Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
LOCALI: Calibration-Free Systematic Localization Approach for Indoor Positioning

Recent advancements in indoor positioning systems are based on infrastructure-free solutions, aimed at improving the location accuracy in complex indoor environments without the use of specialized resources. A popular infrastructure-free solution for indoor positioning is a calibration-based positioning, commonly known as fingerprinting. Fingerprinting solutions require extensive and error-free surveys of environments to build radio-map databases, which play a key role in position estimation. Fingerprinting also requires random updates of the database, when there are significant changes in the environment or a decrease in the accuracy. The calibration of the fingerprinting database is a time-consuming and laborious effort that prevents the extensive adoption of this technique. In this paper, we present a systematic LOCALIzation approach, “LOCALI”, for indoor positioning, which does not require a calibration database and extensive updates. The LOCALI exploits the floor plan/wall map of the environment to estimate the target position by generating radio maps by integrating path-losses over certain trajectories in complex indoor environments, where triangulation using time information or the received signal strength level is highly erroneous due to the fading effects caused by multi-path propagation or absorption by environmental elements or varying antenna alignment. Experimental results demonstrate that by using the map information and environmental parameters, a significant level of accuracy in indoor positioning can be achieved. Moreover, this process requires considerably lesser effort compared to the calibration-based techniques.
Thermal alteration of collagenous tissue subjected to biaxial isometric constraints

Thermal Alteration of Collagenous Tissue Subjected to Biaxial Isometric Constraints. (May 2005) Paul Brian Wells, B.S., Texas A&M University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Jay D. Humphrey Clinical thermal therapies are widespread and gaining in appeal due to improved technology of heating devices and promising results. Outcomes of thermal treatment are often unpredictable and suboptimal, however, due in part to a lack of appreciation of the underlying biothermomechanics. There is a pressing need, therefore, to understand better the role of clinically-controllable parameters on the thermal damage processes of tissue. Heretofore, researchers have primarily sought to understand this process through various uniaxial experiments on tissues containing collagen as their primary constituent. Most biological tissues experience multiaxial loading, however, with complex boundary constraints inclusive of both isotonic and isometric conditions. The primary focus of this work is on the isothermal denaturation of fibrillar collagen subjected to a biaxial isometric constraint. Results from our tests reveal a complicated process, the kinetics of which are not easily measured. Evolving isometric contraction forces during heating do not correlate with resultant mechanical behaviors, as thermal shrinkage does in biaxial isotonic tests. Furthermore, resultant mechanical behaviors at various
Modelling and control of the modular multilevel converter in back to back configuration for high power induction machine drives

Drives based on modular multilevel topologies are the next generation of high-power/voltage converters. In this paper, the Modular Multilevel Converter model is extended to the Back to Back scheme, allowing its control as an unique system, instead two separated converters. Additionally, the proposed control strategy is able to regulate the ac ports and to perform the voltage balancing in both converters by using circulating currents and common mode voltage, providing independence between the converters and the ac ports. Extensive computer simulation and a laboratory prototype of a Modular Multilevel Converter with eighteen power cells feeding an induction machine validate the effectiveness of the presented control algorithm.
Disparities in availability of essential medicines to treat non-communicable diseases in Uganda: A Poisson analysis using the Service Availability and Readiness Assessment

Objective Although the WHO-developed Service Availability and Readiness Assessment (SARA) tool is a comprehensive and widely applied survey of health facility preparedness, SARA data have not previously been used to model predictors of readiness. We sought to demonstrate that SARA data can be used to model availability of essential medicines for treating non-communicable diseases (EM-NCD). Methods We fit a Poisson regression model using 2013 SARA data from 196 Ugandan health facilities. The outcome was total number of different EM-NCD available. Basic amenities, equipment, region, health facility type, managing authority, NCD diagnostic capacity, and range of HIV services were tested as predictor variables. Findings In multivariate models, we found significant associations between EM-NCD availability and region, managing authority, facility type, and range of HIV services. For-profit facilities’ EM-NCD counts were 98% higher than public facilities (p < .001). General hospitals and referral health centers had 98% (p = .004) and 105% (p = .002) higher counts compared to primary health centers. Facilities in the North and East had significantly lower counts than those in the capital region (p = 0.015; p = 0.003). Offering HIV care was associated with 35% lower EM-NCD counts (p = 0.006). Offering HIV counseling and testing was associated with 57% higher counts (p = 0.048). Conclusion We identified multiple within-country disparities in availability of EM-NCD in Uganda. Our findings can be used to identify gaps and guide distribution of limited resources. While the primary purpose of SARA is to assess and monitor health services readiness, we show that it can also be an important resource for answering complex research and policy questions requiring multivariate analysis.
Dynamic multinuclear sites formed by mobilized copper ions in NOx selective catalytic reduction

X-ray vision spies copper on the move Copper ions in zeolites help remove noxious nitrogen oxides from diesel exhaust by catalyzing their reaction with ammonia and oxygen. Paolucci et al. found that these copper ions may move about during the reaction (see the Perspective by Janssens and Vennestrom). Zeolite catalysts generally fix metals in place while the reacting partners flow in and out of their cagelike structures. In this case, though, x-ray absorption spectroscopy suggested that the ammonia was mobilizing the copper ions to pair up as they activated oxygen during the catalytic cycle. Science, this issue p. 898; see also p. 866 Copper ions can move about and pair up in a zeolite framework as they catalyze nitric oxide removal from diesel exhaust. Copper ions exchanged into zeolites are active for the selective catalytic reduction (SCR) of nitrogen oxides (NOx) with ammonia (NH3), but the low-temperature rate dependence on copper (Cu) volumetric density is inconsistent with reaction at single sites. We combine steady-state and transient kinetic measurements, x-ray absorption spectroscopy, and first-principles calculations to demonstrate that under reaction conditions, mobilized Cu ions can travel through zeolite windows and form transient ion pairs that participate in an oxygen (O2)–mediated CuI→CuII redox step integral to SCR. Electrostatic tethering to framework aluminum centers limits the volume that each ion can explore and thus its capacity to form an ion pair. The dynamic, reversible formation of multinuclear sites from mobilized single atoms represents a distinct phenomenon that falls outside the conventional boundaries of a heterogeneous or homogeneous catalyst.
Synergistic actions of vitamin D and metformin on skeletal muscles and insulin resistance of type 2 diabetic rats

Diabetes Mellitus is a chronic generalized disorder due to insulin insufficiency or resistance. Skeletal muscles represent one of the most important target organs that is affected by insulin signaling. The aim of the current work was to investigate the effect of metformin versus vitamin D (and also simultaneous administration) therapy in type 2 diabetic (T2D) rats on the state of the muscle and insulin sensitivity. Thirty six male rats constituted the animal model and have been divided into five groups: control, Diabetic, Diabetic + Metformin, Diabetic + Vitamin D, Diabetic + Metformin + Vitamin D. Blood samples were taken for biochemical measurements of serum calcium, interleukin‐6 (IL‐6), Triglycerides (TG), glucose, insulin, and calculation of HOMA‐IR, and then rats were sacrificed, dissected for removal of gastrocnemius muscle that is used for both biochemical, histopathological and electron microscopy examination. Oral administration of vitamin D alone or in combination with metformin improved insulin sensitivity in skeletal muscles, and sustained the metabolic complications along with muscle atrophy and inflammation in T2D rats. We demonstrated super‐beneficial action on insulin resistance of additional vitamin D therapy in T2DM rats that were insufficiently controlled by metformin alone.
Cultural Distress: An Emerging Paradigm

Although cultural competence in practice is a common goal within the health care professions, little is known about the consequences of a lack of such competence in health and healing. We propose a novel theoretical framework of cultural distress to describe patient experiences of and reactions to care that does not incorporate attention to cultural needs. Use of the cultural distress model to guide research offers an innovative framework by which researchers may identify potential interventions such that patients never reach a level of cultural distress.
Helicobacter cinaedi bacteremia in four renal transplant patients: clinical features and an important suggestion regarding the route of infection

Helicobacter cinaedi can cause bacteremia mainly in immunocompromised patients. We present the clinical characteristics of H. cinaedi bacteremia in 4 renal transplant patients. Interestingly, all cases showed triggers of bacterial translocation: 2 cases developed after colonic perforation caused by diverticulitis, 1 case developed post cholecystectomy, and the remaining patient had chronic diarrhea. Accordingly, bacterial translocation caused by severe gastrointestinal complication could be a cause of H. cinaedi bacteremia.
Identification of Phytophthora species by a high resolution melting analysis: an innovative tool for rapid differentiation

A new molecular method via the high resolution melting (HRM) analysis of the Ypt1 gene non-coding regions was validated for ten Phytophthora species with a broad host range from forest trees to crop species. The melting curve analysis of the amplicons specifically grouped all species into 10 respective unique and distinct HRM curve profiles. The analysis of the normalised HRM melting curves, assigning P. nicotianae as a normalised reference genotype, revealed that the genotype similarities among all the species were adequately low, indicating that Ypt1 marker was sufficient to identify and differentiate the tested species. This HRM method is rapid and reproducible allowing the identification of Phytophthora species and the screening of eventual variants eliminating the separate steps and reducing the risk of contamination.
Recycled Concrete in Weak Acidic Environments

Literature often concludes that the drop in mechanical properties of recycled concrete, compared to concrete made with natural aggregates, is unfavourable for concrete durability in aggressive environments. The agricultural industry is one of these environments where concrete floorboards and walls are confronted with weak organic acids. A research program was undertaken to determine the resistance of concrete, made with coarse recycled concrete aggregates (0-75%), against these acids. In this research two different qualities of recycled aggregates were used: while the first originated from road demolition and contained porphyry as main aggregate, the latter originated from mixed demolition and contained mostly limestone. One reference concrete mixture and six different recycled mixtures were made. These seven concretes were exposed to three different acids: acetic, tartaric and citric acid. Beside the acidic resistance tests, workability, density (fresh and hardened) and water absorption (both by capillarity and submersion) were also determined for each mixture. The results show that the increase of acid soluble material increases the resistance of concrete against erosion due to weak acids.
Survival of Bacterial Biofilms within Neutrophil Extracellular Traps Promotes Nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae Persistence in the Chinchilla Model for Otitis Media

Nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi) is a leading cause of acute and chronic otitis media, which are a major public health problem worldwide. The persistence of NTHi during chronic and recurrent otitis media infections involves multicellular biofilm communities formed within the middle-ear chamber. Bacterial biofilms resist immune clearance and antibiotic therapy due in part to encasement within a polymeric matrix. In this study, the contribution of biofilms to bacterial persistence in vivo and composition of the NTHi biofilm matrix during experimental otitis media were investigated. The presence of biofilms within the chinchilla middle-ear chamber was significantly correlated with increased bacterial load in middle-ear effusions and tissue. Examination of thin sections revealed polymorphonuclear cells within a DNA lattice containing elastase and histones, which is consistent with the definition of neutrophil extracellular traps. Viable multicellular biofilm communities with biofilm phenotypes were found within the DNA lattice throughout the biofilm. Further, NTHi was resistant to both phagocytic and extracellular neutrophil killing in vitro by means of lipooligosaccharide moieties that promote biofilm formation. These data support the conclusion that NTHi subverts neutrophil extracellular traps to persist in vivo. These data also indicate that a more inclusive definition for biofilms may be warranted.
Association of Birthweight With Maternal Trajectories of Effort–Reward Imbalance and Demand–Control Across Pregnancy

Objectives: We assessed longitudinal patterns of effort–reward imbalance (ERI) and demand–control (DC) scores in pregnancy, and their association with newborn birthweight (BW). Methods: Sixty-one women were surveyed four times across pregnancy using the ERI and DC questionnaires. Trajectories of change in ERI and DC scores across pregnancy were constructed using growth mixture modeling, and their associations with BW were examined with generalized linear regression. Results: Declining ERI (diminishing effort with stable/increasing reward) was associated with higher BW (408 g; P = 0.015), and was robust to other work factors. DC trajectory was not significantly associated with BW. Conclusions: Declining ERI may reflect improved work psychosocial climate across pregnancy, or a conscious reduction in effort. The ERI model may represent more flexible work characteristics, whereas job control may be less amenable to short-term alteration. Surveys in more diverse pregnant working populations could be recommended.
Human RAD51 rapidly forms intrinsically dynamic nucleoprotein filaments modulated by nucleotide binding state

Abstract Formation of RAD51 filaments on single-stranded DNA is an essential event during homologous recombination, which is required for homology search, strand exchange and protection of replication forks. Formation of nucleoprotein filaments (NF) is required for development and genomic stability, and its failure is associated with developmental abnormalities and tumorigenesis. Here we describe the structure of the human RAD51 NFs and of its Walker box mutants using electron microscopy. Wild-type RAD51 filaments adopt an ‘open’ conformation when compared to a ‘closed’ structure formed by mutants, reflecting alterations in helical pitch. The kinetics of formation/disassembly of RAD51 filaments show rapid and high ssDNA coverage via low cooperativity binding of RAD51 units along the DNA. Subsequently, a series of isomerization or dissociation events mediated by nucleotide binding state creates intrinsically dynamic RAD51 NFs. Our findings highlight important a mechanistic divergence among recombinases from different organisms, in line with the diversity of biological mechanisms of HR initiation and quality control. These data reveal unexpected intrinsic dynamic properties of the RAD51 filament during assembly/disassembly, which may be important for the proper control of homologous recombination.
Reduction of the Influence of Laser Beam Directional Dithering in a Laser Triangulation Displacement Probe

Directional dithering of a laser beam potentially limits the detection accuracy of a laser triangulation displacement probe. A theoretical analysis indicates that the measurement accuracy will linearly decrease as the laser dithering angle increases. To suppress laser dithering, a scheme for reduction of the influence of laser beam directional dithering in a laser triangulation displacement probe, which consists of a collimated red laser, a laser beam pointing control setup, a receiver lens, and a charge-coupled device, is proposed in this paper. The laser beam pointing control setup is inserted into the source laser beam and the measured object and can separate the source laser beam into two symmetrical laser beams. Hence, at the angle at which the source laser beam dithers, the positional averages of the two laser spots are equal and opposite. Moreover, a virtual linear function method is used to maintain a stable average of the positions of the two spots on the imaging side. Experimental results indicate that with laser beam pointing control, the estimated standard deviation of the fitting error decreases from 0.3531 mm to 0.0100 mm, the repeatability accuracy can be lowered from ±7 mm to ±5 μm, and the nonlinear error can be reduced from ±6 % FS (full scale) to ±0.16 % FS.
"Optimization of Silica Fume, Fly Ash and Amorphous Nano-Silica in Superplasticized High-Performance Concrete"

Synopsis: The influence of some pozzolanic additions – such as silica fume, fly ash and ultra-fine amorphous colloidal silica (UFACS) – on the performance of superplasticized concrete was studied. Superplasticized mixtures in form of flowing (slump of 230 mm) or self-compacting concretes (slump flow of 735 mm) were manufactured all with a water-cement ratio as low as 0.44, in order to produce high-performance concretes (HPC). They were cured at room temperature (20°C) or steam-cured at 65°C in order to simulate the manufacturing of pre-cast members. Concretes with ternary combinations of silica fume (15-20 kg/m), fly ash (30-40 kg/m) and UFACS (5-8 kg/m) perform better – in terms of strength and durability – than those with fly ash alone (60 kg/m) and approximately as those with silica fume alone (60 kg/m). Due to the reduced availability of silica fume on the market, these ternary combinations can reduce by 60-70% the needed amount of silica fume for each pre-cast HPC element at a given performance level. Moreover, at later ages the strength reduction in steam-cured concretes with respect to the corresponding concretes cured at room temperature, is negligible or much lower in mixtures with the ternary combinations of pozzolanic additions.
Considering binocular spatial sensitivity in stereoscopic image quality assessment

Developing reliable and generic perceptual quality metrics is an challenging issue in three-dimensional (3D) visual signals processing, although many two dimensional (2D) image quality metrics have been proposed and work well on 2D images. In this paper, the binocular spatial sensitivity influenced by the binocular fusion and rivalry properties is considered in the quality measurement. Firstly, the binocular spatial sensitivity map is modeled to reflect the properties. Then, a framework of integration of binocular spatial sensitivity map into quality assessment is presented. Experimental results show that the proposed metric correlate well with human perception of quality on a dataset of 3D images and human subjective scores.
Revisiting the poverty of the stimulus: hierarchical generalization without a hierarchical bias in recurrent neural networks

Syntactic rules in human language usually refer to the hierarchical structure of sentences. However, the input during language acquisition can often be explained equally well with rules based on linear order. The fact that children consistently ignore these linear explanations to instead settle on hierarchical explanations has been used to argue for an innate hierarchical bias in humans. We revisit this argument by using recurrent neural networks (RNNs), which have no hierarchical bias, to simulate the acquisition of question formation, a hierarchical transformation, in an artificial language modeled after English. Even though this transformation could be explained with a linear rule, we find that some RNN architectures consistently learn the correct hierarchical rule instead. This finding suggests that hierarchical cues within the language are sufficient to induce a preference for hierarchical generalization. This conclusion is strengthened by the finding that adding an additional hierarchical cue, namely syntactic agreement, further improves performance.
Reinforcement of EPDM/SmBO3 and EPDM/ATO Composites by Four Polyolefins: Assessment of Branch Content and Crystallinity

From Van Gurp plot, it was found that low-density polyethylene possesses long branches. The larger number of short branches would consume more peroxide and lower the maximum toque (MH) in cure curves. Rheological studies show the complex viscosity of polypropylene (PP) is the highest among four polyolefins. But PP would undergo beta-scission, which would consume peroxide and also lower the MH. Moreover, the acidic Sb-doped SnO2 (ATO) would retard the cure and descend the chemical crosslink points, which would facilitate the motion of ethylene chain and enhance the crystallinity of polyolefin in ethylene-propylene-diene monomer composites.
Nonparametric survival analysis using Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (BART)

Bayesian additive regression trees (BART) provide a framework for flexible nonparametric modeling of relationships of covariates to outcomes. Recently, BART models have been shown to provide excellent predictive performance, for both continuous and binary outcomes, and exceeding that of its competitors. Software is also readily available for such outcomes. In this article, we introduce modeling that extends the usefulness of BART in medical applications by addressing needs arising in survival analysis. Simulation studies of one‐sample and two‐sample scenarios, in comparison with long‐standing traditional methods, establish face validity of the new approach. We then demonstrate the model's ability to accommodate data from complex regression models with a simulation study of a nonproportional hazards scenario with crossing survival functions and survival function estimation in a scenario where hazards are multiplicatively modified by a highly nonlinear function of the covariates. Using data from a recently published study of patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, we illustrate the use and some advantages of the proposed method in medical investigations. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.