Countries among Men and Women Aged 65-74

Background This study examines the associations between lifecourse adversity and physical performance in old age in different societies of North and South America and Europe. Methods We used data from the baseline survey of the International Study of Mobility in Aging, conducted in: Kingston (Canada), Saint-Hyacinthe (Canada), Natal (Brazil), Manizales (Colombia) and Tirana (Albania). The study population was composed of community dwelling people between 65 and 74 years of age, recruiting 200 men and 200 women at each site. Physical Performance was assessed with the Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB). Economic and social adversity was estimated from childhood adverse events, low education, semi-skilled occupations during adulthood and living alone and insufficient income in old age. Results A total of 1995 people were assessed. Low physical performance was associated with childhood social and economic adversity, semi-skilled occupations, living alone and insufficient income. Physical performance was lower in participants living in Colombia, Brazil and Albania than in Canada counterparts, despite adjustment for lifecourse adversity, age and sex. Conclusions We show evidence of the early origins of social and economic inequalities in physical performance during old age in distinct populations and for the independent and cumulative disadvantage of low socioeconomic status during adulthood and poverty and living alone in later life.