Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Application of a digital ANF-based power processor for micro-grids power quality enhancement

The ability of distributed generation sources to enhance the power quality of micro-grids is an important issue for the emerging power grid. This paper proposes a decentralized approach for power quality improvements in smart micro-grids. In this scheme, a modified reduced-order digital adaptive notch filter has been introduced and employed to extract the harmonic content of power system variables such as current or voltage. A universal digital power processor has been developed accordingly to intensify the power quality enhancement capabilities of distributed generation systems. The proposed technique allows for compensation of either particular unwanted frequency components or a wide range in the spectral content of the injected current. Current harmonics of non-linear local loads have been therefore compensated by the distributed generation source and a quality electric power is injected to the grid. Simulation results verify the accuracy and validity of the proposed scheme.
Identification of OXA-23 carbapenemases: novel variant OXA-239 in Acinetobacter baumannii ST758 clinical isolates in Mexico

A collection of 15 carbapenem-resistance Acinetobacter baumannii clinical isolates was analysed on two tertiary hospitals in Mexico. The OXA-51 was identified in all isolates, followed by OXA-239 and OXA-58; OXA-239 is described as a new OXA-23-like allele. These carbapenemases were identified on four clonal groups, distributed between two neighbouring hospitals. Acinetobacter baumannii is poorly studied in Mexico; this situation urges the implementation of strategies to prevent its dissemination.
A 73.9%-Efficiency CMOS Rectifier Using a Lower DC Feeding (LDCF) Self-Body-Biasing Technique for Far-Field RF Energy-Harvesting Systems

A self-body-biasing technique is proposed for differential-drive cross-coupled (DDCC) rectifier, with its profound application in far-field RF energy-harvesting systems. The conventional source-to-body, and the proposed technique known as Lower DC Feeding (LDCF), were fabricated in the 130-nm CMOS and compared at the operation frequency of 500 MHz, 953 MHz and 2 GHz along with a corresponding load of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$2~\text {k}\Omega $ </tex-math></inline-formula>, <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$10~\text {k}\Omega $ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$50~\text {k}\Omega $ </tex-math></inline-formula>. The technique allows the PMOS transistors to operate with a dynamic threshold voltage (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$V_{th}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) which improves the power conversion efficiency (PCE) when the rectifier is operating at a smaller received power. A 9.5% of improvement is achieved at the peak PCE when the rectifier is operating at 953 MHz, and driving a <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$10~\text {k}\Omega $ </tex-math></inline-formula> load. A maximum PCE of 73.9% is measured at 2 GHz when driving a 2-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text {k}\Omega $ </tex-math></inline-formula> load. The LDCF technique also offers a self-limiting capability for its output voltage, by reducing the PCE at larger received power. A limit-voltage level of 3.5 V is measured irrespective to the operating frequency and load. This capability aids the protection of the subsequent circuits in a wireless sensor from being overpowered.
Sestrin2 Protein Positively Regulates AKT Enzyme Signaling and Survival in Human Squamous Cell Carcinoma and Melanoma Cells*

Background: The role of Sestrin2 (Sesn2) in skin squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and melanoma is unknown. Results: Sesn2 increases AKT activation and resistance to UVB and chemotherapeutics and is up-regulated in SCC and melanoma. Conclusion: Sesn2 promotes AKT activation and survival of SCC and melanoma cells. Significance: Sesn2 may promote tumorigenesis and chemoresistance of SCC and melanoma. Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States and is mainly caused by environmental UV radiation. Reducing skin cancer incidence is becoming an urgent issue. The stress-inducible protein Sestrin2 (Sesn2) plays an important role in maintaining redox and metabolic homeostasis and their related pathologies. However, the role of Sesn2 in cancer remains unclear. Here we show that UVB radiation induces Sesn2 expression in normal human keratinocytes, mouse skin, normal human melanocytes, and melanoma cells. In addition, Sesn2 promotes AKT activation through a PTEN-dependent mechanism. Sesn2 deletion or knockdown sensitizes squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) cells to 5-fluorouracil-induced apoptosis and melanoma cells to UVB- and vemurafenib-induced apoptosis. In mice Sesn2 knockdown suppresses tumor growth from injected human SCC and melanoma cells. Last, as compared with normal skin, Sesn2 is up-regulated in both human skin SCC and melanoma. Our findings demonstrate that Sesn2 promotes AKT activation and survival in response to UVB stress and chemotherapeutics and suggest that Sesn2 is oncogenic in skin SCC and melanoma.
First Demonstration of Junctionless Accumulation-Mode Bulk FinFETs With Robust Junction Isolation

A junctionless-accumulation-mode (JAM) p-channel MOSFET is successfully implemented based on a junction-isolated bulk FinFET for the first time. The JAM devices with a fin width of 16 nm show outstanding transfer characteristics: 1) subthreshold swing (SS<sub>min</sub>) = 68 mV/dec; 2) drain-induced-barrier-lowering is 9 mV/V; and 3) I<sub>ON</sub>/I<sub>OFF</sub> ratio >1 × 10<sup>6</sup>. The JAM devices with smaller fin widths or longer gate lengths give superior short-channel characteristics and higher threshold voltages (V<sub>th</sub>) due to their enhanced gate electrostatic controllability. The reverse back bias modulates V<sub>th</sub> and SS favorably by virtue of a body-tied device, maintaining the substrate current due to junction leakage of <;1 × 10<sup>-11</sup> A.
Characterization of recovery and neuropsychological consequences of orbitofrontal lesion: A case study

We present a case study of a patient with acquired prefrontal lesion involving mainly ventromedial and orbital structures (VM-PFD). The patient showed behavioral and emotional disturbances one year after the injury. In a follow-up examination seven years later, we evaluated her performance in tasks found theoretically to be sensitive to orbital and medial lesions. In contrast to our hypothesis, her performance was in the normal range. We suggest that a possible explanation for her magnificent recovery may include a high cognitive reserve and the specific characteristics of her injury.
Combining cloud computing and wireless sensor networks

Just recently emerged a new paradigm for internet-based software systems which is called as cloud computing. The cloud provides scalable processing power and several kinds of connectable services. This distributed architecture has many similarities with a typical wireless sensor network, where a lot of motes, which are responsible for sensing and local preprocessing, are interconnected with wireless connections. Since wireless sensor networks are limited in their processing power, battery life and communication speed, cloud computing usually offers the opposite, which makes it attractive for long term observations, analysis and use in different kinds of environments and projects, since the basic infrastructure remains the same. In this paper we present a model, which combines the concept of wireless sensor networks with the cloud computing paradigm, and show how both can benefit from this combination.
Visualizing the Relationship Between Human Mobility and Points of Interest

In transportation studies, one fundamental problem is to analyze the departures and arrivals at locations in order to predict the travel demands for urban planning and traffic management. These movements can relate to many factors, e.g., activity distributions and household demographics. This paper presents how we use visualization to explore the relationship between people movements and activity distributions that are characterized by the points of interest (POIs). To effectively model and visualize such relationship, we introduce POI-mobility signature, a compact visual representation with two main components. 1) A mobility component to present major people movements information across temporal dimension. 2) A POI component to present the activity context over an area of interest in spatial domain. To derive the signature, we study assorted analytical tasks after discussing with transportation researchers, consider essential design principles, and apply the representation to study a real-world dataset, which is the massive public transportation data in Singapore with over 30 million trajectories and crowd-sourcing POIs retrieved from Foursquare. Finally, we conduct three case studies and interview three transportation experts to verify the efficacy of our method.
Exemplar-based noise robust automatic speech recognition using modulation spectrogram features

We propose a novel exemplar-based feature enhancement method for automatic speech recognition which uses coupled dictionaries: an input dictionary containing atoms sampled in the modulation (envelope) spectrogram domain and an output dictionary with atoms in the Mel or full-resolution frequency domain. The input modulation representation is chosen for its separation properties of speech and noise and for its relation with human auditory processing. The output representation is one which can be processed by the ASR back-end. The proposed method was investigated on the AURORA-2 and AURORA-4 databases and improved word error rates (WER) were obtained when compared to the system which uses Mel features in the input exemplars. The paper also proposes a hybrid system which combines the baseline and the proposed algorithm on the AURORA-2 database which in turn also yielded improvement over both the algorithms.
Human Communication . A Publication of the Pacific and Asian Communication Association

The friends with benefits relationship (FWBR) is a complex, opposite-sex friendship in which partners freely engage in sexual activity within the relationship, but do not interact as romantic partners, but rather as platonic friends. And while framed as apparently beneficial, the current study attempted to determine if, in fact, any relational benefits actually exist within the FWBR as compared to other platonic, opposite-sex friendships where no sexual activity occurs. Undergraduate students (N = 203) from a private, Christian university in the south-central United States responded to questions concerning attitudes and activities regarding opposite-sex friendships. Results indicated that some interpersonal benefits do exist for the FWBR, but these appear to be related to actual participation in a FWBR rather than due to any sex differences between men and women.
Increasing the extraction efficiency of AlGaInP LEDs via n-side surface roughening

An n-side-up AlGaInP-based light-emitting diode (LED) with a triangle-like surface morphology was fabricated using the adhesive layer bonding technique, followed by wet etching to roughen the surface. The light output power of the roughened-surface LED was 1.6 times higher than that of a flat-surface LED at an injection current of 20 mA, i.e., a significant improvement attributed to the ability of the roughened surface to not only reduce the internal reflection between the rear mirror system and the semiconductor-air interface, but also to effectively scatter the light outside the LED device.
The adequacy of the science citation index (SCI) as an indicator of international scientific activity

The adequacy of the Science Citation Index (SCI) as a data source for developing indicators of international scientific activity was tested by comparing country-by-country journal counts based on the SCI with British Library Lending Division country-by-country journal counts, and with country-by-country counts of papers in other abstracting services, and by looking at the patterns of references from key journals. While the SCI appears to be an excellent, internationally balanced data source for the core of the physical and biological sciences, particularly for the English-speaking countries, there still are significant differences between the SCI and other sources in national coverage of fields with a more dispersed literature, especially in the case of journals from countries with non-Roman alphabets. In particular, SCI coverage of the Soviet literature appears incomplete, especially in the biological and medical sciences.
Changes in Escherichia coli rRNA Promoter Activity Correlate with Changes in Initiating Nucleoside Triphosphate and Guanosine 5′ Diphosphate 3′-Diphosphate Concentrations after Induction of Feedback Control of Ribosome Synthesis

ABSTRACT rRNA synthesis is the rate-limiting step in ribosome synthesis in Escherichia coli. Its regulation has been described in terms of a negative-feedback control loop in which rRNA promoter activity responds to the amount of translation. The feedback nature of this control system was demonstrated previously by artificially changing ribosome synthesis rates and observing responses of rRNA promoters. However, it has not been demonstrated previously that the initiating nucleoside triphosphate (iNTP) and guanosine 5′-diphosphate 3′-diphosphate (ppGpp), the molecular effectors responsible for controlling rRNA promoters in response to changes in the nutritional environment, are responsible for altering rRNA promoter activities under these feedback conditions. Here, we show that most feedback situations result in changes in the concentrations of both the iNTP and ppGpp and that the directions of these changes are consistent with a role for these two small-molecule regulators in feedback control of rRNA synthesis. In contrast, we observed no change in the level of DNA supercoiling under the feedback conditions examined.
Androgen‐regulated gastrin‐releasing peptide receptor expression in androgen‐dependent human prostate tumor xenografts

Human prostate cancer (PC) overexpresses the gastrin‐releasing peptide receptor (GRPR). Radiolabeled GRPR‐targeting analogs of bombesin (BN) have successfully been introduced as potential tracers for visualization and treatment of GRPR‐overexpressing tumors. A previous study showed GRPR‐mediated binding of radiolabeled BN analogs in androgen‐dependent but not in androgen‐independent xenografts representing the more advanced stages of PC. We have further investigated the effect of androgen modulation on GRPR‐expression in three androgen‐dependent human PC‐bearing xenografts: PC295, PC310 and PC82 using the androgen‐independent PC3‐model as a reference. Effects of androgen regulation on GRPR expression were initially studied on tumors obtained from our biorepository of xenograft tissues performing reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) and autoradiography (125I‐universal‐BN). A prospective biodistribution study (111In‐MP2653) and subsequent autoradiography (125I‐GRP and 111In‐MP2248) was than performed in castrated and testosterone resupplemented tumor‐bearing mice. For all androgen‐dependent xenografts, tumor uptake and binding decreased drastically after 7 days of castration. Resupplementation of testosterone to castrated animals restored GRPR expression extensively. Similar findings were concluded from the initial autoradiography and RT‐PCR studies. Results from RT‐PCR, for which human specific primers are used, indicate that variations in GRPR expression can be ascribed to mRNA downregulation and not to castration‐induced reduction in the epithelial fraction of the xenograft tumor tissue. In conclusion, expression of human GRPR in androgen‐dependent PC xenografts is reduced by androgen ablation and is reversed by restoring the hormonal status of the animals. This knowledge suggests that hormonal therapy may affect GRPR expression in PC tissue making GRPR‐based imaging and therapy especially suitable for non‐hormonally treated PC patients.
Micropropagation of Echinacea angustifolia, E. pallida, and E. purpurea from Stem and Seed Explants

Micropropagation of three Echinacea species, E. angustifolia DC. , E. pallida Nutt. , and E. purpurea Moench. , was investigated as a potential means of germplasm preservation of species faced with overcollection in the wild and rapid clonal propagation of elite individuals with unique medicinal or ornamental properties. Very high contami- nation rates occurred with shoot-tip explants but not with nodal segments. Contamination rates for seed explants were inversely related to the number of seedcoat layers removed, ranging from 100% contamination from intact seeds to near 0% contamination from excised embryos. Dormancy of seed explants was also eliminated when the pericarp and integument were removed. Addition of benzyladenine (BA) to the culture medium induced shoot multiplication and inhibited root formation in all three species. Shoot multiplication rates were low (1-3 shoots per culture) when seed explants were placed on a medium with BA levels low enough to avoid adventitious shoot formation (0.45 µ M). Shoot count was higher on half-strength Murashige and Skoog (MS) minerals, while leaf size was greater on full-strength MS minerals. Cultures did not perform well in Woody Plant Medium. Reducing subculture frequency from 4 to 2 weeks increased shoot multiplication from 1.4 to 1.8 shoots per subculture and total shoots produced per subculture after 12 weeks from 2.8 to 23.9. Rooting occurred readily on shoots isolated from E. purpurea cultures and was not promoted by addition of IBA to the rooting medium. Rooting was low and nil on shoots from cultures of E. angustifolia and E. pallida, respectively. Methods described in this study allow rapid multiplication of three Echinacea species and subsequent rooting of E. purpurea. Future improvements in root induction treatments will allow these methods to be used effectively for micropropagation and maintenance of disease-free germplasm of Echinacea species. Chemical names used: N-(phenylmethyl)-1H-purine-6-amine (BA); 1H-indole-3-butyric acid (IBA).
A hybrid feature selection model for text clustering

For text clustering task, distinctive text features selection is important due to feature space high dimensionality. It is essential to reduce the feature space dimension to increase accuracy and decrease processing time. In this work, for text clustering task, we introduce a novel hybrid feature selection model. This method measures the term importance based on the correlation coefficient among four term weighting techniques. All terms in the feature parameter vector are ranked based on this correlation coefficient score. Then low score terms are filtered out. Clustering technique is applied on the feature parameter vectors after filtering step. The proposed method results show its superiority over the traditional feature selection approaches.
Modeling Reflective Higher-Order Constructs using Three Approaches with PLS Path Modeling: A Monte Carlo Comparison

Many studies in the social sciences are increasingly modeling higher-order constructs. PLS can be used to investigate models at a higher level of abstraction (Lohmoller, 1989). It is often chosen due to its’ ability to estimate complex models (Chin, 1998). The primary goal of this paper is to demonstrate the relative robustness of various item and construct characteristics on the reproduction of parameter true scores when utilising the two-stage, hierarchical components indicators (repeated indicators) and a newer hybrid technique (where indicators are not repeated). Our Monte Carlo study mirrors a simple substantive branding example. We vary pertinent dimensions such as: sample size, differing item reliabilities and inner weighting schemes. Our contribution is twofold. Firstly, we provide an overview of the approaches to model reflective second-order constructs with PLS. Secondly, based on our simulation, we provide suggestions when to use each approach.
Genetic algorithm and optimized weight matrix application for peroxisome proliferator response elements recognition: Prerequisites of accuracy growth for wide genome research

Development of reliable transcription factor binding site (TFBS) recognition methods is an important step in the large-scale genome analysis. The most of currently applied methods to predict functional TFBSs are hampered by the high false-positive rates that occur when too few functionally characterised sequences are available and only sequence conservation within a site core is considered. We propose two methods to search for binding sites (BSs) of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) (peroxisome proliferator response elements, PPREs). The first method is the optimized dinucleotide position weight matrix (PWM) model, the second method represented by SiteGA model that used genetic algorithm with a discriminant function of locally positioned dinucleotides to infer the most important positions and dinucleotides. We used in our analysis two PPRE datasets, consisting of 37 and 98 BSs, correspondingly. We showed that dataset extension improved the accuracy of SiteGA, but not PWM model. Finally we combined both models (PWM and SiteGA) to the dataset of annotated human promoters (EPD). We demonstrated that the larger dataset and the longer window length supported notable growth of accuracies for PWM and SiteGA models. Consequently, a combined PWM and SiteGA application may better restrict the number of potential targets in the EPD promoter dataset.
Monocular 3D human motion analysis using quantum-behaved clonal algorithm

3D human motion analysis from a single viewpoint is an extremely challenge computer vision task due to the lack of depth information and complex human movements. To resolve these problems, based on the quantum computing and immune clonal operator, a novel evolution algorithm, called a quantum-behaved clonal algorithm (QBCA), is proposed for 3D human motion analysis. Firstly, a 2D part-based human detector (PBD) is used to compute the 2D landmarks of key body joints. Then, human motion analysis is performed by optimizing a distance similarity function between the detected 2D landmarks and 2D projection of predicted 3D joint points using QBCA. Moreover, our method not only has a good balance between exploitation and exploration, but also searches both local optimum solution and global optimum solution, simultaneously. Extensive results on PARSE and HumanEva dataset demonstrate the robustness and effectiveness of our proposed method.
Fluoroquinolone residues in raw cow's milk.

Navratilova P., Borkovcova I. , Vyhnalkova J., Vorlova L. (2011): Fluoroquinolone residues in raw cow’s milk. Czech J. Food Sci., 29: 641–646. The aim of the study was to monitore the levels of fluoroquinolone residues in bulk samples of raw cow’s milk. The bulk samples of raw cow’s milk (n = 150) were obtained from 58 different milk suppliers in the South Moravian and Vysocina Regions. The samples were analysed by reverse phase high-performance liquid chromatography method with fluorescence detection and gradient elution. 87.3% of the raw milk samples were positive for the fluoroquinolones residues. Flumequine was present in none of the samples. The levels of other fluoroquinolones investigated were below the recommended maximum residue limit. The results of the study indicate that fluoroquinolones are frequently administered to the dairy cows in spite of the recommendations of CVMP. The most frequently determined was enrofloxacin and its indicator residue, i.e. ciprofloxacin. An efficient control of the veterinary drugs residues in milk is very important to ensure the safety of the milk and milk products.