Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Potential distribution computation and structure optimization for composite cross-arms in 750 kV AC transmission line

As composite cross-arm will be used in domestic 750 kV AC transmission line for the first time, careful and meticulous preparatory work is highly needed. Using a three-dimension (3-D) finite-element method (FEM) software, this paper presents computation results of the potential and electric field distribution for composite crossarms in the process of structure optimization. Several optimization programs for composite cross-arm have been studied and the final design is made to omit the suspension insulator string, to increase the length of post insulators and to configure suitable grading and shielding rings based on preliminary design. A set of grading and shielding rings configuration program has been proposed. The comparison between optimized composite cross-arms and 750 kV line composite insulators indicates that composite cross-arms have better potential distribution. The electric tests demonstrate that optimized composite cross-arms have good electrical performance and can meet operation requirements.
Energy efficient V-MIMO using turbo codes in Wireless Sensor Networks

Energy efficiency is a crucial challenge in wireless sensor networks (WSN). In this paper, Turbo Coded Cooperative Communication (TCCC) has been proposed to reduce the energy consumption of the wireless sensor nodes. An energy model for Virtual Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (V-MIMO) cooperative communication using turbo codes is also presented. The proposed technique is energy efficient as it requires lesser transmit energy per bit when compared to conventional uncoded schemes. The energy consumption of uncoded cooperative communication is compared with coded cooperative communication. The effect of code rate, number of participating nodes, channel conditions, target Bit Error Rate (BER) on the total energy consumption is also investigated. From the simulation results, it is evident that the proposed turbo coded cooperative communication with BPSK achieves energy saving of 11.36% when compared with the respective uncoded cooperative communication.
Expectation Propagation for Rectified Linear Poisson Regression

The Poisson likelihood with rectied linear function as non-linearity is a physically plausible model to discribe the stochastic arrival process of photons or other particles at a detector. At low emission rates the discrete nature of this process leads to measurement noise that behaves very dierently from additive white Gaussian noise. To address the intractable inference problem for such models, we present a novel ecient and robust Expectation Propagation algorithm entirely based on analytically tractable computations operating reliably in regimes where quadrature based implementations can fail. Full posterior inference therefore becomes an attractive alternative in areas generally dominated by methods of point estimation. Moreover, we discuss the rectied linear function in the context of other
The heritability of macular response to supplemental lutein and zeaxanthin: a classic twin study.

PURPOSE Antioxidant supplements may reduce age-related macular degeneration (AMD) progression. The macular carotenoids are of particular interest because of their biochemical, optical, and anatomic properties. This classic twin study was designed to determine the heritability of macular pigment (MP) augmentation in response to supplemental lutein (L) and zeaxanthin (Z). METHODS A total of 322 healthy female twin volunteers, aged 16-50 years (mean 40 ± 8.7) was enrolled in a prospective, nonrandomized supplement study. Macular pigment optical density (MPOD) measurements using two techniques (2-wavelength fundus autofluorescence [AF] and heterochromatic flicker photometry [HFP]), and serum concentrations of L and Z, were recorded at baseline, and at 3 and 6 months following daily supplementation with 18 mg L and 2.4 mg Z for a study period of 6 months. RESULTS At baseline, mean MPOD was 0.44 density units (SD 0.21, range 0.04-1.25) using HFP, and 0.41 density units (SD 0.15) using AF. Serum L and Z levels were raised significantly from baseline following 3 months' supplementation (mean increase 223% and 633%, respectively, P < 0.0001 for both), with no MPOD increase. After 6 months' supplementation, a small increase in MPOD was seen (mean increase 0.025 ± 0.16, P = 0.02, using HFP). Subdivision of baseline MPOD into quartiles revealed that baseline levels made no difference to the treatment effect. Genetic factors explained 27% (95% confidence interval [CI] 7-45) of the variation in MPOD response. Distribution profiles of macular pigment did not change in response to supplementation. CONCLUSIONS MPOD response to supplemental L and Z for a period of 6 months was small (an increase over baseline of 5.7% and 3.7%, measured using HFP and AF, respectively), and was moderately heritable. Further study is indicated to investigate the functional and clinical impact of supplementation with the macular carotenoids.
Molecular Congenital Stationary Night Blindness Type 2 Mutations S 229 P , G 369 D , L 1068 P , and W 1440 X Alter Channel Gating or Functional Expression of Cav 1 . 4 L-type Ca 2 Channels

Mutations in the CACNA1F gene (voltage-dependent L-type calcium channel 1F subunit) encoding retinal Cav1.4 L-type Ca 2 channels cause X-linked recessive congenital stationary night blindness type 2 (CSNB2). Many of them are predicted to yield nonfunctional channels. Complete loss of Cav1.4 function is therefore regarded as a pathogenetic mechanism for the impaired signaling from photoreceptors to second-order retinal neurons. We investigated the functional consequences of CSNB2 missense mutations S229P, G369D, and L1068P and the C-terminal truncation mutant W1440X. After expression in Xenopus laevis oocytes or human embryonic kidney tsA-201 cells, inward Ca 2 current (ICa ) and inward Ba 2 current (IBa ) could be recorded from mutations G369D and L1068P. G369D shifted the half-maximal voltage for channel activation (V0.5,act) significantly to more negative potentials ( 11 mV), slowed inactivation, and removed Ca 2 -dependent inactivation. The L1068P mutant yielded currents only in the presence of the channel activator BayK8644. Currents (IBa ) inactivated faster than wild type (WT) and recovered more slowly from inactivation (IBa and ICa ). No channel activity could be measured for mutants S229P and W1440X after oocyte expression. No W1440X 1 protein was detected after expression in tsA-201 cells, whereas S229P (as well as G369D and L1068P) 1 subunits were expressed at levels indistinguishable from WT (n 3). Our data provide unequivocal evidence that CSNB2 missense mutations can induce severe changes in Cav1.4 function, which may decrease (L1068P and S229P) or even increase (G369D) channel activity. The lower activation range of G369D can explain the reduced dynamic range of photoreceptor signaling. Moreover, we demonstrate that loss of channel function of one (L1068P) CSNB2 mutation can be rescued by a Ca 2 channel activator.
CNGL-CORE: Referential Translation Machines for Measuring Semantic Similarity

We invent referential translation machines (RTMs), a computational model for identifying the translation acts between any two data sets with respect to a reference corpus selected in the same domain, which can be used for judging the semantic similarity between text. RTMs make quality and semantic similarity judgments possible by using retrieved relevant training data as interpretants for reaching shared semantics. An MTPP (machine translation performance predictor) model derives features measuring the closeness of the test sentences to the training data, the difficulty of translating them, and the presence of acts of translation involved. We view semantic similarity as paraphrasing between any two given texts. Each view is modeled by an RTM model, giving us a new perspective on the binary relationship between the two. Our prediction model is the 15th on some tasks and 30th overall out of 89 submissions in total according to the official results of the Semantic Textual Similarity (STS 2013) challenge.
Spoken language understanding using finite state tagger and long-range dependency parsing

Spoken language understanding is aimed at the interpretation of signs conveyed by a speech signal. While data-driven methods reduce maintenance and portability costs compared with handcrafted parsers, the collection of word-level semantic annotations for training remains a time-consuming task. This paper has focused on building generative model "Finite State Tagger" from unaligned data, using expectation-maximization techniques to align semantic concepts. Moreover, to model the hierarchical semantic relations in different slot entities, this paper proposed a pipeline architecture using finite state tagger and long-range dependency parsing.
Learning to Acquire Whole-Body Humanoid Center of Mass Movements to Achieve Dynamic Tasks

This paper presents a novel approach for acquiring dynamic whole-body movements on humanoid robots focused on learning a control policy for the center of mass (CoM). In our approach, we combine both a model-based CoM controller and a model-free reinforcement learning (RL) method to acquire dynamic whole-body movements in humanoid robots. (i) To cope with high dimensionality, we use a model-based CoM controller as a basic controller that derives joint angular velocities from the desired CoM velocity. The balancing issue can also be considered in the controller. (ii) The RL method is used to acquire a controller that generates the desired CoM velocity based on the current state. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, we apply it to a ball-punching task on a simulated humanoid robot model. The acquired whole-body punching movement was also demonstrated on Fujitsu's Hoap-2 humanoid robot.
The first law of thermodynamics for Kerr–anti-de Sitter black holes

We obtain expressions for the mass and angular momenta of rotating black holes in anti-de Sitter backgrounds in four, five and higher dimensions. We verify explicitly that our expressions satisfy the first law of thermodynamics, thus allowing an unambiguous identification of the entropy of these black holes with of the area. We find that the associated thermodynamic potential equals the background-subtracted Euclidean action multiplied by the temperature. Our expressions differ from many given in the literature. We find that in more than four dimensions, only our expressions satisfy the first law of thermodynamics. Moreover, in all dimensions we show that our expression for the mass coincides with that given by the conformal conserved charge introduced by Ashtekar, Magnon and Das. We indicate the relevance of these results to the AdS/CFT correspondence.
Practical considerations for non-blocking concurrent objects

An important class of concurrent objects are those that are nonblocking, that is, whose operations are not contained within mutually exclusive critical sections. A nonblocking object can be accessed by many threads at a time, yet update protocols based on atomic compare-and-swap operations can be used to guarantee the object's consistency. The author examines the compare-and-swap operation in the content of contemporary bus-based shared memory multiprocessors, although the results generalize to distributed shared memory multiprocessors. He describes an operating system-based solution that permits the construction of a nonblocking compare-and-swap function on architectures that only support more primitive atomic primitives such as test-and-set or atomic exchange. Several locking strategies are evaluated that can be used to synthesize a compare-and-swap operation, and it is shown that the common techniques for reducing synchronization overhead in the presence of contention are inappropriate when used as the basis for nonblocking synchronization. A simple synchronization strategy is described that has good performance because it avoids much of the synchronization overhead that normally occurs when there is contention. <<ETX>>
Treatment of patients with superficial bladder cancer stratified by risk groups treated with lyophilized Moreau-Rio de Janeiro BCG strain.

INTRODUCTION The Moreau-Rio de Janeiro BCG strain is considered the most effective to stimulate immunologic activity in mice. The objective of this prospective study was to evaluate BCG results for patients with superficial bladder cancer stratified by risk groups. MATERIAL AND METHODS From April 1988 to May 2000, 100 patients were treated by transurethral resection for bladder tumor, followed by intravesical instillation of 40 mg BCG, with induction and maintenance cycles. Fisher exact test and Chi-square test, with 95% significance, were used to evaluate possible associations among variables. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to evaluate the disease-free interval and patients' survival, while log-rank test was used to compare the curves among the groups. RESULTS The median follow-up was 69.3 months and varied from 10 to 153 months. Overall recurrence and progression rates were 55% and 13%, respectively. The medium time to recurrence was 9.4 months and to progression was 24.4 months. The cancer specific survive was 90%. Univariate analysis revealed that tumor recurrence was significantly associated with weekly BCG failure (p=0.011), multifocality (p=0.001), number of recurrences after primary therapy (p=0.001) and the need to Mitomycin C instillation (p=0.001). However, no variable was significantly associated with recurrence in multivariate analysis. There were significant associations, in univariate analysis, between disease progression and the following variables: tumor grade, weekly and 15-days BCG failure, both as first line and second line therapy, recurrence and need of Mitomycin C therapy. Independent variables to progression were 6.7 relative risk to weekly BCG failure, tumor grade and 15-days BCG (p= 0.08; CI=0.79-56.7), 2.4 (p= 0.11; CI=0.80-7.15) and 1.5 (p=0.23; CI=1.05-2.13), respectively. Patient stratification by risk groups were able to predict progression (p=0.045), but not recurrence (p=0.311). Disease progression rates were 3.2%, 12.2% e 25%, in low, intermediate and high risk groups, respectively. The BCG administration was well tolerated, and 21 patients (21%) didn't present any side effects. CONCLUSIONS Intravesical instillation of BCG was overall well tolerated. Adjuvant BCG didn't decrease significantly recurrence rates, and 16% of the patients underwent alternative therapy with intravesical Mitomycin to prevent new recurrences. The risk group classification was able to select patients with high risk to progression. Tumor grade, BCG failure as first and second line therapies, were predictive factors of poor prognosis. BCG of Moreau-Rio de Janeiro strain was well tolerated, similar to other strains used in literature.
Information diffusion and external influence in networks

Social networks play a fundamental role in the diffusion of information. However, there are two different ways of how information reaches a person in a network. Information reaches us through connections in our social networks, as well as through the influence external out-of-network sources, like the mainstream media. While most present models of information adoption in networks assume information only passes from a node to node via the edges of the underlying network, the recent availability of massive online social media data allows us to study this process in more detail. We present a model in which information can reach a node via the links of the social network or through the influence of external sources. We then develop an efficient model parameter fitting technique and apply the model to the emergence of URL mentions in the Twitter network. Using a complete one month trace of Twitter we study how information reaches the nodes of the network. We quantify the external influences over time and describe how these influences affect the information adoption. We discover that the information tends to "jump" across the network, which can only be explained as an effect of an unobservable external influence on the network. We find that only about 71% of the information volume in Twitter can be attributed to network diffusion, and the remaining 29% is due to external events and factors outside the network.
Palliative and supportive care needs of heart failure patients in Africa: a review of recent developments

Purpose of reviewDespite the rising prevalence of heart failure in Africa, it remains unclear what supportive and palliative care services are required to meet patient needs. This review highlights recent contributions to knowledge of the supportive and palliative care needs of heart failure patients in Africa. Recent findingsMultiple epidemiological studies demonstrate the population-level burden of heart failure in Africa, characterized by low levels of ischaemic heart disease and a young mean patient age. However, few studies have addressed patients’ specific palliative and supportive care needs. Only one recent published study investigated the quality of life of heart failure patients in Africa, and although conference abstracts suggest more research is forthcoming, these remain scarce. For service implementation, research is again sparse, but promising recent developments, including a hospital-based palliative care service for organ failure patients and a community-based programme to diagnose and manage heart failure, present future research avenues. SummaryDespite advances in epidemiological knowledge, very little research has investigated the illness experience and multidimensional needs of individuals. Obtaining this evidence through culturally sensitive research is essential to future development and testing of new and existing palliative care services for heart failure patients in Africa. Video abstracthttp://links.lww. com/COSPC/A9
Design of Broadband Highly Linear IQ Modulator Using a 0.5$\mu$m E/D-PHEMT Process for Millimeter-Wave Applications

A broadband highly linear IQ modulator using a 0.5-mum enhancement/depletion-pseudomorphic high-electron mobility transistor process is presented in this letter. An innovative broadside/edge coupler is proposed to apply to the IQ modulator. The chip size is only 1times1 mm2, including radio frequency and baseband PADs. The sideband and local oscillation suppressions of the modulator are better than -33 and -15 dBc, respectively. At a carrier frequency of 60 GHz with a 64 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) modulation, the modulator demonstrates an error vector magnitude of within 3%, and an adjacent channel power ratio of better than -40 dBc. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this work demonstrates the best modulation quality with a 64 QAM modulation up to 60 GHz among all the reported reflection-type IQ modulators.
Scaling up. Using the WWW to Resolve PP Attachment Ambiguities

We have developed a method to resolve ambiguities in prepositional phrase (PP) attachment in German. We measure on the one hand the cooccurrence strength between nouns (N) and prepositions (P) and on the other hand between verbs (V) and prepositions. The competing values of N+P versus V+P are used to decide whether to attach a prepositional phrase to the noun or to the verb. We calculate the cooccurrence strengths from frequencies given by a WWW search engine. We show that our method is easy to use and assigns a confidence level to the attachments depending on the distance between the N+P and the V+P cooccurrence value.
Comprehensive Performance Analysis and Sleep Window Determination for IEEE 802.16 Broadband Wireless Networks

The IEEE 802.16 standard is developed to support services with high data rate and high mobility for the next generation broadband wireless access networks. There are existing sleep mode operations specified in the series of IEEE 802.16 standards in order to provide energy conservation for the mobile devices. In this paper, the analytical models for sleep mode operations of both the IEEE 802.16e and IEEE 802.16m standards are proposed, respectively. The effects of both downlink and uplink traffic are properly considered in the proposed models. Simulations are performed in order to validate the effectiveness of proposed system models. However, according to the performance evaluation for IEEE 802.16e/m system, inefficiency is observed which can be resulted from specific mechanisms within the sleep mode operations, such as frequent state transitions, under-utilized listening windows, and the adoption of binary-exponential growth of sleep window size. A POMDP-based sleep window determination (PSWD) approach is proposed in this paper, which stochastically determines the adequate length of each sleep window according to the traffic pattern. Based on the estimated traffic state, an energy cost-based sleep window determination policy is provided within the PSWD approach in consideration of tolerable network delays. Simulation results show that the proposed PSWD approach outperforms conventional IEEE 802.16e/m power-saving mechanisms in terms of energy conservation while the delay constraints are also satisfied corresponding to various traffic demands.
Effect of the antimicrobial photodynamic therapy on microorganism reduction in deep caries lesions: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract. This study aimed to perform a systematic review to assess the effectiveness of antimicrobial photodynamic therapy (aPDT) in the reduction of microorganisms in deep carious lesions. An electronic search was conducted in Pubmed, Web of Science, Scopus, Lilacs, and Cochrane Library, followed by a manual search. The MeSH terms, MeSH synonyms, related terms, and free terms were used in the search. As eligibility criteria, only clinical studies were included. Initially, 227 articles were identified in the electronic search, and 152 studies remained after analysis and exclusion of the duplicated studies; 6 remained after application of the eligibility criteria; and 3 additional studies were found in the manual search. After access to the full articles, three were excluded, leaving six for evaluation by the criteria of the Cochrane Collaboration’s tool for assessing risk of bias. Of these, five had some risk of punctuated bias. All results from the selected studies showed a significant reduction of microorganisms in deep carious lesions for both primary and permanent teeth. The meta-analysis demonstrated a significant reduction in microorganism counts in all analyses (p<0.00001). Based on these findings, there is scientific evidence emphasizing the effectiveness of aPDT in reducing microorganisms in deep carious lesions.
Precise Static Analysis of Binaries by Extracting Relational Information

While the reconstruction of the control-flow graph of a binary has received wide attention, the challenge of categorizing code into defect-free and possibly incorrect remains a challenge for current static analyses. We present the intermediate language RREIL and a corresponding analysis framework that is able to infer precise numeric information on variables without resorting to an expensive analysis at the bit-level. Specifically, we propose a hierarchy of three interfaces to abstract domains, namely for inferring memory layout, bit-level information and numeric information. Our framework can be easily enriched with new abstract domains at each level. We demonstrate the extensibility of our framework by detailing a novel acceleration technique (a so-called widening) as an abstract domain that helps to find precise fix points of loops.