Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Improving the security and actuation of wireless controlled microvalve

A wireless microvalve would have a wide range of applications, including biomedical applications such as fertility control and nano-litre drug delivery. Arguably the most important aspect for such a device is a secure method to actuate the valve, such that it is not actuated through the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation already present in the surrounding environment. Additionally, many of the possible applications are sensitive to electromagnetic (EM) radiation so the device should be designed to only require the minimum amount of EM input to actuate the valve. To overcome this problem, we propose the use of a coded interdigital transducer (IDT) to respond only to a coded signal. For the wireless microvalve to be useful in biomedical applications, the IDT's response to a specifically coded RF signal must be much greater than its response to another coded RF signal, even if the two codes are very similar, i.e. improve the signal ratio of the device. In this research we demonstrate a number of code sequences that have a correlation function such that the peak response is unique and can be used to provide a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) surface acoustic wave. That results in a unique activation of the device when the interrogating RF signal code sequence matches the stored code sequence in the device. Also we will investigate the trade-off between the needed code length to ensure secure operation and the area constrain of the device within the context of biomedical application. For this purpose, the IDT is modelled as a pulse compression filter, which correlates the input signal with a stored replica.
Vasospastic individuals demonstrate significant similarity to glaucoma patients as revealed by gene expression profiling in circulating leukocytes

Purpose There is growing evidence that vasospatic individuals could be predisposed to develop glaucoma. Vasospastic deregulation is ensuing in activation of circulating leukocytes. In previous studies using “gene-hunting” strategies, we demonstrated stable alterations in gene expression profiles of circulating leukocytes isolated from glaucoma patients with vascular deregulation when compared to healthy individuals with no history of glaucomatous damage. The goal of this study was to look for possible similarities in gene expression profiles of circulating leukocytes in vasospastic individuals and glaucoma patients. Methods Normal-tension (NTG) and high-tension (HTG) glaucoma patients as well as individuals with vascular deregulation (VD) and healthy controls were recruited for the gene expression analysis. The methodology of comparative Expression Array analysis followed by highly sensitive quantitative real-time PCR has been used. Results Compared to the control group the expression of 146, 68, and 60 genes was found to be altered in NTG, HTG, and VD groups respectively. Thirty-four genes demonstrated similar expressional alterations in NTG, HTG, and VD groups versus controls, and only 21 genes demonstrated similar expressional alterations in NTG and HTG groups, having no overlap with the VD group. Conclusions This result indicates a potential predisposition of vasospastic individuals to glaucomatous optic nerve atrophy. The targeted expression profiles might be further considered for early/predictive glaucoma diagnosis.
Ethanol fuel improves arthropod capture in pitfall traps and preserves DNA

Abstract We tested the value of ethanol fuel as a killing solution in terms of sampling efficiency (species richness and accumulated abundance) and DNA preservation of Ensifera ground-dwelling specimens. Sampling efficiency was evaluated comparing abundance and species richness of pitfall sampling using 100% ethanol fuel, with two alternative killing solutions. We evaluated the DNA preservation efficiency of the killing solutions and of alternative storage solutions. Ethanol fuel was the most efficient killing solution, and allowed successful DNA preservation. This solution is cheaper than other preserving liquids, and is easily acquired near field study sites since it is available at every fuel station in Brazil and at an increasing number of fuel stations in the U.S. We recommend the use of ethanol fuel as a killing and storage solution, because it is a cheap and efficient alternative for large-scale arthropod sampling, both logistically and for DNA preservation. For open habitat sampling with high day temperatures, we recommend doubling the solution volume to cope with high evaporation, increasing its efficacy over two days.
WebPrInSeS: automated full-length clone sequence identification and verification using high-throughput sequencing data

High-throughput sequencing (HTS) is revolutionizing our ability to obtain cheap, fast and reliable sequence information. Many experimental approaches are expected to benefit from the incorporation of such sequencing features in their pipeline. Consequently, software tools that facilitate such an incorporation should be of great interest. In this context, we developed WebPrInSeS, a web server tool allowing automated full-length clone sequence identification and verification using HTS data. WebPrInSeS encompasses two separate software applications. The first is WebPrInSeS-C which performs automated sequence verification of user-defined open-reading frame (ORF) clone libraries. The second is WebPrInSeS-E, which identifies positive hits in cDNA or ORF-based library screening experiments such as yeast one- or two-hybrid assays. Both tools perform de novo assembly using HTS data from any of the three major sequencing platforms. Thus, WebPrInSeS provides a highly integrated, cost-effective and efficient way to sequence-verify or identify clones of interest. WebPrInSeS is available at http://webprinses.epfl. ch/ and is open to all users.
Sintering Effect on Mechanical Properties of Composites Made of Bovine Hydroxyapatite (BHA) and Commercial Inert Glass (CIG)

Composite biomaterials of calcinated bovine bone derived hydroxyapatite (HA) doped with 5 and 10 wt% commercial inert glass (CIG) were prepared by sintering. The production of HA from natural sources satisfies economic and time-saving aims, while the use of CIGs is directed by economic and ecological aspects. The produced composites were subjected to scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction analysis. Measurements of compression strength, microhardness, and density were also carried out. The experimental results and their discussion showed that the type and the composition of incorporated glass are of crucial importance. Consequently, provided that an optimum amount of glass is incorporated, the resultant materials can exhibit good values of compression strength and microhardness and hence they can be suggested for potential use in load-bearing biomedical applications.
Edinburgh Research Explorer Stanford University's Submissions to the WMT 2014 Translation Task

We describe Stanford’s participation in the French-English and English-German tracks of the 2014 Workshop on Statistical Machine Translation (WMT). Our systems used large feature sets, word classes, and an optional unconstrained language model. Among constrained systems, ours performed the best according to uncased BLEU: 36.0% for French-English and 20.9% for English-German.
Meis1, a PBX1-related homeobox gene involved in myeloid leukemia in BXH-2 mice

Leukemia results from the accumulation of multiple genetic alterations that disrupt the control mechanisms of normal growth and differentiation. The use of inbred mouse strains that develop leukemia has greatly facilitated the identification of genes that contribute to the neoplastic transformation of hematopoietic cells. BXH-2 mice develop myeloid leukemia as a result of the expression of an ecotropic murine leukemia virus that acts as an insertional mutagen to alter the expression of cellular proto-oncogenes. We report the isolation of a new locus, Meis1, that serves as a site of viral integration in 15% of the tumors arising in BXH-2 mice. Meis1 was mapped to a distinct location on proximal mouse chromosome 11, suggesting that it represents a novel locus. Analysis of somatic cell hybrids segregating human chromosomes allowed localization of MEIS1 to human chromosome 2p23-p12, in a region known to contain translocations found in human leukemias. Northern (RNA) blot analysis demonstrated that a Meis1 probe detected a 3.8-kb mRNA present in all BXH-2 tumors, whereas tumors containing integrations at the Meis1 locus expressed an additional truncated transcript. A Meis1 cDNA clone that encoded a novel member of the homeobox gene family was identified. The homeodomain of Meis1 is most closely related to those of the PBX/exd family of homeobox protein-encoding genes, suggesting that Meis1 functions in a similar fashion by cooperative binding to a distinct subset of HOX proteins. Collectively, these results indicate that altered expression of the homeobox gene Meis1 may be one of the events that lead to tumor formation in BXH-2 mice.
Baroclinic Flow and the Lorenz-84 Model

The bifurcation diagram of a truncation to six degrees of freedom of the equations for quasi-geostrophic, baroclinic flow is investigated. Period-doubling cascades and Shil'nikov bifurcations lead to chaos in this model. The low dimension of the chaotic attractor suggests the possibility to reduce the model to three degrees of freedom. In a physically comprehensible limit of the parameters this reduction is done explicitly. The bifurcation diagram of the reduced model in this limit is compared to the diagram of the six degrees of freedom model and agrees well. A numerical implementation of the graph transform is used to approximate the three-dimensional invariant manifold away from the limit case. If the six-dimensional model is reduced to a linearisation of the invariant manifold about the Hadley state, the Lorenz-84 model is found. Its parameters can then be calculated from the physical parameters of the quasi-geostrophic model. Bifurcation diagrams at physical and traditional parameter values are compared and routes to chaos in the Lorenz-84 model are described.
Reduced DNA methylation at the PEG3 DMR and KvDMR1 loci in children exposed to alcohol in utero: a South African Fetal Alcohol Syndrome cohort study

Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is a devastating developmental disorder resulting from alcohol exposure during fetal development. It is a considerable public health problem worldwide and is characterized by central nervous system abnormalities, dysmorphic facial features, and growth retardation. Imprinted genes are known to play an important role in growth and development and therefore four imprinting control regions (ICRs), H19 ICR, IG-DMR, KvDMR1 and PEG3 DMR were examined. It is proposed that DNA methylation changes may contribute to developmental abnormalities seen in FAS and which persist into adulthood. The participants included FAS children and controls from the Western and Northern Cape Provinces. DNA samples extracted from blood and buccal cells were bisulfite modified, the ICRs were amplified by PCR and pyrosequencing was used to derive a quantitative estimate of methylation at selected CpG dinucleotides: H19 ICR (six CpG sites; 50 controls and 73 cases); KvDMR1 (7, 55, and 86); IG-DMR (10, 56, and 84); and PEG3 DMR (7, 50, and 79). The most profound effects of alcohol exposure are on neuronal development. In this study we report on epigenetic effects observed in blood which may not directly reflect tissue-specific alterations in the developing brain. After adjusting for age and sex (known confounders for DNA methylation), there was a significant difference at KvDMR1 and PEG3 DMR, but not the H19 ICR, with only a small effect (0.84% lower in cases; p = 0.035) at IG-DMR. The two maternally imprinted loci, KvDMR1 and PEG3 DMR, showed lower average locus-wide methylation in the FAS cases (1.49%; p < 0.001 and 7.09%; p < 0.001, respectively). The largest effect was at the PEG3 DMR though the functional impact is uncertain. This study supports the role of epigenetic modulation as a mechanism for the teratogenic effects of alcohol by altering the methylation profiles of imprinted loci in a locus-specific manner.
Individual feature selection in each One-versus-One classifier improves multi-class SVM performance

Multiclass One-versus-One (OvO) SVM, which is constructed by assembling a group of binary classifiers, is usually treated as a black-box. The usual Multiclass Feature Selection (MFS) algorithm chooses an identical subset of features for every OvO SVM. We question whether the standard process of applying feature selection and then constructing the multiclass classifier is best. We propose that Individual Feature Selection (IFS) can be directly applied to each binary OvO SVM. More specifically, the proposed method selects different subsets of features for each OvO SVM inside the multiclass classifier so that each vote is optimised to discriminate between the two specific classes. This paper shows that this small change to the normal multiclass SVM improves performance and can also reduce the computing time of feature selection. The proposed IFS method is tested on four different datasets for comparing the performance and time cost. Experimental results demonstrate significant improvements compared to the normal MFS method on all four datasets.
How to cope with SEU/SET at system level?

When using electronic commercial components for developing embedded computers dedicated to hard real-time applications (aeronautics, space, .), protection against single event effects are required. An overview of such protections to be implemented at architecture and system levels is provided, to reach the high safety/availability requirements of avionics and space domains.
A study on exception detection and handling using aspect-oriented programming

Aspect oriented programming (AOP) is intended to ease situations that involve many kinds of code tangling. The paper reports on a study to investigate AOP's ability to ease tangling related to exception detection and handling. We took an existing framework written in Java/sup TM/, the JWAM framework, and partially reengineered its exception detection and handling aspects using AspectJ/sup TM/, an aspect oriented programming extension to Java. We found that AspectJ supported implementations that drastically reduced the portion of the code related to exception detection and handling. In one scenario, we were able to reduce that code by a factor of 4. We also found that, with respect to the original implementation in plain Java, AspectJ provided better support for different configurations of exceptional behaviors, more tolerance for changes in the specifications of exceptional behaviors, better support for incremental development, better reuse, automatic enforcement of contracts in applications that use the framework, and cleaner program texts. We also found some weaknesses of AspectJ that should be addressed in the future.
BUAP_1: A Naïve Approach to the Entity Linking Task

In these notes we are reporting the obtained results by applying the Naive Bayes classifier to the Entity Linking task of the Knowledge Base Population track at the Text Analysis Conference. Three different runs were submitted to the challenge, each with different ways of approaching the application of the above mentioned classifier. The obtained results were very low, and recent analyses showed that this issue was derived from errors at the pre-processing stage.
Fibromyalgia Syndrome: Etiology, Pathogenesis, Diagnosis, and Treatment

Fibromyalgia syndrome is mainly characterized by pain, fatigue, and sleep disruption. The etiology of fibromyalgia is still unclear: if central sensitization is considered to be the main mechanism involved, then many other factors, genetic, immunological, and hormonal, may play an important role. The diagnosis is typically clinical (there are no laboratory abnormalities) and the physician must concentrate on pain and on its features. Additional symptoms (e.g., Raynaud's phenomenon, irritable bowel disease, and heat and cold intolerance) can be associated with this condition. A careful differential diagnosis is mandatory: fibromyalgia is not a diagnosis of exclusion. Since 1990, diagnosis has been principally based on the two major diagnostic criteria defined by the ACR. Recently, new criteria have been proposed. The main goals of the treatment are to alleviate pain, increase restorative sleep, and improve physical function. A multidisciplinary approach is optimal. While most nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and opioids have limited benefit, an important role is played by antidepressants and neuromodulating antiepileptics: currently duloxetine (NNT for a 30% pain reduction 7.2), milnacipran (NNT 19), and pregabalin (NNT 8.6) are the only drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of fibromyalgia. In addition, nonpharmacological treatments should be associated with drug therapy.
The fractal analysis of the fracture surface of concretes made from different coarse aggregates

The article presents the results of examination of the fractal dimension D of concrete specimenrnfracture surfaces obtained in fracture toughness tests. The concretes were made from three different types of coarse aggregate: gravel, dolomite and basalt aggregate. Ordinary concretes (C40) and highperformance concretes (HPC) were subjected to testing after 7, 14, 28 and 90 days of curing, respectively. In fracture toughness and compressive tests, different behaviours of concretes were found, depending on the type of aggregate and class of concrete (C40, HPC). A significant increase in the strength parameters tested occurred also after a period of 28 days (up to the 90th day of curing) and was particularly large for concretes C40. Fractal examinations performed on fracture replicas showed that the fractal dimension D was diverse, depending on the coarse aggregate type and concrete class being, however, statistically constant after 7 and 14 days for respective concretes during curing. The fractal dimension D was the greater, the worse strength properties were possessed by the concrete. A cross-grain crack propagation occurred in that case, due to weak cohesion forces at the coarse aggregate/mortar interface. A similar effect was observed for C40 and HPC made from the same aggregate. A greater dimension D was exhibited by concretes C40, in which case the fracture was easier to form compared with highperformance concretes, where, as a result of high aggregate/mortar cohesion forces, the crack propagation was of inter-granular type, and the resulted fracture was flatter.
Real-Time Path Planning in Unknown Environments for Bipedal Robots

Autonomous navigation in dynamic and unknown environments requires real-time path planning. Solving the path planning problem for bipedal locomotion quickly and robustly is one of the main challenges in making humanoid robots competitive against mobile platforms. In this letter, we propose strategies to use mobile platform planners for improving the navigation of bipedal robots. These strategies combine advantageously continuous two-dimensional (2-D) paths with conventional step planners for humanoid robots. We introduce a mobile platform planner suitable for real-time navigation. It searches for multiple 2-D paths that makes the path planning more robust against limited calculation time and changing scenarios. It is combined with a step planner and integrated in the framework for autonomous navigation of our robot Lola. We evaluate different strategies in simulation and validate them in experiments in unknown dynamic environments.
Integrated plan tracking and prognosis for autonomous production processes

Today's complex production systems allow to simultaneously build different products following individual production plans. Such plans may fail due to component faults or unforeseen behavior, resulting in flawed products. In this paper, we propose a method to integrate diagnosis with plan assessment to prevent plan failure, and to gain diagnostic information when needed. In our setting, plans are generated from a planner before being executed on the system. If the underlying system drifts due to component faults or unforeseen behavior, plans that are ready for execution or already being executed are uncertain to succeed or fail. Therefore, our approach tracks plan execution using probabilistic hierarchical constraint automata (PHCA) models of the system. This allows to explain past system behavior, such as observed discrepancies, while at the same time it can be used to predict a plan's remaining chance of success or failure. We propose a formulation of this combined diagnosis/assessment problem as a constraint optimization problem, and present a fast solution algorithm that estimates success or failure probabilities by considering only a limited number k of system trajectories.
A Distributed Wireless Sensor Network for Radio Scene Analysis

In this paper, a distributed approach to radio scene analysis is considered. A Wireless Sensor Network, composed by Software Defined and Cognitive terminals, is used to classify air interfaces present in the radio scene. Two modes, namely Frequency Hopping Code Division Multiple Access and Direct Sequence Code Division Multiple Access, are identified, employing a signal processing technique. Time Frequency analysis, and a distributed decision theory. Advantages given by distributed detection are used to improve the performance of a Mode Identification module. Results in terms of error probability are obtained by modelling the probability density function of considered features as Asymmetric Generalized and Generalized Gaussian functions.
Estimating the effectiveness of a hospital’s interventions in India: impact of the choice of disability weights

Abstract Objective To calculate the effect of using two different sets of disability weights for estimates of disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) averted by interventions delivered in one hospital in India. Methods DALYs averted by surgical and non-surgical interventions were estimated for 3445 patients who were admitted to a 106-bed private hospital in a semi-urban area of northern India in 2012–2013. Disability weights were taken from global burden of disease (GBD) studies. We used the GBD 1990 disability weights and then repeated all of our calculations using the corresponding GBD 2010 weights. DALYs averted were estimated for surgical and non-surgical interventions using disability weight, risk of death and/or disability, and effectiveness of treatment. Findings The disability weights assigned in the GBD 1990 study to the sequelae of conditions such as cataract, cancer and injuries were substantially different to those assigned in the GBD 2010 study. These differences in weights led to large differences in estimates of DALYs averted. For all surgical interventions delivered to this patient cohort, 11 517 DALYs were averted if we used the GDB 1990 weights and 9401 DALYs were averted if we used the GDB 2010 disability weights. For non-surgical interventions 5168 DALYs were averted using the GDB 1990 disability weights and 5537 DALYS were averted using the GDB 2010 disability weights. Conclusion Estimates of the effectiveness of hospital interventions depend upon the disability weighting used. Researchers and resource allocators need to be very cautious when comparing results from studies that have used different sets of disability weights.