Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dielectric and thermal properties of parylene N and D films for power electronic surface insulation

In this paper, we have investigated the impact of a crystallization performed through a 300°C thermal curing on the dielectric properties and thermal characteristics of parylene N (PA-N) and parylene D (PA-D). Particularly, the evolution of the permittivity and loss factor in temperature and frequency ranges from -150°C to 300°C, and from 10-1 Hz to 106 Hz respectively, and the DC and AC dielectric strength have been measured. The results show a strong impact of crystallization on PA-N while PA-D remains unaffected.
Chromosomal sites of integration of simian virus 40 DNA sequences mapped by in situ hybridization in two transformed hybrid cell lines

Simian virus 40 DNA sequences, integrated on human chromosome 7 in two transformed human-mouse hybrid somatic cell lines, were mapped to a specific chromosomal locus by in situ hybridization. To detect the integrated viral DNA by in situ hybridization, we increased the sensitivity of the technique by using as a probe 125I-labeled simian virus 40 cRNA (2 X 10(9) to 3 X 10(9) dpm/micrograms) prepared by in vitro transcription of simian virus 40 DNA with high-specific-radioactivity [125I]CTP. Although the viral nucleic acid was shown by blot hybridization in the two cell lines to be integrated in different restriction fragments, it was shown by in situ hybridization in the two cell lines to map to the same position, q31, on the long arm of human chromosome 7. The viral DNA integration sites were localized with a precision of +/- 1 silver grain diameter, equivalent to about 6.2 X 10(7) nucleotide pairs in the human genome. The procedures we describe may be adapted for localization of any gene on diploid chromosomes that can be cloned in a recombinant DNA vector.
A highly integrated and flexible joint test system based on DSP/FPGA-FPGA

This paper analyzes that a flexible robot test system should have these properties of data acquisition, servo control, multi-communication modes, complex and fast computation, multitasking and friendly interface. This paper investigates a highly integrated and flexible joint test system for HIT arm based on DSP/FPGA-FPGA. This test system includes two hardware levels, Cartesian level and joint level. The Cartesian level includes a digital signal processing/field programmable gate array (DSP/FPGA) structure. Based on this level, complex control algorithm and fast computation can be carried out; the joint level has the other FPGA, it can realize two joints functions: all sensors data acquisition, servo control. In this test system, there are two communication modes: CAN bus and M-LVDS bus. According to the hardware architecture, a novel software architecture was designed, which consists of three levels: external user level, the higher level and the lower level. This system is flexible, many measures and experiments can be implemented by this system. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the highly integrated and flexible joint test system.
Comparação dos casos mais contrastantes: método pioneiro central na era da globalização

Este artigo trata da metodologia comparativa centrada nos casos mais contrastantes e mostra a utilidade crescente deste metodo no mundo atual, marcado pela escalada da globalizacao. O metodo dos casos mais diferentes foi desenvolvido nos anos sessenta, epoca em que se privilegiavam as abordagens estrutural-funcionalistas, que tendiam a mostrar a unicidade ou, pelo menos, a uniformidade das trajetorias de mudanca ou de desenvolvimento das sociedades humanas. Esse metodo demonstrou, em contrapartida, a utilidade de uma ferramenta metodologica que se debruca sobre a pluralidade das formas sociais, tais como as do religioso, do comercio, da conquista, do trabalho, etc. Esse artigo busca situar as abordagens comparativas em termos de casos mais diferentes no contexto dos debates metodologicos contemporâneos sobre o comparatismo. Em seguida, propoe uma definicao da globalizacao e dos mecanismos que explicam a transformacao das condicoes da comparacao em um mundo globalizado. Conclui-se, enfim, por uma avaliacao das virtudes e dos limites das abordagens comparativas dos casos mais diferentes em um contexto de globalizacao.
Molecular Characterization of Rice OsLCB2a1 Gene and Functional Analysis of its Role in Insect Resistance

In plants, sphingolipids, such as long-chain bases (LCBs), act as bioactive molecules in stress responses. Until now, it is still not clear if these lipids are involved in biotic stress responses to herbivore. Herein we report that a rice LCB gene, OsLCB2a1 encoding a subunit of serine palmitoyltransferase (SPT), a key enzyme responsible for the de novo biosynthesis of sphingolipids, plays a critical role in plant defense response to the brown planthopper (BPH) attack and that its up-regulation protects plants from herbivore infestation. Transcripts of OsLCB2a1 gene in rice seedlings were increased at 4 h, but decreased at 8–24 h after BPH attack. Sphingolipid measurement profiling revealed that overexpression of OsLCB2a1 in Arabidopsis thaliana increased trihydroxylated LCB phytosphingosine (t18:0) and phytoceramide by 1.7 and 1.3-fold, respectively, compared with that of wild type (WT) plants. Transgenic Arabidopsis plants also showed higher callose and wax deposition in leaves than that of WT. Overexpression of OsLCB2a1 gene in A. thaliana reduced the population size of green peach aphid (Myzus persicae). Moreover, the electrical penetration graph (EPG) results indicated that the aphids encounter resistance factors while reaching for the phloem on the transgenic plants. The defense response genes related to salicylic acid signaling pathway, remained uplgulated in the OsLCB2a1-overexpressing transgenic plants. Our data highlight the key functions of OsLCB2a1 in biotic stress response in plants.
Cx30.2 enhancer analysis identifies Gata4 as a novel regulator of atrioventricular delay

The cardiac conduction system comprises a specialized tract of electrically coupled cardiomyocytes responsible for impulse propagation through the heart. Abnormalities in cardiac conduction are responsible for numerous forms of cardiac arrhythmias, but relatively little is known about the gene regulatory mechanisms that control the formation of the conduction system. We demonstrate that a distal enhancer for the connexin 30.2 (Cx30.2, also known as Gjd3) gene, which encodes a gap junction protein required for normal atrioventricular (AV) delay in mice, is necessary and sufficient to direct expression to the developing AV conduction system (AVCS). Moreover, we show that this enhancer requires Tbx5 and Gata4 for proper expression in the conduction system, and Gata4+/- mice have short PR intervals indicative of accelerated AV conduction. Thus, our results implicate Gata4 in conduction system function and provide a clearer understanding of the transcriptional pathways that impact normal AV delay.
The two faces of leadership

A number of years ago, the psychologist David McClelland, in his studies of managerial motivation, identified two types of power: egoistic (using others for personal gain) and social (facilitating group cooperation and effort for the achievement of the general good). Clearly, the power motive is intimately related to the concept of leadership. However, over the last two or three decades, a school of thought has arisen which equates leadership with “doing the right thing”. Defining leadership in such an ethical light is both misleading and dangerous. Leadership, as influence skill, possesses the ability to induce both positive and negative results. A failure to acknowledge and examine the “dark side” of leadership can distort efforts to learn about leadership, may encourage development of a blind‐eye approach to examining the results of influence attempts, and might turn well‐intentioned groups into lemmings heading for the sea. Authenticity requires a balanced discussion.
Ournal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment Non-abelian Statistics in the Interference Noise of the Moore–read Quantum Hall State

We propose noise oscillation measurements in a double point contact, accessible with current technology, to seek for a signature of the non-abelian nature of the ν = 5/2 quantum Hall state. Calculating the voltage and temperature dependence of the current and noise oscillations, we predict the non-abelian nature to materialize through a multiplicity of the possible outcomes: two qualitatively different frequency dependences of the nonzero interference noise. Comparison between our predictions for the Moore–Read state with experiments on ν = 5/2 will serve as a much needed test for the nature of the ν = 5/2 quantum Hall state.
A brief update on the specificity of sexual arousal

In this article I review research on specificity of sexual arousal conducted since 2005. Three lines of investigation – sexual psychophysiology, visual attention and brain response – demonstrate convergence; women's response is non-specific whereas men's is specific to preferred sexual stimuli. The implications of these findings, with respect to the nature of sexual features that elicit genital response in women, the relationship between sexual orientation and sexual arousal and the role of genital-subjective concordance in women's sexual functioning, are discussed.
Effects of Aromatherapy on the Anxiety, Vital Signs, and Sleep Quality of Percutaneous Coronary Intervention Patients in Intensive Care Units

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of aromatherapy on the anxiety, sleep, and blood pressure (BP) of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) patients in an intensive care unit (ICU). Fifty-six patients with PCI in ICU were evenly allocated to either the aromatherapy or conventional nursing care. Aromatherapy essential oils were blended with lavender, roman chamomile, and neroli with a 6 : 2 : 0.5 ratio. Participants received 10 times treatment before PCI, and the same essential oils were inhaled another 10 times after PCI. Outcome measures patients' state anxiety, sleeping quality, and BP. An aromatherapy group showed significantly low anxiety (t = 5.99, P < .001) and improving sleep quality (t = −3.65, P = .001) compared with conventional nursing intervention. The systolic BP of both groups did not show a significant difference by time or in a group-by-time interaction; however, a significant difference was observed between groups (F = 4.63, P = .036). The diastolic BP did not show any significant difference by time or by a group-by-time interaction; however, a significant difference was observed between groups (F = 6.93, P = .011). In conclusion, the aromatherapy effectively reduced the anxiety levels and increased the sleep quality of PCI patients admitted to the ICU. Aromatherapy may be used as an independent nursing intervention for reducing the anxiety levels and improving the sleep quality of PCI patients.
Web interface for brownian dynamics simulation of ion transport and its applications to beta‐barrel pores

Brownian dynamics (BD) based on accurate potential of mean force is an efficient and accurate method for simulating ion transport through wide ion channels. Here, a web‐based graphical user interface (GUI) is presented for carrying out grand canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) BD simulations of channel proteins: http://www.charmm‐gui.org/input/gcmcbd. The webserver is designed to help users avoid most of the technical difficulties and issues encountered in setting up and simulating complex pore systems. GCMC/BD simulation results for three proteins, the voltage dependent anion channel (VDAC), α‐Hemolysin (α‐HL), and the protective antigen pore of the anthrax toxin (PA), are presented to illustrate the system setup, input preparation, and typical output (conductance, ion density profile, ion selectivity, and ion asymmetry). Two models for the input diffusion constants for potassium and chloride ions in the pore are compared: scaling of the bulk diffusion constants by 0.5, as deduced from previous all‐atom molecular dynamics simulations of VDAC, and a hydrodynamics based model (HD) of diffusion through a tube. The HD model yields excellent agreement with experimental conductances for VDAC and α‐HL, while scaling bulk diffusion constants by 0.5 leads to underestimates of 10–20%. For PA, simulated ion conduction values overestimate experimental values by a factor of 1.5–7 (depending on His protonation state and the transmembrane potential), implying that the currently available computational model of this protein requires further structural refinement. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2012
Tournefortia sarmentosa extract attenuates acetaminophen-induced hepatotoxicity

Context: Tournefortia sarmentosa Lam. (Boraginaceae), a Chinese herbal medicine, is commonly used as a detoxicant or anti-inflammatory agent. Objective: As acetaminophen (APAP) is a well-known hepatotoxin, we investigated the effect of the aqueous extract of the T. sarmentosa on APAP-induced hepatotoxicity in vivo and in vitro. Materials and methods: Levels of liver function markers serum glutamate oxaloacetate transaminase (SGOT), glutamate pyruvate transaminase (SGPT), and alkaline phosphatase (ALP), inflammatory markers tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, interleukin (IL)-1b, and IL-6 in serum, and antioxidant enzymes catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and glutathione peroxidase (GPx), as well as lipid peroxidation were determined. Results: T. sarmentosa significantly reduced the elevated liver function (SGOT, SGPT, and ALP, p < 0.01) and inflammatory markers (TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6, p < 0.01) in serum of APAP-intoxicated rats. Malondialdehyde level (p < 0.05) and antioxidant enzyme levels (CAT, SOD, and GPx, p < 0.05) were also reduced in APAP-intoxicated rats treated with T. sarmentosa. Incubation of rat hepatocyte cell line clone-9 cells with APAP reduced cell viability and increased the extent of lipid peroxidation. APAP stimulation also reduced the level of glutathione (GSH) and caused reduction in the activities of the antioxidant enzymes, CAT, SOD, and GPx. Pretreatment of hepatocytes with T. sarmentosa aqueous extract before and during APAP stimulation attenuated the extent of lipid peroxidation, increased cell viability and GSH level, and enhanced the activities of antioxidant enzymes. Discussion and conclusion: These data suggest that the aqueous extract of T. sarmentosa can prevent APAP-induced hepatotoxicity.
Symbiotic and sensitivity-aware architecture for globally-optimal benefit in self-adaptive cloud

Due to the uncertain and dynamic demand for Quality of Service (QoS) in cloud-based systems, engineering self-adaptivity in cloud architectures require novel approaches to support on-demand elasticity. The architecture should dynamically select an elastic strategy, which optimizes the global benefit for QoS and cost objectives for all cloud-based services. The architecture shall also provide mechanisms for reaching the strategy with minimal overhead. However, the challenge in the cloud is that the nature of objectives (e.g., throughput and the required cost) and QoS interference could cause overlapping sensitivity amongst intra- and inter-services objectives, which leads to objective-dependency (i.e., conflicted or harmonic) during optimization. In this paper, we propose a symbiotic and sensitivity-aware architecture for optimizing global-benefit with reduced overhead in the cloud. The architecture dynamically partitions QoS and cost objectives into sensitivity independent regions, where the local optimums are achieved. In addition, the architecture realizes the concept of symbiotic feedback loop, which is a bio-directional self-adaptive action that not only allows to dynamically monitor and adapt the managed services by scaling to their demand, but also to adaptively consolidate the managing system by re-partitioning the regions based on symptoms. We implement the architecture as a prototype extending on decentralized MAPE loop by introducing an Adaptor component. We then experimentally analyze and evaluate our architecture using hypothetical scenarios. The results reveal that our symbiotic and sensitivity-aware architecture is able to produce even better global benefit and smaller overhead in contrast to other non sensitivity-aware architectures.
RECENT ADVANCES IN ROMANIAN LANGUAGE TEXT-TO-SPEECH SYNTHESIS

Spoken language interfaces are currently playing an increasing role in the human-machine interaction, becoming a necessity for most of the new practical applications and services demanded by our modern and “mobile” world. This is mainly a consequence of the fact that communication networks may offer simple and inexpensive access to a large amount of diversified information and services, concurring to the development of many economic and social domains from the Information Society. In particular, machine’s voice output is already largely required to expand the potential of the commercial applications, adding flexibility, speed and naturalness to existent interfaces. This paper describes our recent work in developing a high-quality text-to-speech synthesis system in Romanian language and presents a telecommunication platform based on a client-server architecture and standardized signaling protocols for accessing text information through communication channels.
Short Dynamic Group Signature Scheme Supporting Controllable Linkability

The controllable linkability of group signatures introduced by Hwang et al. enables an entity who has a linking key to find whether or not two group signatures were generated by the same signer, while preserving the anonymity. This functionality is very useful in many applications that require the linkability but still need the anonymity, such as sybil attack detection in a vehicular ad hoc network and privacy-preserving data mining. In this paper, we present a new group signature scheme supporting the controllable linkability. The major advantage of this scheme is that the signature length is very short, even shorter than this in the best-known group signature scheme without supporting the linkability. We have implemented our scheme in both a Linux machine with an Intel Core2 Quad and an iPhone4. We compare the results with a number of existing group signature schemes. We also prove security features of our scheme, such as anonymity, traceability, nonframeability, and linkability, under a random oracle model.
The Health Orientation Scale: A measure of psychological tendencies associated with health

Health professionals have recently begun to examine the impact of psychological tendencies on people's physical health. The present investigation sought to facilitate this research endeavour through the development and validation of a self‐report instrument designed to measure multiple health‐related psychological tendencies. Reliability analyses provided evidence of internal consistency for the subscales of the Health Orientation Scale. Other results indicated that both gender and age jointly influenced people's responses to the Health Orientation Scale. A final set of results revealed that the psychological variables measured by the Health Orientation Scale were predictive of women's and men's self‐reported compliance with health‐promoting behaviours. The discussion focuses on the potential uses of the Health Orientation Scale in both research and applied settings.
miRvestigator: web application to identify miRNAs responsible for co-regulated gene expression patterns discovered through transcriptome profiling

Transcriptome profiling studies have produced staggering numbers of gene co-expression signatures for a variety of biological systems. A significant fraction of these signatures will be partially or fully explained by miRNA-mediated targeted transcript degradation. miRvestigator takes as input lists of co-expressed genes from Caenorhabditis elegans, Drosophila melanogaster, G. gallus, Homo sapiens, Mus musculus or Rattus norvegicus and identifies the specific miRNAs that are likely to bind to 3′ un-translated region (UTR) sequences to mediate the observed co-regulation. The novelty of our approach is the miRvestigator hidden Markov model (HMM) algorithm which systematically computes a similarity P-value for each unique miRNA seed sequence from the miRNA database miRBase to an overrepresented sequence motif identified within the 3′-UTR of the query genes. We have made this miRNA discovery tool accessible to the community by integrating our HMM algorithm with a proven algorithm for de novo discovery of miRNA seed sequences and wrapping these algorithms into a user-friendly interface. Additionally, the miRvestigator web server also produces a list of putative miRNA binding sites within 3′-UTRs of the query transcripts to facilitate the design of validation experiments. The miRvestigator is freely available at http://mirvestigator.systemsbiology. net.
Universal Memory Architectures for Autonomous Machines

We propose a self-organizing memory architecture for perceptual experience, capable of supporting autonomous learning and goal-directed problem solving in the absence of any prior information about the agent's environment. The architecture is simple enough to ensure (1) a quadratic bound (in the number of available sensors) on space requirements, and (2) a quadratic bound on the time-complexity of the update-execute cycle. At the same time, it is sufficiently complex to provide the agent with an internal representation which is (3) minimal among all representations of its class which account for every sensory equivalence class subject to the agent's belief state; (4) capable, in principle, of recovering the homotopy type of the system's state space; (5) learnable with arbitrary precision through a random application of the available actions. The provable properties of an effectively trained memory structure exploit a duality between weak poc sets -- a symbolic (discrete) representation of subset nesting relations -- and non-positively curved cubical complexes, whose rich convexity theory underlies the planning cycle of the proposed architecture.
Choice model analysis of the “pick any/n” type of binary data†

In the “pick any/n” method, subjects are asked to choose any number of items from a list of n items according to some criterion. This kind of data can be analyzed as a special case of either multiple-choice data or successive categories data where the number of response categories is limited to two. An item response model was proposed for the latter case, which is a combination of an unfolding model and a choice model. The marginal maximum-likelihood estimation method was developed for parameter estimation to avoid incidental parameters, and an expectation-maximization algorithm used for numerical optimization. Two examples of analysis are given to illustrate the proposed method, which we call MAXSC.
Investigating the Properties of Self-Organization and Synchronization in Electronic Systems

Nonlinear cooperative behavior appears naturally in many systems, such as cardiac cell oscillations; cellular calcium oscillations; oscillatory chemical reactions, and fireflies. Such systems have been studied in detail due to their inherent properties of robustness, adaptability, scalability, and emergence. In this paper, such nonlinear cooperative behaviors are considered within the domain of electronic system design. We investigate these desirable properties in a system composed of electronic oscillators. The paper presents a series of circuit simulation results showing that self-organizing principles, which can be emulated in an electronic circuit, enable the systems to show a phase transition to synchronization, in a manner similar to those of natural systems. Circuit simulation results presented here show that the circuits are robust to the unreliable performance of the electronic oscillators and tolerant to their run-time faults. These are important findings for future engineering applications in which the system's elements are likely to be unreliable and faulty, such as in molecular- and nanoelectronic systems.