Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Secure communication using a chaos based signal encryption scheme

The large-scale proliferation of wireless communications both inside and outside the home-office environment has led to an increased demand for effective and cheap encryption schemes. Now a new chaos based signal encryption scheme is proposed to transmit digital information signals by using the conventional synchronization of chaos and digital encryption approaches. In this scheme, either a chaotic or hyperchaotic system is used to generate a digital key after thresholding a chaotic signal. This signal along with the information digital signal is used to generate the encrypted signal. Then the encrypted signal is masked by one of the chaotic signals of the transmitter and is transmitted through the channel to the receiver as well as used to drive the transmitter chaotic system using the concept of self-modulation. At the receiver end, a suitable feedback loop is constructed for unmasking and then the decryption rule is used to recover the information signal. By suitable combinations of the chaotic signals, the effect of additional nonlinear-keys has also been considered. The effect of typical perturbing factors, like channel noise and parameter mismatch, are included and their corresponding performance analysis is discussed. By considering an appropriate circuit configuration, simulation results are presented.
On the Fundamental Resonance of Slot Loop Antenna Inductively Fed by a Coplanar Waveguide

The fundamental resonance of a slot loop antenna inductively fed by a coplanar waveguide (CPW) is examined and designed for operation. The input matching at the fundamental resonance is achieved by using a pair of shunt inductors realized by folded thin strips placed across the coupled slotlines of the feeding CPW. Besides, the higher-order resonances, or the harmonics, are suppressed effectively by narrowing the protruded signal trace of the CPW as well as by adding the shunt inductor pair. For verification, a prototype antenna is designed and fabricated. The simulated and measured results agree excellently. The antenna is well matched at its fundamental resonance (2.5 GHz), and the wideband harmonic suppression of at least up to 20 GHz is achieved. The radiation pattern at resonance is slot-like, and the measured peak gain is 3.6 dBi with a radiation efficiency of 80%.
Comparative analysis of pseudogenes across three phyla

Significance Pseudogenes have long been considered nonfunctional elements. However, recent studies have shown they can potentially regulate the expression of protein-coding genes. Capitalizing on available functional-genomics data and the finished annotation of human, worm, and fly, we compared the pseudogene complements across the three phyla. We found that in contrast to protein-coding genes, pseudogenes are highly lineage specific, reflecting genome history more so than the conservation of essential biological functions. Specifically, the human pseudogene complement reflects a massive burst of retrotranspositional activity at the dawn of the primates, whereas the worm’s and fly's repertoire reflects a history of deactivated duplications. However, we also observe that pseudogenes across the three phyla have a consistent level of partial activity, with ∼15% being transcribed. Pseudogenes are degraded fossil copies of genes. Here, we report a comparison of pseudogenes spanning three phyla, leveraging the completed annotations of the human, worm, and fly genomes, which we make available as an online resource. We find that pseudogenes are lineage specific, much more so than protein-coding genes, reflecting the different remodeling processes marking each organism’s genome evolution. The majority of human pseudogenes are processed, resulting from a retrotranspositional burst at the dawn of the primate lineage. This burst can be seen in the largely uniform distribution of pseudogenes across the genome, their preservation in areas with low recombination rates, and their preponderance in highly expressed gene families. In contrast, worm and fly pseudogenes tell a story of numerous duplication events. In worm, these duplications have been preserved through selective sweeps, so we see a large number of pseudogenes associated with highly duplicated families such as chemoreceptors. However, in fly, the large effective population size and high deletion rate resulted in a depletion of the pseudogene complement. Despite large variations between these species, we also find notable similarities. Overall, we identify a broad spectrum of biochemical activity for pseudogenes, with the majority in each organism exhibiting varying degrees of partial activity. In particular, we identify a consistent amount of transcription (∼15%) across all species, suggesting a uniform degradation process. Also, we see a uniform decay of pseudogene promoter activity relative to their coding counterparts and identify a number of pseudogenes with conserved upstream sequences and activity, hinting at potential regulatory roles.
A platform‐independent method to reduce CT truncation artifacts using discriminative dictionary representations

Purpose: When the scan field of view (SFOV) of a CT system is not large enough to enclose the entire cross‐section of the patient, or the patient needs to be positioned partially outside the SFOV for certain clinical applications, truncation artifacts often appear in the reconstructed CT images. Many truncation artifact correction methods perform extrapolations of the truncated projection data based on certain a priori assumptions. The purpose of this work was to develop a novel CT truncation artifact reduction method that directly operates on DICOM images. Materials and methods: The blooming of pixel values associated with truncation was modeled using exponential decay functions, and based on this model, a discriminative dictionary was constructed to represent truncation artifacts and nonartifact image information in a mutually exclusive way. The discriminative dictionary consists of a truncation artifact subdictionary and a nonartifact subdictionary. The truncation artifact subdictionary contains 1000 atoms with different decay parameters, while the nonartifact subdictionary contains 1000 independent realizations of Gaussian white noise that are exclusive with the artifact features. By sparsely representing an artifact‐contaminated CT image with this discriminative dictionary, the image was separated into a truncation artifact‐dominated image and a complementary image with reduced truncation artifacts. The artifact‐dominated image was then subtracted from the original image with an appropriate weighting coefficient to generate the final image with reduced artifacts. This proposed method was validated via physical phantom studies and retrospective human subject studies. Quantitative image evaluation metrics including the relative root‐mean‐square error (rRMSE) and the universal image quality index (UQI) were used to quantify the performance of the algorithm. Results: For both phantom and human subject studies, truncation artifacts at the peripheral region of the SFOV were effectively reduced, revealing soft tissue and bony structure once buried in the truncation artifacts. For the phantom study, the proposed method reduced the relative RMSE from 15% (original images) to 11%, and improved the UQI from 0.34 to 0.80. Conclusion: A discriminative dictionary representation method was developed to mitigate CT truncation artifacts directly in the DICOM image domain. Both phantom and human subject studies demonstrated that the proposed method can effectively reduce truncation artifacts without access to projection data.
Continuously Tunable Photonic Microwave Frequency Multiplication by Use of an Unbalanced Temporal Pulse Shaping System

A novel approach to achieving microwave frequency multiplication with a continuously tunable multiplication factor using an unbalanced temporal pulse shaping (TPS) system is proposed and demonstrated. The proposed TPS system consists of a Mach-Zehnder modulator and two dispersive elements having opposite dispersion values. Since the values of dispersion are not identical in magnitude, the entire system can be considered as a typical balanced TPS system for a real-time Fourier transformation followed by a residual dispersive element for a second real-time Fourier transformation. The microwave frequency multiplication factor is determined by the dispersion values of the two dispersive elements and can be continuously tunable by changing the values. Numerical simulations and experiments are performed. Microwave frequency multiplication with a factor as high as 13.2 is experimentally demonstrated.
Analysis of battery charger topologies for an electric vehicle

This article focuses on fast chargers of electric vehicles. One of the crucial parts of a fast charger is the secondary charging converter that must be able to regulate efficiently battery charge voltage and current. To be able to use the electric vehicle battery as a temporary energy storage in the electric grid, the topology of a charging converter must enable a bidirectional energy flow. Bidirectional converters need an additional boost circuit to stabilize the battery voltage while draining energy from it. Class 3 unidirectional charging converters could be realized with a current doubler rectifier topology and bidirectional ones with a controllable full-bridge rectifier/inverter, resulting from its advantage over the current doubler in this operational mode. A quasi Z source could be used as a filter/boost circuit.
Disentangling Dynamics and Content for Control and Planning

In this paper, We study the problem of learning a controllable representation for high-dimensional observations of dynamical systems. Specifically, we consider a situation where there are multiple sets of observations of dynamical systems with identical underlying dynamics. Only one of these sets has information about the effect of actions on the observation and the rest are just some random observations of the system. Our goal is to utilize the information in that one set and find a representation for the other sets that can be used for planning and ling-term prediction.
Characterization of the murine orthologue of a novel human subtelomeric multigene family

Supported by Telethon Italy grant EO927 to M.D’U. The authors gratefully acknowl-edge Paola Forabosco for critical reading of the manuscript. Received 25 April 2001; manuscript accepted 30 May 2001. Request reprints from Michele D’Urso,International Institute of Genetics and Biophysics, CNR,Via Marconi, 10 – 80125 Naples (Italy);telephone/fax: +39-081-7257247; e-mail: durso@iigbna.iigb. na.cnr. it
Comparison of vibration characteristics of several interior permanent magnet synchronous motors

Several types of interior permanent magnet synchronous motor have been utilized in the wide rage of applications. The characteristics of their cogging torque and average torque and d and q- axis inductance were clarified for the different shapes of rotor magnet and two types of stator windings. This paper clarifies the characteristics of radial attractive force and vibration for the different shapes of permanent magnet and two types of stator windings.
Análisis del Modelo Z de Altman en el mercado peruano.

La investigacion que da origen a este articulo se ha propuesto conocer a profundidad el funcionamiento, la precision, exactitud y veracidad del Modelo Z de Altman, y determinar si el mismo puede ser igualmente efectivo y logra adaptarse a las condiciones propias de un contexto especifico como el mercado peruano. Para ello se analizan los estados financieros, entre 2008 y 2012, de las empresas que conforman el Indice Selectivo de la Bolsa de Valores de Lima (ISBVL), que son, finalmente, las mas representativas del mercado de valores peruano. Las empresas son analizadas bajo el Modelo Z de Altman. El analisis se ha concentrado en medidas de ratios financieros que indican el comportamiento fundamental de una empresa. Se identifica que la interpretacion que de esos ratios se hace depende del contexto y no es solo numerica, ella se relaciona tambien con el comportamiento mismo de la empresa evaluada.
A Low-Power and Wide-Range MEMS Capacitive Sensors Interface IC Using Pulse-Width Modulation for Biomedical Applications

This paper presents a low power, compact, and low-complexity pulse-width modulation-based interface circuit for capacitive MEMS sensors. The circuit is designed using a ring oscillator, an RC controlled pulse generator with highpass filter, and a self-tuning inverter comparator to produce pulse width, which is proportional to differential capacitance and independent of parasitic capacitance. The high-pass filter is utilized to reduce the bandwidth of noise sources. The circuit provides control over sensitivity, dynamic range, and nominal point for the capacitance measurement by selecting controlling parameters, such as resistance of the RC pulse generator, biasing voltage of the self-tuning inverter comparator, and a reference capacitor using digital control signals. The circuit provides high linearity with higher sensitivity and lower power consumption. The sensitivity of the circuit is 0.56 to 3.62 μs/pF depending on the controlling parameters. The maximum dynamic sensing range is 22 to 270 pF depending on the controlling parameters. The interface circuit is designed and fabricated using the United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) 0.18-μm CMOS technology. It occupies an active area of 0.17 mm2 and consumes 98 μW. A capacitive MEMS-based pressure sensor is also connected with the interface circuit to measure pressure throughout the digestive tract. The sensitivity for pressure from 101 to 200 kPa is 60 ns/kPa and from 50 to 101 kPa is 23 ns/kPa.
High‐dose Humanin analogue applied during ischemia exerts cardioprotection against ischemia/reperfusion injury by reducing mitochondrial dysfunction

AIM Although the gold standard treatment for acute myocardial infarction is reperfusion therapy, reperfusion itself can cause myocardial damage via induction of cardiac mitochondrial dysfunction. This can lead to increased myocardial infarct size, arrhythmias, and left ventricular (LV) dysfunction. Recently, a newly discovered peptide, Humanin, has been shown to exert several beneficial effects including antioxidative and antiapoptosis effects. We recently reported that a Humanin analogue (HNG, 84 μg/kg) given prior to cardiac ischemia exerted cardioprotection against I/R injury, but failed to do so when it was given after ischemia was induced. However, in a clinical setting, patients can only be treated after the onset of ischemia. In this study, we investigated the potential benefit of various doses of HNG therapy (84, 168, 252 μg/kg) against myocardial I/R injury when applied during ischemia on cardiac arrhythmia, myocardial infarct size, cardiac mitochondrial function, and LV function. METHODS Myocardial I/R injury was induced in rats by 30-minute left anterior descending coronary artery occlusion, followed by 120-minute of reperfusion. HNG at the different doses were given intravenously at 15 minutes after ischemic onset and also at the onset of reperfusion. RESULTS HNG (252 μg/kg) applied during the ischemic period not only increased HN levels in the damaged myocardium, but also significantly decreased cardiac arrhythmia, myocardial infarct size, cardiac mitochondrial dysfunction, and left ventricular dysfunction. These benefits were mediated through the attenuation of cardiac mitochondrial dysfunction. CONCLUSIONS High-dose HN applied during ischemia in rats could exert cardioprotection against I/R injury-induced mitochondrial dysfunction.
Timing of multiple late Quaternary glaciations in the Hunza Valley, Karakoram Mountains, northern Pakistan: Defined by cosmogenic radionuclide dating of moraines

Moraines and associated landforms in the upper Hunza Valley, Karakoram Mountains, northern Pakistan, provide an excellent record of multiple glaciations. During the late Quaternary, glaciers advanced at least eight times. By using 10 Be and 26 Al surface-exposure dating on moraine boulders and scoured bedrock, we determined the timing of glaciation for four of these glacial advances: ca. 54.7‐43.2 ka (Borit Jheel glacial stage), ca. 25.7‐21.8 ka (Ghulkin I glacial stage), ca. 18.4‐15.3 ka (Ghulkin II glacial stage), and ca. 10.8‐9.0 ka (Batura glacial stage). For two of the older advances, the Yunz and Shanoz glacial stages, our data set a limit of . 60 ka. Although, at present, the uncertainties in dating make it impossible to describe unequivocally the climate processes controlling glaciations in the Hunza Valley, the results suggest that precipitation changes related to oscillations in the southwest Asian monsoonal system combine with cooling that is broadly associated with Heinrich events to cause glacial advances in this region.
SPINK1 expression is tightly linked to 6q15‐ and 5q21‐deleted ERG‐fusion negative prostate cancers but unrelated to PSA recurrence

The serine peptidase inhibitor, Kazal type 1 (SPINK1) has been suggested to define an aggressive molecular subtype of ERG‐fusion negative prostate cancer. It was the aim of this study to further study the clinical relevance of SPINK1 expression and its relationship with other key genomic alterations of prostate cancer.
Nutritional Value and Hypoglycemic Effect of Prickly Cactus Pear (Opuntia Ficus-Indica) Fruit Juice in Alloxan-Induced Diabetic Rats

The present study was carried out to investigate the nutritional value, antioxidant activity and the effect of cactus pear (Opuntia ficus-indica) fruit juice on biochemical parameters, enzyme activities and lipid peroxidation in alloxan-induced diabetic rats. Alloxan was administrated as a single dose (130 mg/Kg BW) to induce diabetes. A single or repeated dose of cactus fruit juice (5 ml/once, twice, three or four times/rat) was orally administrated daily to alloxan-induced diabetic rats for five weeks. The levels of glucose, cholesterol, urea, creatinine, aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and malondialdehyde (MDA) were significantly (P < 0.05) increased, while levels of superoxide dismutase (SOD), reduced glutathione (GSH), HDL- cholesterol, protein, hemoglobin and liver glycogen were significantly decreased in serum of alloxan- induced diabetic rats. Treatment of the diabetic rats with single or repeated dose of cactus fruit juice could restore the changes of the above parameters to their normal levels. Histopathological observations revealed that treatment with cactus juice could protect (restorative) the tissues of liver, kidney and pancreas and regenerates the toxic effect of alloxan. On the other hand, data showed that cactus fruit juice was rich in bioactive compounds (total phenols, flavonoids, carotenoids, dietary fibers, betalains, taurine and linoleic acid), vitamins (C, E, group-B and β-carotene), minerals (potassium, calcium, phosphorus and selenium), and free amino acids (proline, phenylalanine, alanine, lysine and histidine). In addition, fresh cactus fruit juice recorded higher scores in all of the sensory attributes. From the above results, it could be concluded that cactus fruit juice possesses antioxidant, hypoglycemic, hypocholesterolemic and antiatherogenic properties and consequently positively affects the body's redox balance, decrease oxidative damage to lipid and improve antioxidant status in diabetic rats. This effect may be due to its antioxidant activity, bioactive compounds or its high content of selenium which was proved in this study or due to a combination of all of these compounds producing synergistic effects.
Fructose ingestion and cerebral, metabolic, and satiety responses.

RUCTOSE FOUND IN SUCROSE AND HIGH-FRUCTOSE CORN syrup,bothofwhichcontainroughlyequalamounts of glucose, has been the subject of intense debate. Products containing fructose are preferred by consumers and cooks over those containing only glucose, owing to the intrinsically greater sweetness of fructose and its abilitytoimprovetheappearanceandtextureofbakedgoods. As a result, sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup are added not just to sodas, energy drinks, and sports drinks favored by adolescents and adults but also to juice drinks consumed by infants and toddlers and to snacks, processed meats, sauces, and many other foods consumed by people of all ages.
Low-cost DC BIST for analog circuits: A case study

This paper presents a DC analog testing technique based on a simple voltage comparison of the highest sensitivity-to-faults node, which is found by simulation. The technique is a structural, fault driven testing approach and can be applied to any analog circuit with very few extra added circuitry. A proof of concept has been implemented in a 65nm low-voltage transconductor, showing good fault coverage for both catastrophic and parametric faults.
Comparison of sampling methods to recover germinated Bacillus anthracis and Bacillus thuringiensis endospores from surface coupons

In an attempt to devise decontamination methods that are both effective and minimally detrimental to the environment, we evaluated germination induction as an enhancement to strategies for Bacillus anthracis spore decontamination. To determine an optimal method for the recovery of germinating spores from different matrices, it was critical to ensure that the sampling procedures did not negatively impact the viability of the germinating spores possibly confounding the results and downstream analyses of field trial data.
Surge of Peripheral Arginine Vasopressin in a Rat Model of Birth Asphyxia

Mammalian birth is accompanied by a period of obligatory asphyxia, which consists of hypoxia (drop in blood O2 levels) and hypercapnia (elevation of blood CO2 levels). Prolonged, complicated birth can extend the asphyxic period, leading to a pathophysiological situation, and in humans, to the diagnosis of clinical birth asphyxia, the main cause of hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). The neuroendocrine component of birth asphyxia, in particular the increase in circulating levels of arginine vasopressin (AVP), has been extensively studied in humans. Here we show for the first time that normal rat birth is also accompanied by an AVP surge, and that the fetal AVP surge is further enhanced in a model of birth asphyxia, based on exposing 6-day old rat pups to a gas mixture containing 4% O2 and 20% CO2 for 45 min. Instead of AVP, which is highly unstable with a short plasma half-life, we measured the levels of copeptin, the C-terminal part of prepro-AVP that is biochemically much more stable. In our animal model, the bulk of AVP/copeptin release occurred at the beginning of asphyxia (mean 7.8 nM after 15 min of asphyxia), but some release was still ongoing even 90 min after the end of the 45 min experimental asphyxia (mean 1.2 nM). Notably, the highest copeptin levels were measured after hypoxia alone (mean 14.1 nM at 45 min), whereas copeptin levels were low during hypercapnia alone (mean 2.7 nM at 45 min), indicating that the hypoxia component of asphyxia is responsible for the increase in AVP/copeptin release. Alternating the O2 level between 5 and 9% (CO2 at 20%) with 5 min intervals to mimic intermittent asphyxia during prolonged labor resulted in a slower but quantitatively similar rise in copeptin (peak of 8.3 nM at 30 min). Finally, we demonstrate that our rat model satisfies the standard acid-base criteria for birth asphyxia diagnosis, namely a drop in blood pH below 7.0 and the formation of a negative base excess exceeding −11.2 mmol/l. The mechanistic insights from our work validate the use of the present rodent model in preclinical work on birth asphyxia.