Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Angiotensin II Type II Receptor Deficiency Accelerates the Development of Nephropathy in Type I Diabetes via Oxidative Stress and ACE2

Since the functional role(s) of angiotensin II (Ang II) type II receptor (AT2R) in type I diabetes is unknown, we hypothesized that AT2R is involved in decreasing the effects of type I diabetes on the kidneys. We induced diabetes with low-dose streptozotocin (STZ) in both AT2R knockout (AT2RKO) and wild-type (WT) male mice aged 12 weeks and followed them for 4 weeks. Three subgroups nondiabetic, diabetic, and insulin-treated diabetic (Rx insulin implant) were studied. Systolic blood pressure (SBP), physiological parameters, glomerular filtration rate (GFR), renal morphology, gene expression, and apoptosis were assessed. After 4 weeks of diabetes, compared to WT controls, AT2RKO mice clearly developed features of early diabetic nephropathy (DN), such as renal hypertrophy, tubular apoptosis, and progressive extracellular matrix (ECM) protein accumulation as well as increased GFR. AT2RKO mice presented hypertension unaffected by diabetes. Renal oxidative stress (measured as heme oxygenase 1 (HO-1) gene expression and reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation) and intrarenal renin angiotensin system components, such as angiotensinogen (Agt), AT1R, and angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) gene expression, were augmented whereas angiotensin-converting enzyme2 (ACE2) gene expression was decreased in renal proximal tubules (RPTs) of AT2RKO mice. The renal changes noted above were significantly enhanced in diabetic AT2RKO mice but partially attenuated in insulin-treated diabetic WT and AT2RKO mice. In conclusion, AT2R deficiency accelerates the development of DN, which appears to be mediated, at least in part, via heightened oxidative stress and ACE/ACE2 ratio in RPTs.
The force on a bubble, drop, or particle in arbitrary time‐dependent motion at small Reynolds number

The hydrodynamic force on a body that undergoes translational acceleration in an unbounded fluid at low Reynolds number is considered. The results extend the prior analysis of Lovalenti and Brady [to appear in J. Fluid Mech. (1993)] for rigid particles to drops and bubbles. Similar behavior is shown in that, with the inclusion of convective inertia, the long-time temporal decay of the force (or the approach to steady state) at finite Reynolds number is faster than the t-1/2 predicted by the unsteady Stokes equations.
Design of human-map system interaction

In this work-in-progress we present some ideas and findings involving map design and human performance. Satellites has once and for all automated geographic positioning and resulted in a plethora of map applications, not only in professional transportation but also in the private sphere, in cars and even for street use in mobile phones. But many people have problems using the traditional bird's-eye view maps. A maze experiment presented here show that an egocentric (out of the window) view of the map results in faster decision making and fewer errors. Can this also address some of the human-out-of-the-loop problems of navigation automation?
Non-invasive FECG extraction from a set of abdominal sensors

Introduction: Despite significant advances in adult clinical electrocardiography (ECG) signal processing techniques and the power of digital processors, the analysis of non-invasive foetal ECG (NI-FECG) is still in its infancy. The PhysioNet/Computing in Cardiology Challenge 2013 addresses some of these limitations by making publicly available a set of FECG data to the scientific community for evaluation of signal processing techniques. Methods: ECGs were first preprocessed by cascading a low pass and a high pass filter in order to remove higher frequency and baseline wander. A Notch filter to remove power interferences at 50Hz or 60Hz was applied if required. The signals were then normalised before applying various source separation techniques to cancel the maternal ECG. These techniques included: template subtraction, principal/independent component analysis, extended Kalman filter and a combination of a subset of these methods (FUSE method). FQRS detection was performed on all residuals using a Pan and Tompkins QRS detector and the channel with the smoothest FHR time series was selected. Results: The FUSE algorithm performed better than all the individual methods on the training set data. On the validation set, best Challenge scores obtained were E4=29.6. E5=4.67 for events 4-5 respectively using the FUSE method.
Effects of Anti-Hypertensive Monotherapy with Either Calcium Channel Blocker or Angiotensin Receptor Blocker on Arterial Stiffness, Central Hemodynamics, and Ventriculo-Arterial Coupling in Uncomplicated Hypertension Patients.

OBJECTIVES This study is designed to investigate the effects of anti-hypertensive monotherapy [either calcium channel blocker (CCB) or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB)] on pulsatile hemodynamic parameters in patients with uncomplicated hypertension. METHODS This is a longitudinal observational study. For simplicity, we included patients with uncomplicated hypertension who receivedmono anti-hypertensive therapy with ARB or CCB. Hemodynamic parameters including central arterial pressure (CAP), aortic characteristic impedance (Zc), augmentation index (AI), brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV), heart-ankle pulse wave velocity (haPWV), cardiac ultrasonographic parameters and ventriculo-arterial (VA) coupling were measured before, 1 month and 3 months after treatment. RESULTS A total of 74 subjects were included in our study for analysis from 2007-2008. Systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and central systolic arterial pressure (CSAP) were significantly reduced 1 and 3 months after initiation of therapy. Among the pulsatile hemodynamic parameters, only the baPWV was significantly reduced (from1537.78 ± 200.63 cm/s to 1460.06 ± 186.09 cm/s to 1456.53 ± 196.03 cm/s, p for trend = 0.016). The haPWV only decreased with borderline significance (from 1015.38 ± 124.26 cm/s to 978.88 ± 126.55 cm/s to 967.99 ± 103.37 cm/s, p for trend = 0.041). The other pulsatile hemodynamic parameters remained unchanged before and after therapy. Subgroup analysis (age above or below52 years) showed that the baPWVwas significantly reduced only in the younger group. CONCLUSIONS Among the pulsatile hemodynamic parameters, only the baPWV was effectively reduced by either CCB or ARB. The improvement of PWV was more evident in younger subjects. KEY WORDS Arterial stiffness; Central arterial pressure; Hypertension; Pulse wave velocity; Ventriculo-arterial coupling.
INFLUENCE OF TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP ON PEACE BUILDING IN SOMALIA

The general objective of this study was to assess the influence of transformational leadership on peace building in Somalia. The study used descriptive research design to assess the influence of transformational leadership on peace building in Somalia. The study target population was the 135 traditional leaders and resident of Mogadishu. The group of traditional leaders represents respective clans in Somalia. The study sample size was 101 respondents. Stratified sampling was used since the group is non-homogenous in nature. Primary data collection procedure was done with the use of questionnaires, while secondary data was sourced from books, government reports and journals. Data was gathered by use of questionnaire was processed by editing, and computing with help of statistical software (SPSS version 23). The results of the study revealed that there was statistically significant influence of transformational leadership on peace building in Somalia. Specifically, the results revealed that there was a statistically significant influence of inspirational motivation, individual consideration, and intellectual stimulation on peace building in Somalia. The implication of the study was that there should be effective communication between management and other followers within the organization, government and policy makers should organize and initiate coaching in transformational leadership so that it could help to leaders with the necessary skills of leadership, transformational leadership should be taught to all people at all levels of organization to have a positive impact on the overall follower’s morale, leaders should give a space that followers can play around and exercise their creativity, leaders should train and capacitate their followers and prepare them to be the future leaders, and teamwork among followers should be enhanced to ensure cohesiveness among the supporters and the leader should ensure and lead by example. Areas for further study was the need for future researchers to assess the influence of other leadership styles on peace building so that leaders could fully understand and appreciate the appropriate methodology that would effectively enhance on peace building in Somalia. Key Terms: Appreciation of others, conflict management, Conflict resolution, Conflict settlement, Creativity, idealized behavior, Individualized Consideration, Inspirational Motivation, Intellectual Stimulation, Peace building, Recognition, Responsibility, Teaching, Team orientation, transactional Leadership, Transformational leadership
HIV-vaccines: lessons learned and the way forward

Abstract A safe and efficacious preventive HIV vaccine, as part of a comprehensive prevention program, remains among the highest public health priorities. It would be the best tool that could reduce the spread of HIV significantly in the long run. Current AIDS vaccine candidates are unable to induce neutralizing antibodies against primary HIV isolates or only to a very limited and narrow extent, representing a major obstacle in the development of an efficacious HIV vaccine. Clinical efforts have mainly focused on T-cell vaccines such as DNA and various recombinant vectors alone or in prime-boost regimens. The Merck Ad5 vaccine not only failed to show efficacy but also was associated with increased risk of HIV acquisition in vaccinees in a Phase IIb trial. While gp120 alone was not efficacious, the ALVAC prime and gp120 boost regimen showed 31% efficacy in a Phase III trial in Thailand. These contrasting results illustrate the limitations of available laboratory assays to assess the vaccine-induced immune responses and the lack of understanding of immune correlates of protection. Efforts should therefore focus on developing vaccine candidates inducing broadly neutralizing antibodies. Similarly, new vector strategies such as replicating vectors should be explored to induce strong and broad T-cell responses in the systemic and mucosal compartments. Innovation in immune assay development and testing algorithms is critically needed. The standardization of more relevant and predictive non-human primate models for immunogenicity and efficacy studies will contribute to better and faster vaccine assessment. HIV vaccine development requires innovative ideas and a sustained long-term commitment of the scientific community, civil society, politicians, and donors and participants for clinical research.
Soft robotics: what Cartesian stiffness can obtain with passively compliant, uncoupled joints?

In the field of service robotics, whole arm contact with an unstructured environment or human beings becomes a major issue. Therefore soft robots, which mean robots with passively (or mechanically) compliant joints, become more and more important. In this work we analyze what Cartesian stiffness at the tool center point one can achieve with a passively compliant, redundant robot with variable joint stiffness. We restrict this work to the special case of uncoupled joint stiffness only, as coupling of joint stiffness seems to be mechanically difficult to realize. Finally we discuss a Cartesian controller, which incorporates the compliance of the joints and ensures the correct stiffness behavior also for high displacements from the desired position.
Combining Learning Analytics and the Flipped Classroom in a MOOC of Maths

This paper describes the configuration, setup and initial analysis ex- amples of an experience for introducing learning analytics in a MOOC of maths for adult high school education, using the flipped the classroom methodology. An overview of the MOOC of maths is provided, as well as an overview of the ANALYSE learning analytics tool which is used to analyze the learning pro- cess. We describe how the learning analytics tool can be useful in this setup and methodology and we illustrate specific examples of conclusions in the MOOC of maths.
Local post-processing for locally conservative fluxes in the Galerkin method for groundwater flows

The Galerkin Finite-Element Method using bilinear basis functions (in two dimensions) offers many advantages in the numerical treatment of flow through porous media. A significant disadvantage of this approach, however, is the lack of an explicit discrete requirement of conservation of mass on mesh cells. While this shortcoming is a concern in the case of single-phase flows, it is critical in the case of multi-phase flows, where lack of conservation may lead to inaccurate or non-physical simulations. Here, we extend the approach of Cordes and Kinzelbach [1992] for computing continuous velocity fields based on finite-element solution data to the important cases of heterogeneous media, non-zero recharge, and non-homogeneous boundary conditions. We introduce a new technique, which solves a problem similar to that in Cordes and Kinzelbach [1992], but using a local mixed finite element basis. Finally, we compare the two approaches and give numerical results that demonstrate the usefulness of the improved velocity fields.
Driver model with motion stabilizer for vehicle-driver closed-loop simulation at high-speed maneuvering

This paper describes an integrated driver model for vehicle-driver closed-loop simulation at high speed maneuvering. The proposed driver model is developed to specialize in limit handling, in order to be used as a validation platform of chassis control system. Thus, the proposed driver model emulates human driver's driving characteristics such as, desired path selection from varying preview area, deceleration against losing maneuverability. In high-speed cornering, steering with excessive corner-entry speed causes lateral tire force saturation readily. Sequentially, the lateral tire force saturation induces lateral instability of a vehicle. Deceleration is the most effective manipulation which driver can do. The proposed driver model is designed to utilize capability of tire force tightly, while securing lateral stability of the vehicle. The proposed driver model has been validated via comparison with an expert driver's driving data, collected on the Korea International Circuit in Yeongam, Korea.
Optimal MIMO beamforming based topology management for interference minimization in MIMO wireless sensor networks

In this paper, we present a novel beamforming based scheme for interference aware topology management in MIMO Wireless Sensor Networks. Topology Management techniques are aimed at achieving network topologies that guarantee energy efficient connectivity and coverage, thus leading to maximization of the lifetime of the WSN. In this context, we propose a scheme which finds a minimum spanning tree together with the optimal set of beamformers at the MIMO equipped wireless sensor nodes. For this purpose, we formulate a link metric which takes into consideration the interference at other nodes belonging to its coverage area in the WSN. Subsequently, employing the formulated metric in the WSN, we find a spanning tree which maximizes the sum-metric, thus minimizing the interference. We also determine the optimal set of beamformers considering multi-node interference and cooperative transmission among sensor nodes in the WSN spanning tree based topology. Simulation results demonstrate that the above schemes lead to a significant improvement in the overall SNR of the links in the WSN topology.
Enhancement of connected words in an extremely noisy environment

A speech enhancement algorithm that is based on a connected-word hidden Markov model (HMM) is developed. Speech is assumed to be highly degraded by statistically independent additive noise. The minimum mean square error estimator is derived for a connected-word HMM. Further, we derive an estimator based on a connected-word HMM with explicit state duration. Listening experiments performed with digit strings have shown an increase of intelligibility. The best results were achieved when subjects who listened to the enhanced speech were given the results of an automatic recognition system.
Hybrid Algorithm for Multi-Objective Optimization by Greedy Hypervolume Maximization

This paper introduces a high-performance hybrid algorithm, called Hybrid Hypervolume Maximization Algorithm (H2MA), for multi-objective optimization that alternates between exploring the decision space and exploiting the already obtained non-dominated solutions. The proposal is centered on maximizing the hypervolume indicator, thus converting the multi-objective problem into a single-objective one. The exploitation employs gradient-based methods, but considering a single candidate efficient solution at a time, to overcome limitations associated with population-based approaches and also to allow an easy control of the number of solutions provided. There is an interchange between two steps. The first step is a deterministic local exploration, endowed with an automatic procedure to detect stagnation. When stagnation is detected, the search is switched to a second step characterized by a stochastic global exploration using an evolutionary algorithm. Using five ZDT benchmarks with 30 variables, the performance of the new algorithm is compared to state-of-the-art algorithms for multi-objective optimization, more specifically NSGA-II, SPEA2, and SMS-EMOA. The solutions found by the H2MA guide to higher hypervolume and smaller distance to the true Pareto frontier with significantly less function evaluations, even when the gradient is estimated numerically. Furthermore, although only continuous decision spaces have been considered here, discrete decision spaces could also have been treated, replacing gradient-based search by hill-climbing. Finally, a thorough explanation is provided to support the expressive gain in performance that was achieved.
An Approach to Cognition in Factory Automation by applying Functional Systems Theory

This paper reports initial views on adapting the structure of intelligent systems from the domain of psychobiology to the domain of factory automation. It is postulated that psychobiology may inspire the solution in architecting of intelligent and reconfigurable manufacturing systems, rather than adapting the preconceived factory automation systems to implement intelligence. The Theory of Functional Systems, which is claimed to solve the known body-mind problem, is introduced as a model of cognitive and decision-making systems, derived from the field of neuroscience and psychology. In addition, principles of human orienting activity are proposed for implementing autonomous decision-making behavior, utilizing multiple decentralized elements that suggest actions.
Invasive Computing for robotic vision

Most robotic vision algorithms are computationally intensive and operate on millions of pixels of real-time video sequences. But they offer a high degree of parallelism that can be exploited through parallel computing techniques like Invasive Computing. But the conventional way of multi-processing alone (with static resource allocation) is not sufficient enough to handle a scenario like robotic maneuver, where processing elements have to be shared between various applications and the computing requirements of such applications may not be known entirely at compile-time. Such static mapping schemes leads to inefficient utilization of resources. At the same time it is difficult to dynamically control and distribute resources among different applications running on a single chip, achieving high resource utilization under high-performance constraints. Invasive Computing obtains more importance under such circumstances, where it offers resource awareness to the application programs so that they can adapt themselves to the changing conditions, at run-time. In this paper we demonstrate the resource aware and self-organizing behavior of invasive applications using three widely used applications from the area of robotic vision - Optical Flow, Object Recognition and Disparity Map Computation. The applications can dynamically acquire and release hardware resources, considering the level of parallelism available in the algorithm and time-varying load.
Hierarchical Modeling of a Forced Roberts dynamo

We investigate the dynamo effect in a flow configuration introduced by G. O. Roberts in 1972. Based on a clear energetic hierarchy of Fourier components on the steady-state dynamo branch, an approximate model of interacting modes is constructed covering all essential features of the complete system but allowing simulations with a minimum amount of computation time. We use this model to study the excitation mechanism of the dynamo, the transition from stationary to time-dependent dynamo solutions and the characteristic properties of the latter ones.
Expression, purification and characterization of the structure and disulfide linkages of insulin-like growth factor binding protein-4.

Insulin-like growth factor binding protein-4 (IGFBP-4), like the other five IGFBPs, is a critical regulator of the activity of insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-I and IGF-II. However IGFBP-4 seems to be the only IGFBP with no potential to enhance the mitogenic actions of the IGFs. IGFBP-1 to -3 and -5 each contain 18 conserved cysteine residues, IGFBP-6 lacks two of the twelve N-terminal cysteines, while IGFBP-4 has two additional cysteines in the central region. A plasmid was constructed to express rat IGFBP-4 as a thioredoxin fusion protein that included a hexahistidine sequence to permit affinity purification. The fusion protein was expressed in E.coli, purified using nickel-chelate affinity chromatography and cleaved by tobacco etch virus (TEV) protease to produce mature rat IGFBP-4 with an additional glycine residue at the N-terminus. Final purification was achieved by further nickel affinity chromatography and reverse phase HPLC. The isoelectric points of the recombinant IGFBP-4 were the same as those of the non-glycosylated isoforms of IGFBP-4 in rat serum. The binding affinities of the recombinant protein and IGFBP-4 secreted by rat cells to IGF-I were compared using a newly developed binding assay. No significant difference could be detected, consistent with proper folding of the recombinant protein. This indicates that glycosylation of IGFBP-4 does not affect its binding to IGF-I. Using mass spectrometry and tandem mass spectrometry no differences between authentic and recombinant IGFBP-4 could be detected. Eight of the ten disulfide linkages have been determined, including linkages of conserved cysteine residues not previously identified in other IGFBPs. Numbering the cysteine residues sequentially from the N-terminus only the disulfide connectivity of C1, C2, C5 and C6 could not be determined. However, C1 is not linked to C1 and C5 is not linked to C6. The established linkages were C3 to C8, C4 to C7, C9 to C 11, and C10 to C12. The two cysteines in the non-conserved mid-region unique to IGFBP-4 (C13 and C14) are linked together. Linkage of the C-terminal cysteine residues is identical to that of IGFBP-2, -5 and -6 (C15 to C16, C17 to C18 and C19 to C20). The central flexible core of IGFBP-4, containing two additional cysteines may contribute to its unique biological action.