Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optical Imaging Capillary Plate Gas Detector

A capillary plate (CP) gas detector with a CF4 gas mixture of argon and pure xenon has been successfully operated as a visible and near-infrared (NIR) scintillation proportional counter. Gas gains of up to 104 can be achieved using these gas mixtures. The scintillation light emitted during the generation of electron avalanches can be observed using a photomultiplier tube (PMT) and a compact optical imaging system which consists of a CP gas detector and a cooled charge-coupled device (CCD) camera coupled to lens optics. Using this optical imaging system, clearer images of X-rays have been obtained with the above gas mixtures. The successful operation using these gas mixtures has allowed us to realize a novel imaging device with a CP for medical imaging and gaseous PMTs sensitive to visible light.
Draft Genome Sequence of Klebsiella pneumoniae subsp. pneumoniae DSM 30104T

ABSTRACT Klebsiella pneumoniae is a Gram-negative, rod-shaped, nonmotile, and opportunistic pathogenic species with clinical importance. It is a part of natural flora of humans and animals. Here we report the draft genome sequence of the type strain of Klebsiella pneumoniae subsp. pneumoniae (DSM 30104T) to provide taxonomic and functional insights into the species.
Comparison of no-reference image quality assessment machine learning-based algorithms on compressed images

No-reference image quality metrics are of fundamental interest as they can be embedded in practical applications. The main goal of this paper is to perform a comparative study of seven well known no-reference learning-based image quality algorithms. To test the performance of these algorithms, three public databases are used. As a first step, the trial algorithms are compared when no new learning is performed. The second step investigates how the training set influences the results. The Spearman Rank Ordered Correlation Coefficient (SROCC) is utilized to measure and compare the performance. In addition, an hypothesis test is conducted to evaluate the statistical significance of performance of each tested algorithm.
Anti-inflammatory effects of saponins derived from the roots of Platycodon grandiflorus in lipopolysaccharide-stimulated BV 2 microglial cells

Radix platycodi is the root of Platycodon grandiflorus A. DC, which has been widely used as a food material and for the treatment of a number of chronic inflammatory diseases in traditional oriental medicine. In this study, the anti‐inflammatory effects of the saponins isolated from radix platycodi (PGS) on the production of inflammatory mediators and cytokines in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)‐stimulated BV2 murine microglial cells were examined. We also investigated the effects of PGS on LPS-induced nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) activation and phosphoinositide 3‐kinase (PI3K)/ AKT and mitogen‐activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathways. Following stimulation with LPS, elevated nitric oxide (NO), prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) and pro‐inflammatory cytokine production was detected in the BV2 microglial cells. However, PGS significantly inhibited the excessive production of NO, PGE2 and pro‐inflammatory cytokines, including interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) in a concentration‐dependent manner without causing any cytotoxic effects. In addition, PGS suppressed NF‐κB translocation and inhibited the LPS‐induced phosphorylation of AKT and MAPKs. Our results indicate that the inhibitory effect of PGS on LPS‐stimulated inflammatory response in BV2 microglial cells is associated with the suppression of NF‐κB activation and the PI3K/AKT and MAPK signaling pathways. Therefore, these findings suggest that PGS may be useful in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases by inhibiting inflammatory responses in activated microglial cells.
Low Power - Low Rate Vessel Tracking System (VTS) in Territorial Waters

Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) is an emerging technology to come up with wireless connectivity to low-power and low-cost devices over large distances in ISM (industrial scientific and medical) frequency bands. This paper is about a vessel tracking system built by GPS for getting the location and LoRa modulation to transmit the position to the nearer port. In the communication process, we are limited with no data access through the internet due to limited signal coverage from the internet provider. We evaluate some LoRa device which can communicate in long-range to transmit the vessel position. Also, inspect the robustness network while the vessel is moving from one port to nearer port (8 km in distance). VTS system is also equipped with a various sensor to get all environment condition which implemented by a web-based platform for real-time tracking. Eight kilometres transmission was achieved in LoS condition, and also the tracking system was successfully achieved when the object was moving in the campus area.
Bullying and the UK Armed Forces

There are certain characteristics of the culture and environment in the Armed Forces that may be conducive to bullying. In this article we examine the cultural and environmental factors that may encourage such behaviour and those that act as deterrents for victims to come forward. We will look at the scope of this problem within the UK Armed Forces specifically, before more generally considering the psychological impact of bullying. There appears to be an overall downward trend in bullying within the UK Armed Forces and a positive increase in complaints as more victims step forward. We conclude by highlighting some areas for further development.
Suppression of the ptsH Mutation inEscherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium by a DNA Fragment from Lactobacillus casei

ABSTRACT A DNA fragment from Lactobacillus casei that restores growth to Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium ptsH mutants on glucose and other substrates of the phosphoenolpyruvate:carbohydrate phosphotransferase system (PTS) has been isolated. These mutants lack the HPr protein, a general component of the PTS. Sequencing of the cloned fragment revealed the absence ofptsH homologues. Instead, the complementation ability was located in a 120-bp fragment that contained a sequence homologue to the binding site of the Cra regulator from enteric bacteria. Experiments indicated that the reversion of the ptsH phenotype was due to a titration of the Cra protein, which allowed the constitutive expression of the fructose operon.
Information Systems Security: The Role of Cultural Aspects in Organizational Settings

An increasing number of security breaches in organizations present a potentially serious threat to individual privacy and the security of corporate data. Many security breaches happen due to so-called “human error”. Recent research shows that information security culture encourages security-vigilant behaviour of employees and therefore can help to avoid humanrelated security breaches. The concept of information security culture is relatively new and research on the subject is still in its infancy. In particular, the impact of national culture on information security culture has received very little attention in the literature. Our research-inprogress aims to address this gap.
Isolation and antigenic characterization of infectious bronchitis virus from backyard chickens in Yucatan, Mexico.

Chickens, traditionally raised by yucatecan peasants in the backyard of their houses and feed with leftovers and table scrapings, provide protein for the most needed people. Respiratory disease has been reported as one of the most important diseases in these animals. As part of a bigger study carried out during a year in 30 rural communities of the State of Yucatan, Mexico, with the use of sentinel chickens for investigating diseases in the backyard system, tracheal and cloacal swab samples were obtained for the isolation of Infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) in chicken embryos. Four IBV were isolated from backyard chickens during 2007-2008.The antigenic characterization of the isolates was carried out using the haemagglutination inhibition test in two directions, and using 5 reference strains for IBV. Two isolates were similar to local variant SIN6/YUC/MEX/1996, one to the other local variant UADY/YUC/MEX/97, and the last one was related to Massachusetts 41.The fact that some of the isolations were made from chickens showing respiratory signs strongly suggests that IBV is at least one of the agents involved in respiratory disease in the chickens kept in the backyard system in Yucatan, Mexico.
A Techno-Economic Study of Optical Network Disaggregation Employing Open Source Software Business Models for Metropolitan Area Networks

This work provides a techno-economic evaluation of optical disaggregation architectures in the context of metropolitan area networks. The study compares two optical disaggregation options (partial vs. total) against the legacy benchmark where optical equipment is subject to vendor lock-in, as it is deployed in most networks today. We show that emerging open source software projects within the software-defined networking ecosystem can potentially yield significant cost savings for medium- and large-size network operators, while they can introduce extra flexibility and agility to network operations and service deployments.
Organ Doses and Radiation Risk of Computed Tomographic Coronary Angiography in a Clinical Patient Population: How Do Low-Dose Acquisition Modes Compare?

Objective To compare the organ doses and lifetime-attributable risk of cancer for electrocardiogram-triggered sequential and high-pitch helical scanning in a clinical patient population. Methods Phantom thermoluminiscence dosimeter measurements were used as a model for the organ dose assessment of 314 individual patients who underwent coronary computed tomographic angiography. Patient-specific lifetime-attributable cancer risks were calculated. Results Phantom measurements showed that heart rate had a significant influence on the delivered radiation exposure in sequential mode, and calcium scoring and contrast bolus tracking scans make a nonnegligible contribution to patients' dose. Therefore, they should be taken into account for patients' organ dose estimations. Median cancer induction risks are low, with 0.008% (0.0016%) and 0.022% (0.056%) for high-pitch and sequential scanning for men (women), respectively. Conclusions The use of high-pitch helical scanning leads to 65% and 72% lower lifetime-attributable risk values for men and women, respectively, compared with sequential scanning.
Fault Tolerant T-Type Cross Connected Source Nine Level Inverter

This paper presents a T-type cross connected sources nine level inverter with single open switch fault tolerant capability. Extra components and complex calculations are not required in the proposed fault tolerant method. The topology used has reduced voltage stress across switches, current and total harmonic distortion of voltage as compared to recent developed fault tolerant topologies. Phase opposition disposition sinusoidal pulse width modulation (POD-SPWM) scheme and nearest level control (NLC) is used to achieve high quality load voltage and current waveforms. MATLAB/Simulink simulation performance of the proposed fault-tolerant T-type cross connected source 9-level inverter is assessed through.
Does location matter? A study of the public's preferences for surgical care provision.

OBJECTIVES As in other countries, office-based surgeons, outpatient clinics and hospitals in Germany are in increasing competition to each other. However, little is known about potential patients' preferences for surgical care provision. The aim of this study was to investigate the general public's preferences towards location and other attributes of surgical treatment. METHODS An economic evaluation technique, discrete choice analysis, was administered in a survey to a sample of a German general public Internet panel, representative in terms of age, gender and education. Responders were asked to choose their preferred provider of surgical care in a series of pairwise choices, defined by five attributes. Regression analysis was used to quantify preferences towards characteristics of care and to calculate utilities of treatment scenarios. The strength of preferences and the rate at which participants were willing to trade among attributes were estimated. RESULTS The response rate was 76% (n=1134). 'Specialization and experience of provider' was the single most important attribute, followed by 'waiting times' and 'staff continuity'. Subjects traded a 4-week waiting time to obtain surgery at a highly specialized institution. Responders favoured outpatient clinics over office-based and inpatient surgery, but 'location of care' preferences were only weak. Whether participants had undergone surgery in the past had only minor effect on their preferences. CONCLUSIONS Potential patients base their choice between providers mainly on characteristics of care delivery and not location of care. The competition between and among providers of surgical care of different types of institutional organization will be determined by what is offered to patients.
Electron localization in epitaxial graphene on Ru(0001) determined by moiré corrugation

e pattern. Here we describe the electronic structure of graphene adsorbed on Ru(0001) by means of density functional theory calculations that include van der Waals interactions and are performed on a large 11 × 11 unit cell to account for the observed moirpatterns. Our results show the existence of localized electronic states in the high and low areas of the moir´ e at energies close to and well above the Fermi level, respectively. Localization is due to the spatial modulation of the graphene-Ru(0001) interaction and is at the origin of the various peaks observed in STS spectra.
Distance metric learning for image and webpage comparison. (Apprentissage de distance pour la comparaison d'images et de pages Web)

This thesis focuses on distance metric learning for image and webpage comparison. Distance metrics are used in many machine learning and computer vision contexts such as k-nearest neighbors classification, clustering, support vector machine, information/image retrieval, visualization etc. In this thesis, we focus on Mahalanobis-like distance metric learning where the learned model is parametered by a symmetric positive semidefinite matrix. It learns a linear tranformation such that the Euclidean distance in the induced projected space satisfies learning constraints.First, we propose a method based on comparison between relative distances that takes rich relations between data into account, and exploits similarities between quadruplets of examples. We apply this method on relative attributes and hierarchical image classification. Second, we propose a new regularization method that controls the rank of the learned matrix, limiting the number of independent parameters and overfitting. We show the interest of our method on synthetic and real-world recognition datasets. Eventually, we propose a novel Webpage change detection framework in a context of archiving. For this purpose, we use temporal distance relations between different versions of a same Webpage. The metric learned in a totally unsupervised way detects important regions and ignores unimportant content such as menus and advertisements. We show the interest of our method on different Websites.
IL-17 Gene Polymorphism Is Associated with Chronic Periodontitis and Peri-implantitis in Iranian Patients: A Cross-Sectional Study

Periodontal disease (PD) and peri-implantitis (PI) are characterized by an immune response leading to destructive inflammation. The prominent impact of genetic factors on periodontitis has been previously evaluated and IL-17 has found to play a critical role in this process. This cytokine has a controversial behavior. This study aimed at finding out whether the polymorphism of this cytokine plays a significant role in chronic periodontitis (CP) and PI or it is just a pro-inflammatory regulatory cytokine. Fresh human blood samples were obtained and three main genotypes were traced carefully. The samples were transferred into 96-well plates and sent to KBioscience Institute in the United Kingdom for genotyping the polymorphism using Competitive Allele Specific PCR (KASP) technique. SPSS version19 software and chi-square and Kruskal–Wallis tests were used for statistical differences considering p-value less than 0.05. A significant difference was detected between the three groups in terms of specific SNP studied in this experiment (P = 0.00). The CC genotype of IL17 polymorphism (rs10484879) may contribute to the pathogenesis of peri-implantitis and periodontitis. The association of IL-17 polymorphism with PI and CP is a promising finding that may help in future similar studies on other ethnicities and larger study populations.
Road’s State Identification based on Residual Network and Convolution Neural Network

In developing countries, road condition usually deteriorate over a period of time, it is a challenge for road conditioning authority to identify and rectify road’s a bad condition such as potholes. Generally, bad road condition arises in the rainy season due to which the transportation domain suffers tremendously.Also today, in the era of automation where the world is looking after reducing manual intervention at minimum, need to have technology through which automatically alert the road maintaining authorities. There are many caveats of road's improper conditions. These include unexpected delays due to traffic, wear and tear of vehicles and affects human health due to unexpected shocks and accidents. Hence, the primary goal of this work is to identify potholes through the help of images that are taken over a period of time from cameras that are installed on roads. This will help road rectification authority to check and identify road’s state by analyzing and processing these images through convolution neural network-based deep learning technique.This paper concentrates on the use of artificial intelligence and concepts of machine learning to automatically identify the conditions of roads and to alert the authorities about it in no time. Data sets were used to train the model about the identification of road quality and accordingly it was tested. For the research work, a number of earlier research papers and deeply evaluated the concepts of Convolution neural network and ResNet has gone through. The paper provides a complete solution to road state detection.
Semantic Comprehension of Questions in Q&A System for Chinese Language Based on Semantic Element Combination

Question understanding is an extremely important part of the question and answer (Q&A) system, which is the basis of subsequent information retrieval and answer extraction. In order to improve the semantic understanding of question, we propose a method of understanding the question based on the combination of semantic element for Chinese language. Firstly, the method uses lexical and rules recognition to extract the semantic elements of questions and recognizes the functions according to the preprocessing pattern. Secondly, combining the dependency analysis tree structure of the question and the function type, it can produce the semantic elements. Finally, a normalized semantic expression was generated. We extract the user questions in Baidu-Zhidao as the test set. The result shows that the accuracy of the proposed method is 97.8%, so the semantics of the Chinese language questions can be effectively understood by this method.
Care to talk? A framework for appreciative conversations about dementia: Innovative practice

When people with dementia are admitted to hospital, both they and their carers and families have crucial roles to play. They should be positioned as the only true experts in the unique individuality of the person and brought into the nursing process as an equal partner in care. ‘Care to Talk’ is a conversational model developed through Appreciative Inquiry to facilitate this way of working. The model, its development and outcomes are discussed.
Market Makers’ Optimal Price-Setting Policy for Exchange-Traded Certificates

This paper presents the first theoretical model of the profit maximizing price-setting policy for the issuers of exchange-traded retail certificates. Unlike previous theoretical microstructure models, the market considered is unique in that the market makers do not face significant inventory costs or risk from informed traders. The model derives the time structure of the optimal markups over a certificate’s fair theoretical value and its relationship with optimal spreads, unhedgeable risk faced by the issuer and investors’ buying and selling decisions. It shows that (i) the optimal markups decrease inter-temporally, (ii) issuers adjust the markups according to investors’ demand, (iii) unhedgeable risk results in higher markups and influences their time structure, (iv) the markups and the spread are negatively related. Using data from the German market for leverage certificates, we find strong empirical support for the model-derived hypotheses, except for (iv). We find spreads exhibit little variation and this suggests that markups and spreads are not substitute profit sources for issuers in this market.
Research on Intelligent Monitoring Scheme for Microservice Application Systems

In order to effectively monitor the operation of multiple microservices in the microservice architecture system, to find out problems in time for early warning and to propose solutions and other problems, a set of intelligent monitoring scheme for the microservice application system is proposed, which is more effective to overcome the system monitoring management difficulties caused by the distributed architecture strategy of the microservice application system. The planning and design of the whole scheme start from the analysis of the microservice architecture, through the analysis and comparison of the microservice system monitoring system and various microservice application system monitoring schemes, and further combining the push-pull mode selection of the monitoring system with the analysis of the intelligent alarm scheme. The improvement of the monitoring mode of the microservice application system from the local triggering alarm to the intelligent alarm is finally realized. Experimental results present the plan can more systematically consider the data of all monitoring levels, then analyze and summarize, and finally achieve more timely, more accurately and more effectively monitoring and earlier warning of the microservice application system.
Nurses’ Self-Efficacy and Academic Degree Advancement

The last decade has brought about a synergy of influences for registered nurses to advance their academic preparation. Literature indicates that there is correlation between self-efficacy and goal establishment and success. The purpose of this project was to evaluate the relationship between self-efficacy and advancing academic aspirations of registered nurses. Findings indicated that there was a trend toward a difference in the self-efficacy of nurses who began their career with a diploma or associate degree and went on for academic advancement and those who did not.
A review of low voltage ride-through techniques for photovoltaic generation systems

The rapid development of photovoltaic (PV) generation systems has made the low voltage ride-through (LVRT) techniques, which is stepping forward fast, more and more important. This paper presents a review of LVRT techniques for PV generation systems, which mainly focuses on the critical techniques of fault detection and grid synchronization, current control and dc-link voltage control under various voltage dip operation conditions and overall solutions for a large-scale PV station with detailed illustration. Besides, the development trends of low voltage ride-through techniques for PV generation systems are discussed as well.