Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Robust stabilization of a class of nonlinear networked control systems

This paper is concerned with the robust stabilization problem for a class of networked control systems with nonlinear perturbations. The perturbations are assumed to be time-varying and satisfying quadratic constraints. Such networked control systems are modeled as systems with time-varying delays. Based on this model, observer-based controllers are designed to stabilize the nonlinear systems subject to the network-induced delay and data dropout. Sufficient conditions on existences of the stabilizing controllers are established. The controller gains can be obtained by solving a set of linear matrix inequalities. An illustrative example is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Visual Tracking Based on Region Correlation Descriptor

During the past few years, much effort has been made to enhance the performance of visual tracking by combining multiple features. In this paper, we propose a tracking algorithm based on region correlation descriptor, which can provide an elegant solution to fuse multiple features for representing the object Besides, we suggest a method to find the best matching region by calculating a centroid estimated from a set of candidate points in searching window. The robustness and accuracy of our algorithm have been demonstrated by experiments.
A Decoupled 5G Network Control Framework: Distributed Adaptation and Centralized Coordination

A promising and cost-e ective way to connect massively and densely deployed 5G smallcells is through existing Internet infrastructure. However, severe delays of hundreds of milliseconds over Internet and signi cantly increased complexity due to massive networks impose critical challenges to 5G network control. Traditional centralized network control can neither cope with such delays nor scale to massive networks. Excessive inter-smallcell interfer- ence would occur. We introduce a new 5G network control structure which is tolerant to the severe delay and massive network scale. The key idea is to decouple delay-sensitive power control from the delay-tolerant channel assignment. The delay-sensitive power control can be decentralized, and formulated as a non-cooperative game. As a result, timely control with stringent delay requirements is eliminated. The delay-tolerant channel assignment is modelled as an evolutionary clustering game, so that the control complex- ity can be distributed among the smallcells and becomes practically acceptable. Performance studies show that the new decoupled 5G network control is e ective for timely interference mitigation. The stability and scalability of the new 5G network control are also demonstrated.
Vibration Spectrum Imaging: A Novel Bearing Fault Classification Approach

Incipient fault detection in low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions requires robust features for accurate condition-based machine health monitoring. Accurate fault classification is positively linked to the quality of features of the faults. Therefore, there is a need to enhance the quality of the features before classification. This paper presents a novel vibration spectrum imaging (VSI) feature enhancement procedure for low SNR conditions. An artificial neural network (ANN) has been used as a fault classifier using these enhanced features of the faults. The normalized amplitudes of spectral contents of the quasi-stationary time vibration signals are transformed into spectral images. A 2-D averaging filter and binary image conversion, with appropriate threshold selection, are used to filter and enhance the images for the training and testing of the ANN classifier. The proposed novel VSI augments and provides the visual representation of the characteristic vibration spectral features in an image form. This provides enhanced spectral images for ANN training and thus leads to a highly robust fault classifier.
Analytical model for estimation of digging forces and specific energy of cable shovel

An analytical algorithm for the estimation of the resistance forces exerted on the dipper of a cable shovel and the specific energy consumed in the cutting-loading process is presented. Forces due to payload and to cutting of geomaterials under given initial conditions, cutting trajectory of the bucket, bucket's design, and geomaterial properties are analytically computed. The excavation process has been modeled by means of a kinematical shovel model, as well as of dynamic payload and cutting resistance models. For the calculation of the cutting forces, a logsandwich passive failure mechanism of the geomaterial is considered, as has been found by considering that a slip surface propagates like a mixed mode crack. Subsequently, the Upper-Bound theorem of Limit Analysis Theory is applied for the approximate calculation of the maximum reacting forces exerted on the dipper of the cable shovel. This algorithm has been implemented into an Excel™ spreadsheet to facilitate user-friendly, "transparent" calculations and built-in data analysis techniques. Its use is demonstrated with a realistic application of a medium-sized shovel. It was found, among others, that the specific energy of cutting exhibits a size effect, such that it decreases as the (-1)-power of the cutting depth for the considered example application.
A protocol for management of blood loss in surgical treatment of peritoneal malignancy by cytoreductive surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy

The treatment of peritoneal malignancies with cytoreductive surgery (CRS) combined with hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) has been shown to be associated with massive surgical blood loss. Maintaining high fibrinogen levels throughout surgery may reduce blood loss in these patients. The primary aim of the study was to see if Tranexamic Acid (TXA) and cryoprecipitate reduced surgical blood loss and hence red cell transfusions. A comparison was made with a cohort of patients treated with fresh frozen plasma (FFP) alone. The secondary aim was to measure the effect of both protocols on coagulation parameters and the incidence of arterial or venous thrombosis.
Tagging developmental genes in Dictyostelium by restriction enzyme-mediated integration of plasmid DNA.

Introduction of restriction enzyme along with linearized plasmid results in integration of plasmid DNA at genomic restriction sites in a high proportion of the resulting transformants. We have found that electroporating BamHI or EcoRI together with pyr5-6 plasmids cut with the same enzyme stimulates the efficiency of transformation in Dictyostelium discoideum more than 20-fold over the rate seen when plasmid DNA alone is introduced. Restriction enzyme-mediated integration generates insertions into genomic restriction sites in an apparently random manner, some of which cause mutations. About 1 in 400 of the Dictyostelium transformants displayed arrested or aberrant development. The integrated plasmid, along with flanking genomic DNA, was excised from some of these mutants, cloned in Escherichia coli, and used to transform other Dictyostelium cells. Homologous recombination within the flanking sequences resulted in the same phenotypes displayed by the original mutants, directly demonstrating that the affected genes were responsible for the specific morphological phenotypes. This method of insertional mutagenesis should be useful for tagging, and subsequent cloning, of many developmentally important genes that can be identified by their mutant phenotypes.
Leiomyoma of trachea: An anaesthetic challenge

1. Oak S, Sandesh P, Prakash A, Purushotham G, Manjusa S, Rahul P, et al. Role of thoracoscopy in blunt thoracic trauma-A case study Paediatric Endosurg and Innovative Techniques 2003;7:315-8. 2. Slimane MA, Becmeur F, Aubert D, Bachy B, Varlet F, Chavrier Y, et al. Tracheobronchial ruptures from blunt thoracic trauma in children. J Pediatr Surg 1999;34:1847-50. 3. Singal R, Dalal AK, Dalal U, Attri AK, Gupta S, Sadhu R, et al. Complete bronchial transaction due to severe blunt trauma and chest; treatment and outcomes: A distinct entity. Indian J Crit Care Med 2012;16:31-3.4. 4. Naghibi K, Hashemi SL, Sajedi P. Anaesthetic management of tracheobronchial rupture following blunt chest trauma. Acta Anaesthesiol Scand 2003;47:901-3. 5. Lahori VU, Aggarwal S, Simick P, Dharmavaram S. Foreign body removal with repair of iatrogenic tracheo-bronchial tear repair: An anesthetic challenge. J Anaesthesiol Clin Pharmacol 2011;27:534-6. 6. Iwasaki M, Kaga K, Ogawa J, Inoue H, Shohtsu A. Bronchoscopy findings and early treatment of patients with blunt tracheo-bronchial trauma. J Cardiovasc Surg (Torino) 1994;35:269-71.
Associations between fatty liver index and asymptomatic intracranial vertebrobasilar stenosis in Chinese population

Metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and metabolic syndromes (MetS) have been recognized as the important risk factors for asymptomatic intracranial vertebrobasilar stenosis (IVBS). Although fatty liver index (FLI) is significantly related with these diseases, the association between FLI and IVBS remains unclear. In the present study, 2368 participants (30–75 years) were recruited from a Chinese prospective cohort study of PMMJS. Amongst them, 2281 individuals who did not have IVBS at baseline were enrolled in the 6-year following-up study. In cross-sectional analysis based on the baseline characteristics, the results showed that FLI was positively related with IVBS prevalence. Compared to the participants with FLI < 30, the adjusted OR (95% CI) of IVBS was 2.07 (1.18, 3.62) and 2.85 (1.39, 5.18) in the groups of 30 ≤ FLI < 60 and FLI ≥ 60, respectively. In longitudinal analysis, the results showed that the participants with FLI ≥ 60 had an increased risk of asymptomatic IVBS compared to those with FLI < 30 [adjusted HR (95%CI): 1.65 (1.05, 2.60)]. Moreover, exclusion of persons with hypertension, T2DM and MetS did not alter the associations between FLI and asymptomatic IVBS. Therefore, our results suggest that elevated FLI is an independent risk factor for asymptomatic IVBS in Chinese adults.
Cardiac Sympathetic Hyperactivity in Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Obstructive Sleep Apnea

ABSTRACT Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) coexist in 0.5–1% of the general population. Both OSA and COPD are associated with increased sympathetic nervous activity, and patients affected by both disorders have higher risk for increased morbidity and mortality as compared with patients with COPD or OSA alone. We tested the hypothesis that patients with COPD and OSA (Overlap syndrome) have higher sympathetic and lower parasympathetic modulation of heart rate variability (HRV) in comparison with patients suffering from COPD or OSA alone. HRV indices in the frequency domain were evaluated from daytime electrocardiographic recordings in 14 patients with both severe OSA (apnea–hypopnea index ≥ 30) and mild-to-moderate COPD and compared with those with OSA (n = 24) or COPD (n = 16) alone. We found that, in the Overlap syndrome group, high-frequency (HF, 0.4–0.15 Hz) power was significantly lower (0.18 nu vs 0.34 nu in OSA and 0.44 nu in COPD patients, p < 0.01) and low-frequency (LF, 0.15–0.05 Hz) power was significantly greater (0.82 nu vs 0.66 nu in OSA and 0.57 nu in COPD patients, p < 0.01) compared with COPD and OSA groups. Patients with both OSA and COPD had higher LF/HF ratio as compared with patients in OSA and COPD groups (4.5 [5.9] vs 1.9 [2.6] and 1.3 [1.3], respectively, p < 0.01). For the Overlap syndrome group, there was a significant direct relationship between LF/HF ratio and residual volume (r2 = 0.62, p = 0.007). These findings show that patients with both OSA and COPD have higher sympathetic modulation of heart rate compared with those with OSA or COPD alone. Furthermore, the findings provide a potential mechanism for the increased morbidity and mortality reported in patients suffering from both disorders, suggesting new therapeutic perspectives in Overlap syndrome.
Measuring Emotion Bifurcation Points for Individuals in Social Media

Social media has been a new platform for emotion expression of individuals or groups in recent years. Millions of textual messages are constantly being generated. People with different emotion perceptions have different reactions to the same emotional event occurring in real life. However, it is hard to measure individual's emotion perception ability in both real world and social networks. This paper deals with online individual's emotion in view of complex system theory, and explores the emotion expression mechanism behind tweets. An concept of emotion bifurcation point is defined to denote the emotion perception ability and a methodological framework is proposed to measure it. Under the fundamental integration of the recognized Chinese emotion dictionaries (25,651 words included in total after reconciliation), new-born emotion words (458 in total) trained from a Sina-weibo corpus with 17 million tweets and commonly used emoticons (298 in total) as full-scale as possible, an emotion element ontology is constructed. Experimental evaluation on several certificated figures on Sina-weibo are implemented and the obtained results illustrate the reliability and validity of the proposed method.
C-start: optimal start of larval fish

Abstract We investigate the C-start escape response of larval fish by combining flow simulations using remeshed vortex methods with an evolutionary optimization. We test the hypothesis of the optimality of C-start of larval fish by simulations of larval-shaped, two- and three-dimensional self-propelled swimmers. We optimize for the distance travelled by the swimmer during its initial bout, bounding the shape deformation based on the larval mid-line curvature values observed experimentally. The best motions identified within these bounds are in good agreement with in vivo experiments and show that C-starts do indeed maximize escape distances. Furthermore we found that motions with curvatures beyond the ones experimentally observed for larval fish may result in even larger escape distances. We analyse the flow field and find that the effectiveness of the C-start escape relies on the ability of pronounced C-bent body configurations to trap and accelerate large volumes of fluid, which in turn correlates with large accelerations of the swimmer.
Neutralizing monoclonal antibodies against listeriolysin: mapping of epitopes involved in pore formation

Six different mouse monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) and a specific rabbit polygonal antibody were raised against listeriolysin. Four of the MAbs also recognized seeligeriolysin, and five cross-reacted with ivanolysin. The hemolytic activity could be neutralized by the polygonal antibody as well as by five of the MAbs. None of the neutralizing antibodies interfered with the binding of listeriolysin to the cellular membrane. The epitopes recognized by the MAbs were localized by using overlapping synthetic peptides between positions 59 and 279, a region hitherto not implicated in mediating hemolytic activity.
Aerodynamic Drag Reduction of Emergency Response Vehicles

This paper presents the first experimental and computational investigation into the aerodynamics of emergency response vehicles and focuses on reducing the additional drag that results from the customary practice of adding light-bars onto the vehicles’ roofs. A series of wind tunnel experiments demonstrate the significant increase in drag that results from the light bars and show these can be minimized by reducing the flow separation caused by them. Simple potential improvements in the aerodynamic design of the light bars are investigated by combining Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) with Design of Experiments and metamodelling methods. An aerofoil-based roof design concept is shown to reduce the overall aerodynamic drag by up to 20% and an analysis of its effect on overall fuel consumption indicates that it offers a significant opportunity for improving the fuel economy and reducing emissions from emergency response vehicles. These benefits are now being realised by the UK’s ambulance services.
A novel method for the measurement of oxygen saturation in arterial blood

A novel and noninvasive method of estimation of oxygen saturation in arterial blood (SpO2), employing the popular photoelectric plethysmographic (PPG) principle, is presented here. Based on a refined model for the attenuation of light in a PPG sensor, a simple method of computation of SpO2 that is not influenced by interfering parameters of a patient such as skin colour and quantum of intervening tissue between the source and the detector in a PPG sensor as well as sensor dependent parameters such as source intensity and detector sensitivity is identified. Preliminary results obtained on a prototype pulse oximeter, built and tested, demonstrate the practicality of the proposed method.
Towson University Department of Economics Working Paper Series a Theory of Liberal Churches a Theory of Liberal Churches

There is a counterintuitive gap in the club theory of religion. While it elegantly accounts for the notable success of strict sectarian religious groups in recruiting members and maintaining commitment, it exhibits less satisfactory properties when used to account for groups requiring neither extreme nor zero sacrifice. Such corner solutions, compared to the moderate middle, are rarely observed empirically. Within the original representative agent model, moderate groups are everywhere and always a suboptimal choice for rational, utility maximizing agents. In this paper, we extend the original model to operate within a multi-agent computational context, with heterogeneous agents occupying coordinates in a two dimensional lattice, making repeated decisions over time. Our model offers the possibility of successful moderate groups, including outcomes wherein the population is dominated by moderate groups. The viability of moderate groups is a result of heterogeneous agent wages. Lower wage agents offer greater time contributions, but lesser financial contributions to groups. Higher sacrifice rates incentive greater contributions from members, but reduce private productivity and screen out other potential members with greater financial resources. Moderate groups succeed by offering an optimal balance of these countervailing forces. would also like to thank the Center for the Economic Study of Religion at Chapman University for their generous funding and support.
Assessing the Potential Use of Narrative and the Entertainment Education Strategy In an mHealth Text-Message Intervention

As the use of mobile phones for health promotion continues to grow, more work needs to be done to determine which health communication strategies are influential on mobile devices. In two studies conducted with college women in the United States, we assessed the potential for the use of narratives, a strategy found successful in a number of communication channels, in a text-message intervention. The first study consisted of seven focus groups with young women (n = 31) about their perceptions of narrative storylines in a text-message intervention about alcohol and casual sexual encounters. In a second study, we then used an experiment (n = 137) to test the potential of narrative messages to influence transportation, counter-arguing, identification, attitudes toward the intervention type, and attitudes toward the messages. Results showed that women were interested in the possibility of receiving health messages, including narrative health messages, via text message. However, the experiment found limited differences between narrative, non-narrative, and control conditions. Transportation was greater in the narrative condition than in the control, but did not significantly differ from the non-narrative condition. Counter-arguing was also greater in the narrative condition than in the non-narrative condition. Participants who viewed the narrative messages had more positive attitudes toward the messages. Based on both studies, we found that the use of narratives in text messages may be a promising strategy, but it may be a challenge to craft effective content.
An Articulatory-Based Singing Voice Synthesis Using Tongue and Lips Imaging

Ultrasound imaging of the tongue and videos of lips movements can be used to investigate specific articulation in speech or singing voice. In this study, tongue and lips image sequences recorded during singing performance are used to predict vocal tract properties via Line Spectral Frequencies (LSF). We focused our work on traditional Corsican singing " Cantu in paghjella ". A multimodal Deep Autoencoder (DAE) extracts salient descriptors directly from tongue and lips images. Afterwards, LSF values are predicted from the most relevant of these features using a multilayer perceptron. A vocal tract model is derived from the predicted LSF, while a glottal flow model is computed from a synchronized electroglottographic recording. Articulatory-based singing voice synthesis is developed using both models. The quality of the prediction and singing voice synthesis using this method outperforms the state of the art method.
THE STRUCTURE OF EOSINOPHIL LEUKOCYTE GRANULES IN RODENTS AND IN MAN

The structure of the specific granules of eosinophil leukocytes has been studied by electron microscopy in sections of tissues, buffy coats, and sediments of peritoneal washings of rats, mice, guinea pigs, and men. The core of eosinophil granules is a crystal which has a cubic lattice with a repeat of ∼30 A in rodents and ∼40 A in man. The chemical composition of the core is discussed in connection with recent cell fractionation studies, and the hypothesis that the core is a crystal of peroxidase is considered.
Monozygotic and dizygotic twins reared together: sensitivity of heritability estimates.

This paper examines the method of estimating the heritable component of behavioural traits by comparing observed similarities between pairs of MZ (monozygotic) twins as opposed to DZ (dizygotic) twins. The technique of sensitivity analysis is used to investigate the importance of assumptions made to calculate heritability estimates. This permits not only the investigation of specific assumptions, but also the effects of different combinations of assumptions. The assumptions examined include: the level of assortative mating, degree of intra-pair environmental similarity of MZ as opposed to DZ twins, and the presence of genotype-environment covariance. It is noted that estimates of genetic variance—although large—are sensitive to small changes in these assumptions, and that different combinations of assumptions can produce similar estimates of genetic variance. Although this work is effected within the classical twin method, its implications are also valid for more sophisticated analyses of the ‘nature-nurture’ problem.
A generic framework for the elicitation of stable and reliable gene expression signatures

In the recent years microarray technologies have gained a lot of popularity for their ability to quickly measure the expression of thousands of genes and provide valuable information for linking complex diseases such as cancer to their genetic underpinnings. Nevertheless the large number of parameters to be estimated in relation to the small number of available samples gives rise to an “ill posed” problem where the possible solution is not stable under slight changes either in the dataset or the initial conditions and starting points. In this work we present a generic classification framework that works in an iterative manner and converges to a stable solution that combines good accuracy with biologically meaningful feature selection. The methodology is orthogonal to the specific classification algorithm used. We compare some of the most widely used classifiers based on their average discrimination power and the size of the derived gene signature. According to our proposed model named Stable Bootstrap Validation (SBV), a unified `77 common-gene signature' was selected, which is closely associated with several aspects of breast tumorigenesis and progression, as well as patient-specific molecular and clinical characteristics.