Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lipoplexes carrying mRNA encoding Gag protein modulate dendritic cells to stimulate HIV-specific immune responses.

AIM Cationic lipids (Lipofectamine™ [Invitrogen, Merelbeke, Belgium] and 1,2-dioleoyl-3-trimethylammonium-propane/1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine) and polymers (jetPEI™ and in vivo-jetPEI™ [Polyplus-transfection, Illkirch, France]) were evaluated for their potential to deliver mRNA to monocyte-derived dendritic cells. MATERIALS & METHODS Lipoplexes and polyplexes, containing mRNA encoding GFP or Gag protein, were incubated with human monocyte-derived dendritic cells and transfection efficiencies were assessed by flow cytometry. RESULTS Lipofectamine was by far the most efficient in mRNA delivery, therefore it was used in further experiments. Incubation of monocyte-derived dendritic cells isolated from HIV-1-positive donors with mRNA encoding Gag protein complexed to Lipofectamine resulted in 50% transfection. Importantly, coculture of these Gag-transfected dendritic cells with autologous T cells induced an over tenfold expansion of IFN-γ- and IL-2-secreting CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells. CONCLUSION Cationic lipid-mediated mRNA delivery may be a useful tool for therapeutic vaccination against HIV-1. This approach can be applied to develop vaccination strategies for other infectious diseases and cancer.
Normative

The starting thesis of the study is the proposition that conceptually, the modernization of education is oriented towards achieving a result of a value nature (affirmation of humanistic values). At the same time, progressive changes in education are considered in connection with solving the task of forming a personality with significant humanistic potential. The purpose of the research is substantiated, which consists in the systematic analysis of the practice of applying the axiological approach in the process of drawing up regulatory and legal acts in the field of education, since such acts really reflect the value priorities of the modernization of the relevant area. The validity of the relevant analysis is achieved through the use of content analysis of relevant documents. It is shown that Ukrainian legislators actively use the axiological approach in the process of creating normative legal acts in the field of education. It was determined that it was during the time of the independent Ukrainian state that the priority of universal spiritual values over political and class interests was declared. In the studied documents, the positive dynamics of turning to the axiological approach was ascertained, in particular in the context of the modernization of higher pedagogical education. Attention is focused on the fact that the legislative emphasis on the importance of the axiological approach was not declarative. The position is argued that the establishment in educational legislation of a strategy for the formation of competencies with a value component based on the results of the educational process became a strong motive for the articulation in pedagogical theory and practice of new requirements regarding the content of the modernization of higher pedagogical education in Ukraine. It is proved that the introduction of the axiological approach into educational practice takes place in parallel with the application of the corresponding approach in the context of the creation of a legal framework for the new (modernized) educational space of independent Ukraine.
Surface analysis of anodic oxide films containing phosphorus on titanium.

PURPOSE To examine the effect of phosphoric acid solution on the anodic oxide film of titanium. MATERIALS AND METHODS Commercially pure grade 2 titanium specimens were prepared and anodized in phosphoric acid solution at a constant current density (70 A/m2). Specimens were evaluated by means of scanning electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction analysis, electron probe microanalysis, energy-dispersive spectroscopy, profilometry, and atomic force microscopy. RESULTS The anodic oxide film was observed to consist of a porous or non-uniform layer and a dense or uniform layer. X-ray diffraction and energy-dispersive spectroscopic analyses indicated that the film consisted of a mixture of anatase and amorphous oxide, with the incorporation of phosphorus. DISCUSSION The degree of oxide crystallinity was observed to increase with an increase in voltage but decreased as the electrolyte concentration was increased. In addition, the concentration of phosphorus also increased as the electrolyte concentration and voltage increased. CONCLUSIONS Electrolyte concentration and voltage play an important role in governing the anodic oxide thickness, composition, and degree of oxide crystallinity.
Accurate Image Separation Method for Two Closely Spaced Pedestrians Using UWB Doppler Imaging Radar and Supervised Learning

Recent studies have focused on developing security systems using micro-Doppler radars to detect human bodies. However, the resolution of these conventional methods is unsuitable for identifying bodies and moreover, most of these conventional methods were designed for a solitary or sufficiently well-spaced targets. This paper proposes a solution to these problems with an image separation method for two closely spaced pedestrian targets. The proposed method first develops an image of the targets using ultra-wide-band (UWB) Doppler imaging radar. Next, the targets in the image are separated using a supervised learning-based separation method trained on a data set extracted using a range profile. We experimentally evaluated the performance of the image separation using some representative supervised separation methods and selected the most appropriate method. Finally, we reject false points caused by target interference based on the separation result. The experiment, assuming two pedestrians with a body separation of 0.44 m, shows that our method accurately separates their images using a UWB Doppler radar with a nominal down-range resolution of 0.3 m. We describe applications using various target positions, establish the performance, and derive optimal settings for our method. key words: human imaging, closely-spaced pedestrians, image separation, UWB Doppler radar, supervised learning, support vector machine (SVM)
Costs of treatment of children affected by severe malaria in reference hospitals of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.

INTRODUCTION Malaria remains a real problem of public health. Its hospital care generates important expenditures for affected households. The present study aimed to estimate direct and indirect costs of severe child malaria in reference hospitals in Kinshasa. METHODOLOGY This prospective study included 1,350 children under 15 years of age suffering from severe malaria. The study was performed between 1 January and 30 November, 2011. Data were collected in nine reference hospitals. The studied parameters were direct pre-hospital costs, direct hospital costs, and indirect costs. Costs were assessed from the household point of view. RESULTS Median costs associated with the disease ranged from 114 USD in confessional hospitals to 173 USD in state hospitals and 308 USD in private hospitals. Direct pre-hospital median costs ranged between 3 and 11 USD. Direct hospital costs reached 72 USD in confessional hospitals, 139 USD in state hospitals, and 254 USD in private hospitals. Indirect costs ranged from 22 USD in state hospitals to 30 USD in confessional hospitals and 46 USD in private hospitals, regardless of the status of the accompanying parent or guardian. Factors explaining the variability of costs were the neurological form of malaria, indirect recourse to hospital, socioeconomic level, type of prescribing person, child's status upon leaving the hospital, and child's transfusion status. CONCLUSIONS The care of severe child malaria appeared to be expensive in private and state hospitals. A state subsidy of health care and regulation of the private sector would contribute to the reduction of malaria's financial impact.
Congestion Control for Vehicular Networks With Safety-Awareness

Vehicular safety applications require reliable and up-to-date knowledge of the local neighborhood. Under IEEE 802.11p, this is attained through single-hop broadcasts of safety beacons in the control channel. However, high transmission power and node mobility can cause regions of node density to form rapidly. In such situations, excessive load on the control channel must be avoided to prevent performance degradation for safety applications. Existing congestion control schemes aim to reach a fair distribution of available channel resources, but fail to account for the differing quality of service (QoS) requirements of vehicles in different driving contexts. This context depends on many factors, including the relative position and velocity of its neighbors. The problem of adapting each vehicle's transmission probability under a slotted p-persistent vehicular broadcast medium access control (MAC) protocol is formulated as a network utility maximization (NUM) problem which takes the driving context into account. A distributed algorithm is proposed to solve this problem in a decentralized manner, its convergence is analyzed, and its performance is evaluated through simulations.
Why robots should use fuzzy mathematical morphology

Mobile robots must represent and reason about spatial knowledge acquired from sensor data which are inherently approximate and uncertain. While techniques based on fuzzy sets are increasingly used in this domain, the use of these techniques often rests on intuitive grounds. In this paper, we show that fuzzy mathematical morphology, a theory often used in image processing but mostly ignored in the robotic tradition, can provide a well grounded approach to the treatment of imprecise spatial knowledge in robotics
Optimization of Ni, Cu and Zn Recovery in Bioleaching of Electronic Scrap

Bioleaching was applied to mobilize metals from printed wire boards (PWBs). PWBs have a rich metal content and are produced in high volume. Operating conditions of bioleaching of PWBs using an adapted mixed culture of Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans (A. ferrooxidans) and A. thiooxidans to recover Cu, Zn and Ni were optimized in this study. The adaptation phase began at 1 g/L PWBs powder with 10% inoculation and the final pulp density was 20 g/L after about 40 days. Optimization was performed using central composite design method to optimize four effective factors, including initial pH (1.5 to 2), pulp density (15 to 25 g/L), initial sulfur (3 to 7 g/L) and initial FeSO4 (15 to 25g/L), to achieve maximum recoveries of Cu, Zn and Ni. Also, the present study evaluated the effect of the independent variables initial pH, pulp density, initial Fe3+ concentration and initial sulfur content on extraction of metals from PWBs. Results showed that with an initial pH of 1.5, 25g/L pulp density, 25 g/L of FeSO4·7H2O and 7 g/L of S0, copper, zinc and nickel recoveries reached 92%, 96% and 94%, respectively, after 25 days.
Strain and Temperature Sensing Properties of Multiwalled Carbon Nanotube Yarn Composites

Strain and temperature response of Multiwalled Carbon Nanotube (MWCNT/CNT) yarns on a stainless steel test beam has been studied. The carbon nanotube yarns are spun from a multiwalled carbon nanotube forest grown on a silicon substrate to a 4-ply yarn with a diameter of about 15-20 microns. Four of the 4-ply CNT yarns are arranged in a Wheatstone bridge configuration on the stainless steel test beam using a thin layer of polyurethane resin that insulates and protects the yarns from the test beam. Strain sensitivities of the CNT yarn sensors range from 1.39 to 1.75 mV/V/1000 microstrain at room temperature, and temperature sensitivity of the CNT yarn bridge is 91 microA/degC. Resistance of the yarns range from 215 to 270 ohms for CNT yarn length of approximately 5 mm. Processes used in attaching the CNT yarns on the test beam and experimental procedures used for the measurements are described. Conventional metallic foil strain gages are attached to the test beam to compare with the CNT sensors. The study demonstrates multifunctional capability of the sensor for strain and temperature measurements and shows its applicability where engineering strain is less than 3%.
Directional Acoustic Source'S Position and Orientation Estimation Approach by a Microphone Array Network

In this paper we present a directional acoustic source's position and orientation estimation approach by a microphone array network in an enclose environment. In this work we assumed that at least one array in the network yields an acceptable position estimation, and based on this assumption we try to automatically select this array and determine the source's orientation. Here, position estimates are determined indirectly using time delay of arrival (TDOA) from microphone pairs. A position candidate and energy related features (power level of the recorded signals and correlation value between pairs of recorded signals) were determined a priori for each array, and used as input of an artificial neural network (ANN) whose outputs are the orientation and the array which has the most likely source's position. Additionally, we derive weighting functions based on the ANN output and use them to combine array estimates to obtain a more reliable position estimation.
Client starvation: a shortcoming of client-driven adaptive streaming in named data networking

Information-centric Networking (ICN) as a potential Future Internet architecture has to efficiently support the consumption of multimedia content. Recent proposals consider the reuse of MPEG-DASH to provide adaptive streaming in ICN. Due to the fact that MPEG-DASH relies on pure client-driven adaptation, it encounters difficulties dealing with ICN's inherent caching and multi-path transmission. By conducting simulations using the concrete ICN approach Named Data Networking (NDN), we show that pure client-driven adaptation leads to shortcomings. Furthermore, we propose to use in-network adaptation based on scalable content for overcoming these shortcomings in NDN.
Content-based image retrieval using a mobile device as a novel interface

This paper presents an investigation into the use of a mobile device as a novel interface to a content-based image retrieval system. The initial development has been based on the concept of using the mobile device in an art gallery for mining data about the exhibits, although a number of other applications are envisaged. The paper presents a novel methodology for performing content-based image retrieval and object recognition from query images that have been degraded by noise and subjected to transformations through the imaging system. The methodology uses techniques inspired from the information retrieval community in order to aid efficient indexing and retrieval. In particular, a vector-space model is used in the efficient indexing of each image, and a two-stage pruning/ranking procedure is used to determine the correct matching image. The retrieval algorithm is shown to outperform a number of existing algorithms when used with query images from the mobile device.
Effect of abomasal glucose infusion on alanine metabolism and urea production in sheep

The effect of abomasal infusion of glucose (120 kJ/d per kg body weight (BW)0·75, 758 mmol/d) on urea production, plasma alanine-N flux rate and the conversion of alanine-N to urea was studied in sheep offered a low-N diet at limited energy intake (500 kJ/d per kg BW0·75), based on hay and grass pellets. Glucose provision reduced urinary N (P = 0·040) and urea (P = 0·009) elimination but this was offset by poorer N digestibility. Urea-N production was significantly reduced (822 v. 619 mmol/d, P = 0·024) by glucose while plasma alanine-N flux rate was elevated (295 v. 342 mmol/d, P = 0·011). The quantity of urea-N derived from alanine tended to be decreased by glucose (127 v. 95 mmol/d) but the fraction of urea production from alanine was unaltered (15 %). Plasma urea and alanine concentrations (plus those of the branched chain amino acids) decreased in response to exogenous glucose, an effect probably related to enhanced anabolic usage of amino acids and lowered urea production.
A user-centered and evidence-based approach for digital library projects

Purpose Soft systems methodology processes fortified by collaborative evidence‐based librarianship (EBL) principles can guide end‐user involvement in digital library project design and development. This paper aims to reveal the efficacy of this inclusive human‐focused approach for building systems through user‐generated research examples. Design/methodology/approach From 2003 to 2006, user‐centered interaction design guided increasingly complex human‐computer interaction projects at California Polytechnic State University. Toward that end, project planners invite polytechnic students, supervised by computer science professors, to assess peers' information seeking needs. This student‐generated evidence informs creation of paper prototypes and implementation of usability tests. Sustained relationships between planners and beneficiaries permit iterative evaluation and continuous improvement of design concepts and product functionalities. Findings Purposeful conversations aimed at learning from user‐generated evidence enrich the planning process for digital library projects. Reflective of the “learn by doing” educational values of the organization, this approach advances learning among both users and planners throughout user‐centered (re)design experiences. Practical implications Collaborative design assumes that enabling interfaces, systems, and environments are best designed and developed inclusively, with and for beneficiaries. Toward that end, practical guidelines are offered to enable replication of this approach, which depends on user produced and interpreted evidence, in other organizational settings. Originality/value A paucity of literature exists on the relevance of EBL in the digital age. Similarly, too little applied research has adopted a human‐centered focus for design and development of information systems. Finally, too few digital library projects recognize the value of initiating positive user experiences at project inception.
Reference frame selection in a hardware-based HEVC encoder

The present invention relates to a method for selecting a reference frame in a hardware-based HEVC encoder, which performs integer motion estimation (IME) on multiple reference frames, and performs fractional motion estimation (FME) only on the optimum reference frame detected by IME. Therefore, the method can significantly reduce encoding time and can prevent compression efficiency from being largely reduced, by effectively reducing computational complexity through the removal of searches on the optimum reference frame and reference frames with no large change when performing FME.
Synthesis, Characterization and Analytical Modelling of Mechanical Behavior of a Conducting Polymer Actuator

Electrochemical synthesis of a tri-layer polypyrrole based actuator optimized for performance was reported. The 0.05 M pyrrole and 0.05 M tetrabutylammonium hexaflurophosphate in propylene carbonate (PC) yielded the optimum performance and stability. The force produced ranged from 0.2 to 0.4mN. Cyclic deflection tests on PC based actuators for 3 hours indicated that the displacement decreased by 60%. PC based actuator had a longer operating time, exceeding 3 hours, compared to acetonitrile based actuators. A triple-layer model of the polymer actuator was developed based on the classic bending beam theory by considering strain electrode material. A tri-layer actuator was fabricated [4, 6], by initially sputter coating a PVDF film with approximately 100nm of gold layer, resulting in a conductive film with a surface resistance of 8-10Ω. The PVDF film was about ~145µm thick had an approximate pore size of 45μm. A solution containing 0.05M distilled pyrrole monomer, 0.05M (TBAPF6) and 1% (w/w) distilled water in PC (propylene carbonate) solution was purged with nitrogen for 15 minutes. The continuity between PPy and PVDF. Results predicted by the model were in good agreement with the experimental data.
Extending Network Coverage by Using Static and Mobile Relays during Natural Disasters

During natural disasters, such as earthquakes, apart of the Internet access infrastructure can be damaged, leaving many users disconnected. At the same time, many peopleneed to communicate to find their relatives and receive officialnotifications about the current situation. This paper presents anevaluation of different techniques for extending network coveragein such scenarios. We use real-world data to model the poweroutage probability of cellular base stations in Tokyo area andcombine it with information about batteries/power generatorsto create accurate maps of network coverage for different timeperiods after an earthquake. In our simulation, we use a realmap of evacuation sites, provided by Japanese government. Wefirst considered mobile nodes, moving between evacuation sites, and investigated their impact on network coverage. Then, wedeveloped an algorithm to determine the optimal locations forstatic relays ensuring different levels of network coverage. Ourresults show that even a small number of fixed relays, carefullyplaced between the evacuation sites, can outperform a muchhigher number of mobile nodes in terms of network coverage.
Simulation of MOS Circuits by Decision Diagrams

This paper describes a novel approach to switch-level simulation of MOS circuits. The circuit is first partitioned into connector-switch networks CSN [4]. Then each CSN is represented in terms of a decision diagram DD, which is particularly suitable for use in simulators. The advantages of DD's are that they are based on a solid theory and they permit fast evaluation of the network's response to any input vector. The CSN's are coupled through a 3-state automaton representing charge wells associated with transistor gates.
Design of a switchable selectivity bandpass filter based on diode-loaded resonators

This study utilizes coupled-line feed structure and diode-loaded resonators to realize a switchable selectivity microstrip bandpass filter. The different selectivity in the proposed circuit is controlled by switching between a second-order filter and a fifth-order filter. Because the feed line near input or output port is shared by the two filters designed at the same center frequency, the diode-loaded resonator in each filter is arranged near input or output feed line to avoid loading effect on each operating mode while switching the proposed circuit. An implemented switchable selectivity filter with high isolation to desired blocking circuit is successfully validated in this paper.
Multidimensional perceptual scaling of musical timbres.

Two experiments were performed to evaluate the perceptual relationships between 16 music instrument tones. The stimuli were computer synthesized based upon an analysis of actual instrument tones, and they were perceptually equalized for loudness, pitch, and duration. Experiment 1 evaluated the tones with respect to perceptual similarities, and the results were treated with multidimensional scaling techniques and hierarchic clustering analysis. A three‐dimensional scaling solution, well matching the clustering analysis, was found to be interpretable in terms of (1) the spectral energy distribution; (2) the presence of synchronicity in the transients of the higher harmonics, along with the closely related amount of spectral fluctuation within the the tone through time; and (3) the presence of low‐amplitude, high‐frequency energy in the initial attack segment; an alternate interpretation of the latter two dimensions viewed the cylindrical distribution of clusters of stimulus points about the spectral energy .