Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
NONLINEAR ATTITUDE CONTROL OF SPACECRAFT WITH STRAIN-ACTUATED SOLAR ARRAYS

This thesis presents a mathematical framework for precision attitude control of a spacecraft using the inertial coupling between the spacecraft and solar arrays. The spacecraft with solar arrays is modeled as a one degree of freedom cylinder (rigid body rotation) with flexible appendages (infinite-dimensional system). The equations of motion that describe system evolution are derived using the extend generalizations of the Lagrangian for infinite dimension systems. Precision attitude control is achieved by bending the flexible appendage using strain actuators. Global asymptotic convergence of the controller’s is proved using the Lyapunov direct method, which ensures that the control objectives of trajectory tracking and slewing are achieved. The Input-to-State stability of these controllers is used to generalize the control laws in terms of a variable that scales the stiffness term. The closed-loop system is simulated numerically for different values of the variable to verify stability. An experimental setup, that mimics a spacecraft with solar arrays is designed as a cylinder that is secured to a flexible beam using an interference fit. The strain actuation of the beam is achieved using piezoelectric actuators. The rotation of the cylinder and bending in beam are estimated using measurements from a Vicon motion capture system. The closed-loop system is tested in real-time to achieve controlled rotation of the cylinder.
Formulating Research Questions that are Relevant to Psychotherapy

This paper argues that the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has created misleading recommendations and that their interpretation by the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) initiative is likely to inflict lasting damage on the operation and development of psychotherapy. I propose that the root of the problem lies in persevering with an inappropriate research question. Both the research question ‘which therapy works best’ and the research methodology to which it leads, the Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT), were transferred from medical treatments for clearly defined illnesses. I explore the consequences of this process, and propose a research question that is an example of a better fit to the purposes of psychotherapy. The implications of the therapeutic alliance, and of working in relation to the relational contexts in which the client lives their life, demonstrate the limitations of the reliance on RCTs. The approach taken by the IAPT initiative is shown to be based on a selective reading of NICE guidelines. Suggestions are made of strategies for research to improve the usefulness of psychological therapies.
Generalized referenceless image quality assessment framework using texture energy measures and pattern strength features

Referenceless image quality assessment is a challenging and critical problem in today's multimedia applica\-tions. Texture patterns in images are normally at high frequencies compared to lower ones. Due to the effect of distortions during acquisition, compression, and transmission, texture deviation artifacts are generated that cause a granular effect in the image. Other artifacts, such as blocking, affect high frequencies in an image, causing distorted edges. Combining the analysis of texture deviation and other artifacts helps in determining the quality of an image. The proposed approach uses variation in the energy of pixels to quantify the quality of an image. These variations are calculated using texture energy measures and pattern strength-based statistical features. In the proposed approach, machine learning-based classifiers are used to predict the quality score for an image. The performance of the proposed method is tested for all images ranging from pristine to poor quality from LIVE and TID2008 databases. For different distortions, results are shown to have good correlation if they lie between the predicted score and the differential mean opinion score. Results obtained with this approach are compared with other widely used referenceless approaches. It is observed that the proposed approach shows better performance in the quantification of the quality of an image.
Dengue Deaths in Puerto Rico: Lessons Learned from the 2007 Epidemic

Background The incidence and severity of dengue in Latin America has increased substantially in recent decades and data from Puerto Rico suggests an increase in severe cases. Successful clinical management of severe dengue requires early recognition and supportive care. Methods Fatal cases were identified among suspected dengue cases reported to two disease surveillance systems and from death certificates. To be included, fatal cases had to have specimen submitted for dengue diagnostic testing including nucleic acid amplification for dengue virus (DENV) in serum or tissue, immunohistochemical testing of tissue, and immunoassay detection of anti-DENV IgM from serum. Medical records from laboratory-positive dengue fatal case-patients were reviewed to identify possible determinants for death. Results Among 10,576 reported dengue cases, 40 suspect fatal cases were identified, of which 11 were laboratory-positive, 14 were laboratory-negative, and 15 laboratory-indeterminate. The median age of laboratory-positive case-patients was 26 years (range 5 months to 78 years), including five children aged <15 years; 7 sought medical care at least once prior to hospital admission, 9 were admitted to hospital and 2 died upon arrival. The nine hospitalized case-patients stayed a mean of 15 hours (range: 3–48 hours) in the emergency department (ED) before inpatient admission. Five of the nine case-patients received intravenous methylprednisolone and four received non-isotonic saline while in shock. Eight case-patients died in the hospital; five had their terminal event on the inpatient ward and six died during a weekend. Dengue was listed on the death certificate in only 5 instances. Conclusions During a dengue epidemic in an endemic area, none of the 11 laboratory-positive case-patients who died were managed according to current WHO Guidelines. Management issues identified in this case-series included failure to recognize warning signs for severe dengue and shock, prolonged ED stays, and infrequent patient monitoring.
Intervention of Grape Seed Proanthocyanidin Extract on the Subchronic Immune Injury in Mice Induced by Aflatoxin B1

The aim was to investigate the prevention of grape seed proanthocyanidin extract (GSPE) on the subchronic immune injury induced by aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) and the possible ameliorating effect of GSPE in mice. The subchronic AFB1-induced immune injury mice model was set up with the continuous administration of 100 μg/kg body weight (BW) AFB1 for six weeks by intragastric administration. Then, intervention with different doses (50 and 100 mg/kg BW) of GSPE was conducted on mice to analyze the changes of body weight, immune organ index, antioxidant capability of spleen, serum immunoglobulin content, and the expression levels of inflammatory cytokines. The prevention of GSPE on the immune injury induced by AFB1 was studied. The GSPE could relieve the AFB1-induced reduction of body weight gain and the atrophy of the immune organ. The malondialdehyde (MDA) level of the spleen in the AFB1 model group significantly increased, but levels of catalase (CAT), glutathione (GSH), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-PX), and superoxide dismutase (SOD) significantly decreased. The GSPE could significantly inhibit the oxidative stress injury of the spleen induced by AFB1. AFB1 exposure could not significantly change the contents of IgA, IgG, or IgM. AFB1 significantly improved the expression of interleukin 1β (IL-1β), IL-6, tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α), and interferon γ (IFN-γ). Additionally, GSPE could decrease the expression of these four proinflammatory factors to different degrees and inhibit the inflammatory reaction of mice. The results suggest that GSPE alleviates AFB1-induced oxidative stress and significantly improves the immune injury of mice induced by AFB1.
Cosmological Acceleration through Transition to Constant Scalar Curvature

As shown by Parker and Raval, quantum field theory in curved spacetime gives a possible mechanism for explaining the observed recent acceleration of the universe. This mechanism, which differs in its dynamics from quintessence models, causes the universe to make a transition to an accelerating expansion in which the scalar curvature, R, of spacetime remains constant. This transition occurs despite the fact that we set the renormalized cosmological constant to zero. We show that this model agrees very well with the currently observed Type Ia supernova data. There are no free parameters in this fit, as the relevant observables are determined independently by means of the current cosmic microwave background radiation data. We also give the predicted curves for number count tests and for the ratio, w(z), of the dark energy pressure to its density, as well as for dw(z)/dz versus w(z). These curves differ significantly from those obtained from a cosmological constant and will be tested by planned future observations.
Delivery Latency Regions in Fog-RANs with Edge Caching and Cloud Processing

A Fog Radio Access Network (F-RAN) is a cellular wireless system that enables content delivery via edge caching, i.e., storage of popular content at the edge nodes (ENs), and cloud processing. The existing information-theoretic analyses of F-RAN systems, and special cases thereof, make the assumption that all files in the content library are equally relevant, and hence all users' requests should be guaranteed the same delivery latency (i.e., transmission time). In practice, it is generally desirable to provide different latency levels as a function of the users' requests, e.g., based on the current popularity ranking of the contents. This paper studies the problem of characterizing the region of delivery latencies for all possible users' requests under a per-EN cache capacity constraint. For the case with two ENs and two users, the latency region is characterized in the high-SNR regime in terms of the Normalized Delivery Time (NDT) metric, introduced in prior work.
A Frequency Domain Technique for Range Data Registration

This work introduces an original method for registering pairs of 3D views consisting of range data sets which operates in the frequency domain. The Fourier transform allows the decoupling of the estimate of the rotation parameters from the estimate of the translation parameters, our algorithm exploits this well-known property by suggesting a three-step procedure. The rotation parameters are estimated by the first two steps through convenient representations and projections of the Fourier transforms' magnitudes and the translational displacement is recovered by the third step by means of a standard phase correlation technique after compensating one of the two views for rotation. The performance of the algorithm, which is well-suited for unsupervised registration, is clearly assessed through extensive testing with several objects and shows that good and robust estimates of 3D rigid motion are achievable. Our algorithm can be used as a prealignment tool for more accurate space-domain registration techniques, like the ICP algorithm.
Large Scale Pagerank with Mapreduce

— The study of large web graphs is becoming increasing popular in the Cloud. Some large web graph applications have already been implemented with the MapReduce technical, such as Pagerank. However, the MapReduce model is not aware of the inherent random access pattern of web graph which generates lots of network traffic. Thus the efficient processing of large scale Pagerank challenges current MapReduce runtimes. We implemented the Pagerank with different MapReduce runtimes, which includes Twister, DryadLINQ, and Hadoop. By studying the performance of PageRank on different runtimes, we conclude three runtime related optimization strategies for the PageRank.
Chapter 9. Is bilingual speech production language-specific or non-specific?: The case of gender congruency in Dutch-English bilinguals

The present paper looks at semantic interference and gender congruency effects during bilingual picture-word naming. According to Costa, Miozzo & Caramazza (1999), only the activation from lexical nodes within a language is considered during lexical selection. If this is accurate, these findings should uphold with respect to semantic and gender/determiner effects even though the distractors are in another language. In the present study three effects were found, (1) a main effect of language, (2) semantic effects for both target language and non-target language distractors, and (3) gender congruency effects for targets with target-language distractors only. These findings are at odds with the language-specific proposal of Costa et al. (1999). Implications of these findings are discussed.
Evolution of Cooperation, Differentiation, Complexity, and Diversity in an Iterated Three-Person Game

A nonzero-sum three-person coalition game is presented to study the evolution of complexity and diversity in cooperation, where the population dynamics of players with strategies is given according to their scores in the iterated game and mutations. Two types of differentiation emerge initially: a biased one to classes and a temporal one to change their roles for coalition. Rules to change the hands are self-organized in a society through evolution. The coevolution of diversity and complexity of strategies and interactions (or communications) are found at later stages of the simulation. Relevance of our results to the biological society is briefly discussed.
Verification and Validation Issues in Electronic Voting

Electronic democracy (e-democracy) is a necessity in this era of computers and information technology. Electronic election (e-election) is one of the most important applications of e-democracy, because of the importance of the voters’ privacy and the possibility of frauds. Electronic voting (e-voting) is the most significant part of e-election, which refers to the use of computers or computerised voting equipment to cast ballots in an election. Due to the rapid growth of computer technologies and advances in cryptographic techniques, e-voting is now an applicable alternative for many non-governmental elections. However, security demands become higher when voting takes place in the political arena. Requirement analysis is an important part of the system design process and it is impossible to develop the right system in the right way without a correct and complete set of requirements. In this manner all e-voting studies mention e-voting requirements somewhere, and different sets of requirements are defined. Almost all researchers state verifiability as an e-voting requirement by narrowing the definition of verification. Unfortunately the definitions for verifiability are inadequate and unclear and it is categorised as individual verifiability and universal verifiability, where they are generally misused in the literature. Nowadays the researchers have started to discuss deeply the verification in e-voting. However there is no obvious consensus about the definitions. Moreover, validation has not been discussed properly yet. This paper focuses on the importance of the verification and validation (V&V) in e-voting and gives proper definitions for verifiability and validity. Then it describes some V&V activities and explains the relationship between V&V and core requirements that any e-voting system should satisfy. This paper also states some problems for designing and developing secure e-voting systems.
Improved Health-Related Quality of Life in Older Kidney Recipients 1 Year After Transplantation

Background We aimed to evaluate changes in health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in patients 65 years or older from time of kidney transplantation (KTx) until 1 year postengraftment. Methods A single-center prospective study was conducted. HRQoL was measured pre-KTx and at 2, 6, and 12 months postengraftment using self-reported Kidney Disease and Quality of Life short-form version 1.3. Intraindividual scores before and after KTx were evaluated. Liu Comorbidity Index was registered at enlisting. short-form-36 scores were additionally compared with scores from an age-matched population. Results From January 1, 2013, until November 30, 2016, a total of 289 waitlisted patients were included. By September 1, 2017, 134 had reached 1 year postengraftment, and valid questionnaires were available in 120 (90%) patients. Mean age at KTx was 71.6 years (±4.3 years), 71% were male. Living donor was used in 21%, and preemptive KTx was performed in 30% of the recipients. Median waiting time for KTx from deceased donor was 16 months (range, 0.6-50.5 months). A total of 79 (66%) recipients had a Liu Comorbidity Index score of 3 or less. All HRQoL scores except the domain social function improved at 2 months postengraftment and remained stable or continued to improve at 1 year. HRQoL scores 12 months postengraftment were similar to those described in an age-matched general population except for the domain social function which remained at a significantly lower level. Time in dialysis was the most important variable associated with impaired HRQoL postengraftment. Conclusions HRQoL scores showed clinically significant improvement in older KTx recipients 1 year posttransplant.
DNA Binding Properties of the Small Cascade Subunit Csa5

CRISPR-Cas systems provide immunity against viral attacks in archaeal and bacterial cells. Type I systems employ a Cas protein complex termed Cascade, which utilizes small CRISPR RNAs to detect and degrade the exogenic DNA. A small sequence motif, the PAM, marks the foreign substrates. Previously, a recombinant type I-A Cascade complex from the archaeon Thermoproteus tenax was shown to target and degrade DNA in vitro, dependent on a native PAM sequence. Here, we present the biochemical analysis of the small subunit, Csa5, of this Cascade complex. T. tenax Csa5 preferentially bound ssDNA and mutants that showed decreased ssDNA-binding and reduced Cascade-mediated DNA cleavage were identified. Csa5 oligomerization prevented DNA binding. Specific recognition of the PAM sequence was not observed. Phylogenetic analyses identified Csa5 as a universal member of type I-A systems and revealed three distinct groups. A potential role of Csa5 in R-loop stabilization is discussed.
Estimating Rates of True High-Grade Disease in the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial

The Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT) showed a decreased prostate cancer rate but an increased rate of high Gleason grade disease on biopsy for finasteride versus placebo. The results from radical prostatectomy (RP) on 25% of the men undergoing RP have recently been reported and suggest that grading artifacts in biopsy Gleason scoring may have occurred. We used a statistical model to extrapolate the RP Gleason results to all men in the PCPT using a missing-at-random assumption. We estimated the rates of true high-grade (Gleason 7-10) and true low-grade disease, where true Gleason grade is what is (or would have been) found on RP. We also estimated misclassification rates on biopsy of true high-grade and low-grade disease. We show that the rate of upgrading of biopsy low-grade disease to high-grade on RP is a function of misclassification rates as well as the ratio of true low-grade to high-grade disease. The estimated relative risks for true low-grade and true high-grade disease for finasteride compared with placebo were 0.61 (95% confidence interval, 0.51-0.71) and 0.84 (95% confidence interval, 0.68-1.05), respectively. The misclassification rate of true high-grade disease (to low-grade disease on biopsy) was significantly lower for finasteride (34.6%) than for placebo (52.6%). Although misclassification rates differed, upgrading rates were similar in each arm due to the different ratios of true low-grade to high-grade disease in each arm. Results from RP show that misclassification rates on biopsy were higher in the placebo arm and that the rate of true high-grade disease may have been lower in the finasteride arm.
LIGHT AND ELECTRON MICROSCOPIC EVALUATION OF TESTICULAR TISSUE AFTER EXPOSURE TO METHOTREXATE

This study was designed to evaluate the toxic effects of chronic exposure to methotrexate on testicular structure in adult male albino rat judged by light and electron microscope (EM). Group I: served as control group (n = 5) and Group II: injected subcutaneously by methotrexate in a dose of 12.5 microgram /kg body weight (n = 10), which is equally divided into two subgroups; IIa (that were daily for one week) (5rats) and IIb (that were daily for two week) (5 rats). At the end of experimental period, all of the rats were scarified and both testes were prepared for histological and ultrastructural study. In methotrexate one-week treated animals, there were several pathological changes include degenerated seminiferous tubules and distortion in spermatogenic cells. In animals treated with methotrexate for two-weeks, seminiferous tubules showed disorganized spermatogenic cells with reduced number of spermatids. EM evaluation of methotrexate -induced changes revealed significant thickening in basal lamina, structural changes in mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum and cytoplasm of Sertoli cell, decrease in number of microtubules of centriole in sperms and loss of the tight junctions due to widening of intracellular space between spermatogenic cells. It could be concluded that exposure to anticancer drugs has a deleterious effect on testicular function as regards spermatogenesis with proved ultrastructural changes.
Two New Species of Trypanosomatid Parasites Isolated from Heteroptera in Costa Rica

ABSTRACT. Two new trypanosomatid species (Euglenozoa, Kinetoplastea) isolated from the intestinal tract of heteropteran insect hosts were described based on molecular phylogenetic analyses of Spliced Leader (SL) RNA gene repeats, glycosomal glyceraldehyde phosphate dehydrogenase, and small subunit ribosomal RNA genes, as well as by morphology. Leptomonas barvae n. sp. , from a mirid host Collaria oleosa, was found to represent one of the closest monoxenous (one host) relatives of the dixenous (two hosts) parasitic genus Leishmania. This finding further supports the origin of these dixenous parasites from monoxenous progenitors in the Neotropics. Blastocrithidia largi n. sp. , from a largid host Largus cinctus, is among a few members of this genus available in culture. The species is a close relative of Blastocrithidia triatomae and is a member of a new monophyletic phylogenetic group characterized by formation of straphanger cysts.
Wireless fingerprint attendance management system

This paper presents the design methodology of a simple and high real time Zigbee - biometric system for easy and time saving attendance management using the finger prints of the employees at any organization along with the employee incoming and outgoing log maintenance. Firstly employee's fingerprints are scanned by software and an identity number is allotted as their enrollment. During the attendance time when employees impress their fingerprints, against the scanner, the system compares the new fingerprint patterns and the connection between various points in the fingerprint with the enrollment database. A match is recorded as a knock exercising acquisition, processing, transmission, matching. Through this automatic system, time and manpower is reduced to the great extent.