Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
AIDS and multiple sclerosis: neural and mental features

The presence of mental disorder and cognitive functioning were examined in groups of 20 multiple sclerosis (MS) and homosexual acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) ambulatory male outpatients matched for disability and demographic features. Patients who were somatically ill, had past central nervous system infection or tumours or abused intravenous drugs or alcohol were excluded. The groups significantly differed in mental symptoms and mental disorders (DSM‐III classification) seen currently and after the diagnosis of MS or human immunodeficiency virus‐I infection. AIDS patients had pre‐existing anxiety disorders that affected their current mental symptoms. MS patients showed more evidence of cognitive impairment than equally disabled AIDS patients. The differing neural and mental features are discussed in relation to the current concepts of subcortical and cortical disorders.
A new embedded inductor for ZVS DC-DC converter applications

In this paper, a new tapered silicon-embedded coreless power inductor is proposed and demonstrated. The width and depth for the different turns of the inductor are designed with different values to reduce the proximity effect. An 18.6 nH inductance and a peak Q factor of 12.1 are achieved at 23 MHz within a chip area of 0.8 mm2. The AC power loss of the inductor is reduced by a maximum of 56% using the novel design. The inductor shows a peak efficiency of 91% in ZVS conversion applications, and is the highest in monolithic ZVS DC-DC converters reported so far.
Collaborative Serious Games for Crisis Management: An Overview

Training in the field of crisis management is complex and costly, requiring a combination of approaches and techniques to acquire not only technical skills, but also to develop the capability to cooperate and coordinate individual activities towards a collective effort (soft skills). In this paper we focus on serious games for increasing participants' skills in a playful manner. In the paper we identify general issues characterizing crises management and we analyze the state of the art of serious games for crisis management in order to understand strengths and weaknesses of these environments.
Effects of rare earth materials on thin film devices

In this paper, the effects of rare earth materials on thin film devices has been discussed. In order to demonstrate the various effects caused by the rare earth materials, a simple Fully Depleted Silicon on Insulator (FD-SOI) MOSFET of gate length 28nm has been considered. The performance of the device is studied for different type of the rare earth (La2O3 and LaLuO3) materials, used as gate dielectric at different oxide thickness. Further the performance of the device is modelled for study of drain current. It is found that FD-SOI MOSFETs are showing better electrical behavior with rare earth materials and there is flexibility of oxide thickness reduction as compared to conventional materials available in the literature. The device is showing an improvement in its result of drive current (Ion) and off state leakage current (Ioff).
Fanny Price and the Sentimental Genealogy of Mansfield Park

Critics have had a difficult time knowing what to make of Fanny Price. Lionel Trilling flatly declares, "Nobody, I believe, has ever found it possible to like die heroine ofMansfieldPark," Marilyn Buder, arguing for the importance of the novel in the Enlightenment "war of ideas," nevertheless concedes: "That Fanny is a failure is widely agreed. "1 The negative reaction to Fanny began early. Jane Austen's mother "thought Fanny insipid," an assessment endorsed by CS. Lewis and others who focus on Fanny's meekness and passivity.2 Odier critics have made stronger charges, accusing Fanny notjust of dullness but ofselfishness and moral dishonesty. To Avrom Fleishman, Fanny is "a weak woman with self-defensive and self-aggrandizing impulses";
Loss of K‐Cl co‐transporter KCC3 causes deafness, neurodegeneration and reduced seizure threshold

K‐Cl co‐transporters are encoded by four homologous genes and may have roles in transepithelial transport and in the regulation of cell volume and cytoplasmic chloride. KCC3, an isoform mutated in the human Anderman syndrome, is expressed in brain, epithelia and other tissues. To investigate the physiological functions of KCC3, we disrupted its gene in mice. This severely impaired cell volume regulation as assessed in renal tubules and neurons, and moderately raised intraneuronal Cl− concentration. Kcc3−/− mice showed severe motor abnormalities correlating with a progressive neurodegeneration in the peripheral and CNS. Although no spontaneous seizures were observed, Kcc3−/− mice displayed reduced seizure threshold and spike‐wave complexes on electrocorticograms. These resembled EEG abnormalities in patients with Anderman syndrome. Kcc3−/− mice also displayed arterial hypertension and a slowly progressive deafness. KCC3 was expressed in many, but not all cells of the inner ear K+ recycling pathway. These cells slowly degenerated, as did sensory hair cells. The present mouse model has revealed important cellular and systemic functions of KCC3 and is highly relevant for Anderman syndrome.
Catheter Ablation of Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation Initiated by Non–Pulmonary Vein Ectopy

Background—Most of the ectopic beats initiating paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF) originate from the pulmonary vein (PV). However, only limited data are available on PAF originating from the non-PV areas. Methods and Results—Two hundred forty patients with a total of 358 ectopic foci initiating PAF were included. Sixty-eight (28%) patients had AF initiated by ectopic beats (73 foci, 20%) from the non-PV areas, including the left atrial posterior free wall (28, 38.3%), superior vena cava (27, 37.0%), crista terminalis (10, 3.7%), ligament of Marshall (6, 8.2%), coronary sinus ostium (1, 1.4%), and interatrial septum (1, 1.4%). Catheter ablation eliminated AF with acute success rates of 63%, 96%, 100%, 50%, 100%, and 0% in left atrial posterior free wall, superior vena cava, crista terminalis, ligament of Marshall, coronary sinus ostium, and interatrial septum, respectively. During a follow-up period of 22±11 months, 43 patients (63.2%) were free of antiarrhythmic drugs without AF recurrence. Conclusions—Ectopic beats initiating PAF can originate from the non-PV areas, and catheter ablation of the non-PV ectopy has a moderate efficacy in treatment of PAF.
October 2015 Intracellular FRET-based probes : a review

Probes that exploit Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) in their feedback mechanism are touted for their sensitivity, robustness, and low background, and thanks to the exceptional distance dependence of the energy transfer process, they provide a means of probing lengthscales well below the resolution of light. These attributes make FRET-based probes superbly suited to an intracellular environment, and recent developments in biofunctionalization and expansion of imaging capabilities have put them at the forefront of intracellular studies. Here, we present an overview of the engineering and execution of a variety of recent intracellular FRET probes, highlighting the diversity of this class of materials and the breadth of application they have found in the intracellular environment. TOPICAL REVIEW
Policy Reforms Affecting Agricultural Incentives: Much Achieved, Much Still Needed

For decades, earnings from farming in many developing countries have been depressed by a pro-urban bias in own-country policies, as well as by governments of richer countries favoring their farmers with import barriers and subsidies. Both sets of policies reduce national and global economic welfare and inhibit agricultural trade and economic growth. They almost certainly add to inequality and poverty in developing countries, since three-quarters of the world's billion poorest people depend on farming for their livelihood. During the past two decades, however, numerous developing country governments have reduced their sectoral and trade policy distortions, while some high-income countries also have begun reducing market-distorting aspects of their farm policies. The author surveys the changing extent of policy distortions to prices faced by developing country farmers over the past half century, and provides a summary of new empirical estimates from a global economy-wide model that yield estimates of how much can be gained by removing the interventions remaining as of 2004. The author concludes by pointing to the scope and prospects for further pro-poor policy reform in both developing and high-income countries.
Cardiac Flow Measurement by Ultrafast CT: Validation of Continuous and Pulsatile Flow

To gauge the accuracy of ultrafast CT in measuring cardiac output and myocardial perfusion in humans, measurements of continuous and pulsatile flow were made in a large asymmetrical phantom. The variation in the relationship between Hounsfield number and contrast concentration was assessed in a human thorax phantom. Radiopaque contrast medium was injected during perfusion of the phantom at a range of flow rates between 1.5 and 8 L/min. The phantom was scanned in two modes (50 and 100 ms) during continuous and pulsatile flow and with the phantom surrounded by air and by water. Flow in the tubes was calculated using indicator dilution theory, and flow in the tissue-equivalent chamber was calculated by applying first-pass distribution principles. The standard deviation of the difference between calculated and measured flow varied from 0.2 to 0.6 L/min, giving 95% limits of agreement from 0.4 to 1.2 L/min. The constant (K) relating Hounsfield unit number to iodine concentration varied widely both in different locations within the phantom and under different scan conditions (17.2–27.6 HU/mg I). Within a human thorax phantom, K varied from 14***15 to 23.18 HU/mg I and was dependent on location within the thorax phantom, the scan mode, and the cross-sectional diameter of the phantom. These data suggest that though the ultrafast CT scanner can measure continuous and pulsatile flow accurately in tubes, precise measurements of cardiac output in humans will require K to be assessed for each subject. Measurements of flow in tissue should be possible.
A schema mapping technique for XML-based semantic geodata translation

This paper presents a schema mapping technique for XML-based geodata translation/transformation. XML is becoming the universal language for data exchange over the Internet. For geodata exchange, OGC defined the XML-based GML(Geographical Markup Language). Defining XML-based data format alone is not enough for data exchange. Associated techniques are equally important. The proposed schema mapping technique enables to a large extent automatic generation of geodata translator/convertor. Given a pair of source and target data schemas, a user specifies elements correspondence between them in a declarative way. The proposed schema mapping processor takes the schema mapping specification as input and generate geodata translator as output. Due to the automatic generation, semantic reconciliation between source and target schemas is very much facilitated.
Vectors for efficient and high‐throughput construction of fluorescent drosophila reporters using the PhiC31 site‐specific integration system

The fruit fly Drosophila is a leading model system for the study of transcriptional control by cis‐regulatory elements or enhancers. Here, we present a rapid and highly efficient system for the large‐scale analysis of enhancer elements, site‐specifically integrated into the Drosophila genome. This system, which is scalable for either small projects or high‐throughput approaches, makes use of the Gateway cloning technology and the PhiC31 site‐specific integration system, which allows the insertion of constructs at predetermined genomic locations. Thus, this system allows not only a fast and easy analysis of reporter gene expression in live animals, but also the simultaneous analysis of different regulatory outputs on a cellular resolution by recombining in the same animal distinct enhancer elements fused to different fluorescent proteins. genesis 48:452–456, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Optimizing the energy exchange between the Smart Grid and Building Systems

Various Smart Grid (SG) technologies and concepts are currently under investigation, driven by the goals of energy transition policies towards future sustainable, reliable and affordable electricity supply systems. This paper presents an approach for modeling the interaction between the Smart Grid and Building Energy Management Systems (SG-BEMS), using Multi Agent Systems control. The interaction consists of three layers: the smart building, the neighborhood, and the distribution grid. It enables the continuous bidirectional flow of energy and information between SG and BEMS. The proposed framework combines optimization techniques inspired by dynamic game theory and stochastic optimization algorithms. The goal of the optimization is to increase the overall performance, while keeping a good level of comfort for people in the built environment.
Fault-Scalable Virtualized Infrastructure Management

Large-scale virtualized datacenters require considerable automation in infrastructure management in order to operate efficiently. Automation is impaired, however, by the fact that deployments are prone to multiple types of subtle faults due to hardware failures, software bugs, misconfiguration, crashes, performance degraded hardware, etc. Existing Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) management stacks incorporate little to no resilience measures to shield end users from such cloud providerlevel failures and poor performance. This paper proposes and evaluates extensions to IaaS stacks that mask faults in a fault-agnostic manner while ensuring that the overheads can be proportional to observed failure rates. We also demonstrate that infrastructure automation services and end-user applications can use service-specific knowledge, together with our new interface, to achieve better outcomes.
LMDS diversity systems: a new performance model incorporating stratified rain

Cell-site diversity may prove an efficient fade mitigation technique to increase the availability of local multipoint distribution service systems, in this Letter, a recently suggested physical model for the prediction of cell-site diversity performance is properly modified to include stratified rain. The model-obtained is satisfactorily verified using radar derived data from UK and Canada. Simulated BEP results concerning LMDS diversity systems are also presented.
High Precision Image Sensor Scale Factor Calibration

A correlation method is described wherein the calibration accuracy of a commercial precision translator is transferred to the image plane of a camera system through the determination of normalized magnification and scale factor. For example, a commercial translator can have a calibration fractional error of between 10-4 - 10-6 or smaller. This calibration technique employs a simple experimental apparatus consisting of a camera system (CMOS detector and lens), linear translators and a large "random-dot" target. By correlating the shift in a sub-region of the image with the translation of the target over a sequence of translations, the fractional error of the normalized magnification was measured to be 10-4. For applications where the object size is of primary importance (industrial inspection, object tracking), this precision can be traded off for convenience or speed.
Claudin‐2‐dependent Changes in Noncharged Solute Flux Are Mediated by the Extracellular Domains and Require Attachment to the PDZ‐scaffold

Paracellular transport through the tight junction shows selectivity for both ionic charge and solute size. It is known that charged residues on the extracellular loops of claudins control charge selectivity. It is also known that inducible expression of claudin‐2, but not claudin‐4, will selectively increase the permeability for polyethylene glycol (PEG) molecules which are <0.4 Å in radius, but it is not known whether permeability is controlled by the same regions of claudins which control charge selectivity. Using inducible expression of chimeras of claudin‐2 and claudin‐4 in monolayers of MDCK II cells we show that the extracellular loops alone are responsible for controlling the permeability for noncharged PEGs as well as for charge selectivity. Further, the cytoplasmic C‐terminal PDZ‐binding motif is required for wild‐type claudin‐2 to control permeability, suggesting a requirement for attachment to the PDZ scaffold in order to form pores. These observations support a model where the loops form pores controlling permeability for both charged and noncharged solutes which are smaller than 0.4 Å. They leave unanswered why both claudin‐2 and ‐4 can influence electrical properties while only ‐2 can selectively increase permeability for small PEGs.
OFDM versus time-hopping in multiuser ultra wideband communication systems

In this paper we present a comparison between OFDM-based radios and time-hopping impulse radios for ultra wideband (UWB) communication systems operating in a multiuser scenario, with additive white Gaussian noise and multipath channels, and narrowband interference. The comparison of the two different schemes for generating UWB signals is based on results obtained in numerical simulations, and is intended to assist the development of emerging UWB standards.
No additional value of conventional and high-sensitivity cardiac troponin over clinical scoring systems in the differential diagnosis of type 1 vs. type 2 myocardial infarction

Abstract Background: The distinction of type 1 and type 2 myocardial infarction (MI) is of major clinical importance. Our aim was to evaluate the diagnostic ability of absolute and relative conventional cardiac troponin I (cTnI) and high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) in the distinction between type 1 and type 2 MI in patients presenting at the emergency department with non-ST-segment elevation acute chest pain within the first 12 h. Methods: We measured cTnI (Dimension Vista) and hs-cTnT (Cobas e601) concentrations at presentation and after 4 h in 200 patients presenting with suspected acute MI. The final diagnosis, based on standard criteria, was adjudicated by two independent cardiologists. Results: One hundred and twenty-five patients (62.5%)were classified as type 1 MI and 75 (37.5%) were type 2 MI. In a multivariable setting, age (relative risk [RR]=1.43, p=0.040), male gender (RR=2.22, p=0.040), T-wave inversion (RR=8.51, p<0.001), ST-segment depression (RR=8.71, p<0.001) and absolute delta hs-cTnT (RR=2.10, p=0.022) were independently associated with type 1 MI. In a receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, the discriminatory power of absolute delta cTnI and hs-cTnT was significantly higher compared to relative c-TnI and hs-cTnT changes. The additive information provided by cTnI and hs-cTnT over and above the information provided by the “clinical” model was only marginal. Conclusions: The diagnostic information provided by serial measurements of conventional or hs-cTnT is not better than that yielded by a simple clinical scoring model. Absolute changes are more informative than relative troponin changes.
The Solvability of the Halting Problem for 2-State Post Machines

A Post machine is a Turing machine which cannot both write and move on the same machine step. It is shown that the halting problem for the class of 2-state Post machines is solvable. Thus, there can be no universal 2-state Post machine. This is in contrast with the result of Shannon that there exist universal 2-state Turing machines when the machines are capable of both writing and moving on the same step.
Opposite Regulation of Tissue Factor Expression by Calcineurin in Monocytes and Endothelial Cells1

Tissue factor (TF), the primary initiator of blood coagulation with structural homology to the cytokine receptor family, has been implicated in various vascular processes including metastasis, angiogenesis, and atherosclerosis. Within the vasculature, monocytes and endothelial cells (EC) can be activated to synthesize TF depending on the induction of NF-κB. Despite the undisputed value of cyclosporin A (CsA) as an immunosuppressant, problems have emerged due to induction of vascular changes by a poorly understood mechanism. We demonstrate that CsA has opposite effects on TF gene expression, inhibiting NF-κB-mediated TF gene transcription in monocytes but enhancing it in EC. To test whether CsA binding proteins (cyclophilins) can mediate these CsA effects we used a nonimmunosuppressant analog of CsA that binds to cyclophilins but does not inhibit the Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent phosphatase calcineurin (Cn). This drug lacked regulatory function for NF-κB and TF expression suggesting that Cn is responsible for the inverse gene regulation. The key function of Cn was supported by experiments demonstrating that other phosphatase inhibitors also either positively or negatively regulated NF-κB in monocytes and EC. Calcineurin was demonstrated to regulate NF-κB activation at the level of IκBα degradation, because agonist-induced phosphorylation and subsequent degradation of IκBα is prevented by Cn inhibitors in monocytes but enhanced in EC. These data identify Cn as an opposite regulator in generating transcriptionally active NF-κB, and they confirm the presumption that the ability of Cn to participate in NF-κB transactivation is not T cell specific.
Valve Repair Using Autologous Pericardium in Tricuspid Valve Endocarditis

Tricuspid valve endocarditis is a significant cause of valve-related morbidity and mortality. Prosthetic valve reconstruction can be costly and requires life-long anticoagulation. We present our experience with surgical management of an endocarditis damaged tricuspid valve leaflet in an intravenous drug user. We were able to excise the infected tissue and successfully repair the native valve using autologous pericardium, effectively eliminating the need for prostheses and associated complications. Our case report demonstrates that tricuspid valve reconstruction, using autologous pericar-dium, is a suitable option in patients with tricuspid endocarditis.
Microbial Recovery of Copper from Printed Circuit Boards of Waste Computer by Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans

Abstract The bioleaching of copper contained in the printed circuit boards (PCB) of waste computers by A. ferrooxidans was studied. The Fe oxidation rates by A. ferrooxidans in the 9K medium supplemented with the leachate of PCB (0.15–0.13 g L−1 d−1) were similar to that in the 9K medium without the leachate (0.15 g L−1 d−1). This finding suggests that the leachate of PCB did not seriously affect the bioleaching process by this bacterium. The amount of copper leached from PCB shreds increased with the addition of ferrous ion and reached up to 5190 mg L−1 when the initial concentration of Fe2+ ion was 7 g L−1. As the microbial leaching progressed, pale brown precipitate was observed to form in the solution. Based on the total amount of copper, both in solution and precipitate, the optimal addition of ferrous ion for the leaching of copper was around 7 g L−1. When citric acid was not added, only about 37 wt% of the total leached copper remained dissolved; however, the amount of dissolved copper increased to greater than 80 wt% in the presence of citric acid. This fact indicates that the addition of a complexing agent (citric acid) to the bioleaching solution can raise the solubility of the leached metal ions.