Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Six-pack IGBT dynamic electro-thermal model: parameter extraction and validation

An electro-thermal simulation model is developed for a six-pack IGBT power module. A measurement system suitable for extracting transient thermal data for short term, high-power heating conditions is used in this work for thermal model validation. A set of parameter extraction software tools is used to extract the electrical parameters as well as temperature dependent parameters associated with the IGBT die within the module.
A Deeper Insight of Neural Network Spatial Interaction Model's Performance Trained with Different Training Algorithms

Neural Network (NN) expansion can be categorized into three crucial stages, namely before 1960, 1960-1986, and after 1986 periods. The era before 1960 is when NN was discovered and developed; the next period saw a decline in NN research, while the last period has witnessed advanced developments in NN, especially in improvement of the training algorithms. Therefore, training algorithm is considered as the key in the successfulness of NN application. However, inappropriate choice of training algorithms may lead to poor NN performance. This paper reports the performance of NN models for spatial interaction modelling trained by three different algorithms and discusses some fundamental issues such as the training error and gradient, connection weight update, mapping output, performance consistency, and over fitting. These issues are rarely discussed in previous studies. Findings from this study are expected can assist the transport modeller in using NN as a robust and sound modelling tool.
Discrimination by Microcredit Officers: Theory and Evidence on Disability in Uganda

This paper studies the relationship between a microfinance institution (MFI) and its loan officers when officers discriminate against a particular group of micro-entrepreneurs. Using survey data from Uganda, we provide evidence that loan officers are more biased than other employees against disabled micro-entrepreneurs. In line with the evidence, we build an agency model of a non-profit MFI and a biased loan officer in charge of granting loans. Since incentive schemes are costly and the MFI's budget is limited, the MFI faces a trade-off between combating discrimination and granting loans. We show that the optimal incentive premium is a non-decreasing function of the MFI's budget. Moreover, even a non-discriminatory welfare-maximizing MFI may let its loan officer discriminate, because eradicating discrimination would come at the cost of too many loans. Observing an MFI's loan allocation biased against a minority group therefore does not imply that the institution is biased against this group.
Facial Feedback Affects Perceived Intensity but Not Quality of Emotional Expressions

Motivated by conflicting evidence in the literature, we re-assessed the role of facial feedback when detecting quantitative or qualitative changes in others’ emotional expressions. Fifty-three healthy adults observed self-paced morph sequences where the emotional facial expression either changed quantitatively (i.e., sad-to-neutral, neutral-to-sad, happy-to-neutral, neutral-to-happy) or qualitatively (i.e. from sad to happy, or from happy to sad). Observers held a pen in their own mouth to induce smiling or frowning during the detection task. When morph sequences started or ended with neutral expressions we replicated a congruency effect: Happiness was perceived longer and sooner while smiling; sadness was perceived longer and sooner while frowning. Interestingly, no such congruency effects occurred for transitions between emotional expressions. These results suggest that facial feedback is especially useful when evaluating the intensity of a facial expression, but less so when we have to recognize which emotion our counterpart is expressing.
Preparation, Characterization, In Vitro Release and Degradation of Cathelicidin-BF-30-PLGA Microspheres

Cathelicidin-BF-30 (BF-30), a water-soluble peptide isolated from the snake venom of Bungarus fasciatus containing 30 amino acid residues, was incorporated in poly(D,L-lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) 75∶25 microspheres (MS) prepared by a water in oil in water W/O/W emulsification solvent extraction method. The aim of this work was to investigate the stability of BF-30 after encapsulation. D-trehalose was used as an excipient to stabilize the peptide. The MS obtained were mostly under 2 µm in size and the encapsulation efficiency was 88.50±1.29%. The secondary structure of the peptide released in vitro was determined to be nearly the same as the native peptide using Circular Dichroism (CD). The ability of BF-30 to inhibit the growth of Escherichia coli was also maintained. The cellular relative growth and hemolysis rates were 92.16±3.55% and 3.52±0.45% respectively.
The IQCODE Versus a Single-Item Informant Measure to Discriminate Between Cognitively Intact Individuals and Individuals With Dementia or Cognitive Impairment

The present study evaluated the short Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline in the Elderly (IQCODE 2-year version) against a single item concerning informant’s perception of patient’s memory, as screening tools for CIND not dementia (CIND) and dementia. Data were drawn from the Aging, Demographics, and Memory Study, which is a national study that was specifically designed to provide population-based estimates of cognitive impairment and dementia in the United States. The study employed a comprehensive dementia evaluation that yielded an expert consensus-based diagnosis. Receiver-operating curves, sensitivity, specificity, negative predictive value, and positive predictive value were calculated. Both the IQCODE and the single-item instrument demonstrated only mild-to-moderate abilities to discriminate between cognitively intact individuals and individuals with CIND. Whereas the ability of the IQCODE to discriminate between cognitively intact individuals and individuals with dementia was moderate, the single-item instrument showed an adequate ability to distinguish between cognitively intact individuals and individuals with dementia. Therefore, for screening purposes, asking informants a single question concerning patients' memory is sufficient. However, if additional data concerning patients' strengths and weaknesses are needed, the IQCODE may be desirable.
Supervised Infinite Feature Selection

In this paper, we present a new feature selection method that is suitable for both unsupervised and supervised problems. We build upon the recently proposed Infinite Feature Selection (IFS) method where feature subsets of all sizes (including infinity) are considered. We extend IFS in two ways. First, we propose a supervised version of it. Second, we propose new ways of forming the feature adjacency matrix that perform better for unsupervised problems. We extensively evaluate our methods on many benchmark datasets, including large image-classification datasets (PASCAL VOC), and show that our methods outperform both the IFS and the widely used "minimum-redundancy maximum-relevancy (mRMR)" feature selection algorithm.
MATERIALS AND METHODS Patients Patients with active cGVHD following allogeneic stem cell transplantation at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Brigham and Women ’ s Hospital Stem Cell Transplant

Chronic GVHD (cGVHD) affects 30% to 90% of surviving allogeneic transplant recipients. Thus far, no quality-oflife instruments have been developed to measure the effect of this common complication of allogeneic transplantation on patients’ functioning and well-being. Using a prospective cohort of 107 patients with active cGVHD who completed the symptom scale at enrollment and at intervals of 3 and 6 months, we developed a 30-item symptom scale with 7 subscales to capture the cGVHD-specific symptom burden. The symptom scale correlated highly with patients’ self-assessed mild, moderate, and severe cGVHD manifestations in cross-sectional analysis. Reliability (Cronbach’s α = 0.79-0.90), test-retest (r = 0.28-0.93), and convergent and discriminant validity compared to the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form 36 (SF-36) and Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy with BMT subscale (FACT-BMT) were assessed and found to be adequate. Longitudinal assessments showed that changes in overall health status correlated best with changes in quality of life as measured by the SF-36 and FACT-BMT. In contrast, changes in cGVHD severity were best detected by changes in the symptom scale. We recommend that either the SF-36 or the FACT-BMT be combined with a cGVHD-specific symptom scale to measure the impact of cGVHD on patients’ quality of life and that this endpoint be included in clinical trials testing cGVHD interventions. The cGVHD symptom scale is a short, simple, and valid measure of cGVHD manifestations and can be used to follow complication-specific symptoms using patient self-administered questionnaires.
Diagnosis and treatment of macrocytic anemias in adults

Anemia is one of the most common health problems in the primary care setting. Macrocytosis in adults is defined as a red blood cell (RBC) mean corpuscular volume (MCV) >100 femtoliter (fL). Macrocytic anemias are generally classified into megaloblastic or nonmegaloblastic anemia. Megaloblastic anemia is caused by deficiency or impaired utilization of vitamin B12 and/or folate, whereas nonmegaloblastic macrocytic anemia is caused by various diseases such as myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), liver dysfunction, alcoholism, hypothyroidism, certain drugs, and by less commonly inherited disorders of DNA synthesis. Macrocytic anemias are treated with cause‐specific therapies, and it is crucial to differentiate nonmegaloblastic from megaloblastic anemia. Because MDS and myeloid neoplasms commonly affect the elderly, primary care physicians may encounter more cases of macrocytic anemias in the near future, as the older population increases. When MDS is suspected along with leukocytopenia and/or thrombocytopenia with anemia, a hematology consultation may be appropriate.
Vapour-Deposited Cesium Lead Iodide Perovskites: Microsecond Charge Carrier Lifetimes and Enhanced Photovoltaic Performance

Metal halide perovskites such as methylammonium lead iodide (MAPbI3) are highly promising materials for photovoltaics. However, the relationship between the organic nature of the cation and the optoelectronic quality remains debated. In this work, we investigate the optoelectronic properties of fully inorganic vapour-deposited and spin-coated black-phase CsPbI3 thin films. Using the time-resolved microwave conductivity technique, we measure charge carrier mobilities up to 25 cm2/(V s) and impressively long charge carrier lifetimes exceeding 10 μs for vapour-deposited CsPbI3, while the carrier lifetime reaches less than 0.2 μs in the spin-coated samples. Finally, we show that these improved lifetimes result in enhanced device performance with power conversion efficiencies close to 9%. Altogether, these results suggest that the charge carrier mobility and recombination lifetime are mainly dictated by the inorganic framework rather than the organic nature of the cation.
Development and validation of a concept inventory for introductory-level climate change science

This paper follows on from Jarrett, Takacs and Ferry (2011) which reported the first stage in development of a concept inventory (CI) for the science of climate change. This paper details the process of CI item development, reports statistical results of initial field trials and outlines how these will be used to further refine the CI. Item difficulty, discrimination, and point biserial coefficient were calculated for each item. Cronbach’s alpha and test-retest data were used to assess reliability. Results suggest that about half of the items were too difficult for high school students; although item discrimination and test reliability were close to acceptable values, which suggests that most students were not simply guessing answers. Although it was initially designed for use in high schools, a group of undergraduates trialled the CI. Statistical analysis of scores suggest that for this group, the items perform better, and well within acceptable values. Given these favourable results and the fact that introductory-level climate change is an increasingly taught at universities, further trials with undergraduates are taking place. It is intended that the final CI will be made available as a formative assessment instrument. The draft version is available from the authors on request.
Building external anatomical structures from images using a single off-the-shelf camera

Three-dimensional (3D) geometric reconstruction and characterization of the human body from bidimensional (2D) images has been a major research topic in Computer Vision. However, it is still a complex problem to solve, when automation, speed and precision are required. Volumetric based methods are a recent and successful solution for 3D structures reconstruction from images. In this work, using an uncalibrated turntable image sequence, acquired with a single off-the-shelf CCD camera, a 3D geometric model of the structure in cause is built. Our main goal is the reconstruction of 3D shapes of external anatomical structures from images, with good precision and photorealistic appearance. Teresa C. S. Azevedo, Joao M. R. S. Tavares and Mario A. P. Vaz
Shaping Proto-Value Functions via Rewards

In this paper, we combine task-dependent reward shaping and task-independent proto-value functions to obtain reward dependent proto-value functions (RPVFs). In constructing the RPVFs we are making use of the immediate rewards which are available during the sampling phase but are not used in the PVF construction. We show via experiments that learning with an RPVF based representation is better than learning with just reward shaping or PVFs. In particular, when the state space is symmetrical and the rewards are asymmetrical, the RPVF capture the asymmetry better than the PVFs.
Responsiveness of the PedsQL to pain-related changes in health-related quality of life in pediatric sickle cell disease.

OBJECTIVE To determine if caregiver report of the pediatric quality of life inventory (PedsQL) is responsive to changes in health-related quality of life (HRQL) associated with pain episodes in pediatric sickle cell disease (SCD). METHODS 81 caregivers of children ages 2-19 years with SCD completed the PedsQL as part of routine psychosocial screenings at 2 time points, ranging from 6 to 18 months apart. Frequency of SCD-related pain episodes between time points was assessed using medical chart review. RESULTS The frequency of pain episodes between time points was a significant predictor of decreases in physical, psychosocial, and total HRQL, even after controlling for time interval, demographic, and medical variables. CONCLUSIONS The caregiver report of the PedsQL appears to be a useful tool for capturing changes in HRQL over time associated with pain episodes in SCD.
Hierarchical RBAC Model with Alpha Factor in the Water Supply Pipeline Network Information System

This paper introduces the role-based access control (RBAC) model and analyzes the shortcomings of this model in application. In addition, we put forward a hierarchical RBAC model with alpha factor for a special class of management information system. At last, this new model was implemented and verified in the water supply pipeline network information system.
C9orf72 promoter hypermethylation is neuroprotective

Objective: To use in vivo neuroimaging and postmortem neuropathologic analysis in C9orf72 repeat expansion patients to investigate the hypothesis that C9orf72 promoter hypermethylation is neuroprotective and regionally selective. Methods: Twenty patients with a C9orf72 repeat expansion participating in a high-resolution MRI scan and a clinical examination and a subset of patients (n = 11) were followed longitudinally with these measures. Gray matter (GM) density was related to C9orf72 promoter hypermethylation using permutation-based testing. Regional neuronal loss was measured in an independent autopsy series (n = 35) of C9orf72 repeat expansion patients. Results: GM analysis revealed that hippocampus, frontal cortex, and thalamus are associated with hypermethylation and thus appear to be relatively protected from mutant C9orf72. Neuropathologic analysis demonstrated an association between reduced neuronal loss and hypermethylation in hippocampus and frontal cortex. Longitudinal neuroimaging revealed that hypermethylation is associated with reduced longitudinal decline in GM regions protected by hypermethylation and longitudinal neuropsychological assessment demonstrated that longitudinal decline in verbal recall is protected by hypermethylation. Conclusions: These cross-sectional and longitudinal neuroimaging studies, along with neuropathologic validation studies, provide converging evidence for neuroprotective properties of C9orf72 promoter hypermethylation. These findings converge with prior postmortem studies suggesting that C9orf72 promoter hypermethylation may be a neuroprotective target for drug discovery.
United Iterative Reconstruction for Spectral Computed Tomography

Spectral computed tomography (CT) has attracted considerable attention because of its energy-resolving capability in identifying and discriminating materials. The use of a narrow energy bin can improve energy resolution. However, a narrow energy bin has high noise ratio, which degrades the imaging quality of spectral CT. To address this problem, this study exploits the structure correlations of images in the energy domain and proposed two types of united iterative reconstruction (UIR) algorithms. One type uses the well-reconstructed broad-spectrum image, with all available photons, as a constraint, whereas the other type uses a pseudo narrow-energy image, which is estimated with the use of our proposed structure-coupling (SC) method, as a constraint. The SC method utilizes local structures to connect images that are reconstructed with broad-spectrum and narrow-energy CT datasets. Given a broad-spectrum image, the SC method can accurately estimate its corresponding narrow-energy image. Results show that UIR algorithms significantly outperform conventional iterative reconstruction algorithms for narrow-energy image reconstruction in spectral CT. Among the UIR algorithms, SC-UIR yields the best results.
Extending Faceted Search to the Open-Domain Web

Faceted search enables users to navigate a multi-dimensional information space by combining keyword search with drill-down options in each facets. For example, when searching "computer monitor" in an e-commerce site, users can select brands and monitor types from the the provided facets {"Samsung", "Dell", "Acer", . } and {"LET-Lit", "LCD", "OLED",. }. It has been used successfully for many vertical applications, including e-commerce and digital libraries. However, this idea is not well explored for general web search in an opendomain setting, even though it holds great potential for assisting multi-faceted queries and exploratory search. The goal of this work is to explore this potential by extending faceted search into the opendomain web setting, which we call Faceted Web Search. We address three fundamental issues in Faceted Web Search, namely: how to automatically generate facets (facet generation); how to re-organize search results with users' selections on facets (facet feedback); and how to evaluate generated facets and entire Faceted Web Search systems. In conventional faceted search, facets are generated in advance for an entire corpus either manually or semi-automatically, and then recommended for particular queries in most of the previous work. However, this approach is difficult to extend to the entire web due to the web's large and heterogeneous nature. We instead propose a query-dependent approach, which extracts facets for queries from their web search results. We further improve our facet generation model under a more practical scenario, where users care more about precision of presented facets than recall. The dominant facet feedback method in conventional faceted search is Boolean filtering, which filters search results by users' selections on facets. However, our investigation shows Boolean filtering is too strict when extended to the open-domain setting. Thus, we propose soft ranking models for Faceted Web Search, which expand original queries with users' selections on facets to re-rank search results. Our experiments show that the soft ranking models are more effective than Boolean filtering models for Faceted Web Search. To evaluate Faceted Web Search, we propose both intrinsic evaluation, which evaluates facet generation on its own, and extrinsic evaluation, which evaluates an entire Faceted Web Search system by its utility in assisting search clarification. We also design a method for building reusable test collections for such evaluations. Our experiments show that using the Faceted Web Search interface can significantly improve the original ranking if allowed sufficient time for user feedback on facets.
Semiconducting carbon single-walled nanotubes as a cu-free, barrier-free back contact for CdTe solar cell

Copper diffusion from the back contact degrades the performance of CdTe solar cells over time and increases the levelized cost of electricity production from CdTe photovoltaics. Recently, carbon single-wall nanotubes (SWNTs) were shown to be a Cu-free, stable alternative that preserves the device efficiency (Phillips et al., Nano Letter, 2013). Large diameter tube samples containing a mixture of semiconducting (s-SWNT) and metallic (m-SWNT) species were used in the previous work, and the mechanisms leading to a low back barrier for majority carrier flow were not clear. The good performance of the back contact was ascribed to the interaction between the s-SWNTs in the film and the polycrystalline facets of the CdTe surfaces. In that case, the s-SWNT species had small bandgaps (~0.6-0.8 eV). Here, in an attempt to develop a more detailed understanding of the SWNT/CdTe back contact, we employed SWNT samples that are predominantly semiconducting (95%) and of larger bandgap (~1.1-1.3 eV). The power conversion efficiency of these unoptimized devices was 11.5 % with a s-SWNT back contact, as compared to 11.2% with a standard Cu/Au back contact.
Mental Illness : Reflections on the Papers Presented in the Special Issue of Rivista di Psicologia Clinica 1 / 2014

This article presents reflections about some questions emerged in the papers that several scholars have produced for the Special Issue of Rivista di Psicologia Clinica 1/2014, dedicated to mental illness. The author here remarks the fact that many scholars agree on criticising the approaches mainly based on the individual as they are considered reductive and ineffective. He takes in consideration the different theoretical and operational methods exposed in the papers that go beyond the focus on the individual in the intervention for mental illness. The author’s analysis pinpoints the most controversial aspects present in the various proposals and proceeds with the thesis that sometimes in the intervention the shift of focus towards the relationship between individual and social context occurs in the absence of a clear theoretical model. In the intervention which aims at the integration of the mentally ill patient in the coexistence milieu, this limit involves the risk of an opaque definition of psychological expertise, getting it mistaken for an activity based on social and humanitarian efforts – hence the necessity to develop a tight correlation between praxis involving interventions on coexistence milieus and theoretical models that clarify their sense.