Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Wireless power transfer to deep-tissue microimplants

Significance Advances in miniaturization paved the way for tiny medical devices that circumvent conventional surgical implantation, but no suitable method for powering them deep in the body has been demonstrated. Existing methods for energy storage, harvesting, or transfer require large components that do not scale to millimeter dimensions. We report a wireless powering method that overcomes this challenge by inducing spatially focused and adaptive electromagnetic energy transport via propagating modes in tissue. We use the method to realize a tiny electrostimulator that is orders of magnitude smaller than conventional pacemakers. The demonstrated performance characteristics far exceed requirements for advanced electronic function and should enable new generations of miniaturized electronic implants. The ability to implant electronic systems in the human body has led to many medical advances. Progress in semiconductor technology paved the way for devices at the scale of a millimeter or less (“microimplants”), but the miniaturization of the power source remains challenging. Although wireless powering has been demonstrated, energy transfer beyond superficial depths in tissue has so far been limited by large coils (at least a centimeter in diameter) unsuitable for a microimplant. Here, we show that this limitation can be overcome by a method, termed midfield powering, to create a high-energy density region deep in tissue inside of which the power-harvesting structure can be made extremely small. Unlike conventional near-field (inductively coupled) coils, for which coupling is limited by exponential field decay, a patterned metal plate is used to induce spatially confined and adaptive energy transport through propagating modes in tissue. We use this method to power a microimplant (2 mm, 70 mg) capable of closed-chest wireless control of the heart that is orders of magnitude smaller than conventional pacemakers. With exposure levels below human safety thresholds, milliwatt levels of power can be transferred to a deep-tissue (>5 cm) microimplant for both complex electronic function and physiological stimulation. The approach developed here should enable new generations of implantable systems that can be integrated into the body at minimal cost and risk.
A clinical trial of the effects of dietary patterns on blood pressure. DASH Collaborative Research Group.

BACKGROUND It is known that obesity, sodium intake, and alcohol consumption factors influence blood pressure. In this clinical trial, Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, we assessed the effects of dietary patterns on blood pressure. METHODS We enrolled 459 adults with systolic blood pressures of less than 160 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressures of 80 to 95 mm Hg. For three weeks, the subjects were fed a control diet that was low in fruits, vegetables, and dairy products, with a fat content typical of the average diet in the United States. They were then randomly assigned to receive for eight weeks the control diet, a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, or a "combination" diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy products and with reduced saturated and total fat. Sodium intake and body weight were maintained at constant levels. RESULTS At base line, the mean (+/-SD) systolic and diastolic blood pressures were 131.3+/-10.8 mm Hg and 84.7+/-4.7 mm Hg, respectively. The combination diet reduced systolic and diastolic blood pressure by 5.5 and 3.0 mm Hg more, respectively, than the control diet (P<0.001 for each); the fruits-and-vegetables diet reduced systolic blood pressure by 2.8 mm Hg more (P<0.001) and diastolic blood pressure by 1.1 mm Hg more than the control diet (P=0.07). Among the 133 subjects with hypertension (systolic pressure, > or =140 mm Hg; diastolic pressure, > or =90 mm Hg; or both), the combination diet reduced systolic and diastolic blood pressure by 11.4 and 5.5 mm Hg more, respectively, than the control diet (P<0.001 for each); among the 326 subjects without hypertension, the corresponding reductions were 3.5 mm Hg (P<0.001) and 2.1 mm Hg (P=0.003). CONCLUSIONS A diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy foods and with reduced saturated and total fat can substantially lower blood pressure. This diet offers an additional nutritional approach to preventing and treating hypertension.
Evaluation of Fluid Resuscitation Control Algorithms via a Hardware-in-the-Loop Test Bed

Objective: This paper presents a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing platform for evaluating the performance of fluid resuscitation control algorithms. The proposed platform is a cyber-physical system that integrates physical devices with computational models and computer-based algorithms. Methods: The HIL test bed is evaluated against in silico and in vivo data to ensure the hemodynamic variables are appropriately predicted in the proposed platform. The test bed is then used to investigate the performance of two fluid resuscitation control algorithms: a decision table (rule-based) and a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller. Results: The statistical evaluation of test bed indicates that similar results are observed in the HIL test bed, in silico implementation, and the in vivo data, verifying that the HIL test bed can adequately predict the hemodynamic responses. Comparison of the two fluid resuscitation controllers reveals that both controllers stabilized hemodynamic variables over time and had similar speed to efficiently achieve the target level of the hemodynamic endpoint. However, the accuracy of the PID controller was higher than the rule-based for the scenarios tested in the HIL platform. Conclusion: The results demonstrate the potential of the HIL test bed for realistic testing of physiologic controllers by incorporating physical devices with computational models of physiology and disturbances. Significance: This type of testing enables relatively fast evaluation of physiologic closed-loop control systems to aid in iterative design processes and offers complementary means to existing techniques (e.g., in silico, in vivo, and clinical studies) for testing of such systems against a wide range of disturbances and scenarios.
The selective estrogen receptor modulator raloxifene mitigates the effect of all-trans-retinal toxicity in photoreceptor degeneration

The retinoid cycle is a metabolic process in the vertebrate retina that continuously regenerates 11-cis-retinal (11-cisRAL) from the all-trans-retinal (atRAL) isomer. atRAL accumulation can cause photoreceptor degeneration and irreversible visual dysfunction associated with incurable blinding retinal diseases, such as Stargardt disease, retinitis pigmentosa (RP), and atrophic age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The underlying cellular mechanisms leading to retinal degeneration remain uncertain, although previous studies have shown that atRAL promotes calcium influx associated with cell apoptosis. To identify compounds that mitigate the effects of atRAL toxicity, here we developed an unbiased and robust image-based assay that can detect changes in intracellular calcium levels in U2OS cells. Using our assay in a high-throughput screen of 2,400 compounds, we noted that selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) potently stabilize intracellular calcium and thereby counteract atRAL-induced toxicity. In a light-induced retinal degeneration mouse model (Abca4−/−Rdh8−/−), raloxifene (a benzothiophene-type scaffold SERM) prevented the onset of photoreceptor apoptosis and thus protected the retina from degeneration. The minor structural differences between raloxifene and one of its derivatives (Y 134) had a major impact on calcium homeostasis after atRAL exposure in vitro, and we verified this differential impact in vivo. In summary, the SERM raloxifene has structural and functional neuroprotective effects in the retina. We propose that the highly sensitive image-based assay developed here could be applied for the discovery of additional drug candidates preventing photoreceptor degeneration.
Car-level congestion and position estimation for railway trips using mobile phones

We propose a method to estimate car-level train congestion using Bluetooth RSSI observed by passengers' mobile phones. Our approach employs a two-stage algorithm where car-level location of passengers is estimated to infer car-level train congestion. We have learned Bluetooth signals attenuate due to passengers' bodies, distance and doors between cars through the analysis of over 50,000 Bluetooth real samples. Based on this prior knowledge, our algorithm is designed as a Bayesian-based likelihood estimator, and is robust to the change of both passengers and congestion at stations. The car-level positions are useful for passengers' personal navigation inside stations and car-level train congestion information helps determine better strategies of taking trains. Through a field experiment, we have confirmed the algorithm can estimate the location of 16 passengers with 83% accuracy and also estimate train congestion with 0.82 F-measure value in average.
Dynamic performance of vector current controllers for grid-connected VSC under voltage dips

The increasing use of voltage source converters (VSCs) in grid-connected applications at distribution levels requires control methods that achieve high performance not only during normal operating conditions of the grid, but also under voltage disturbances, like voltage dips. In this paper, three different current controllers for shunt-connected VSC are investigated. With a constant DC-link voltage, the three controllers are compared under balanced and unbalanced voltage dips. Simulation and experimental results are shown for all three controllers.
Optimal Modal Beamforming for Spherical Microphone Arrays

An approach to optimal array pattern synthesis based on spherical harmonics is presented. The array processing problem in the spherical harmonics domain is expressed with a matrix formulation. The beamformer weight vector design problem is written as a multiply constrained problem, so that the resulting beamformer can provide a suitable trade-off among multiple conflicting performance measures such as directivity index, robustness, array gain, sidelobe level, mainlobe width, and so on. The multiply constrained problem is formulated as a convex form of second-order cone programming which is computationally tractable. We show that the pure phase-mode spherical microphone array can be viewed as a minimum variance distortionless response (MVDR) beamformer in the spherical harmonics domain for the case of spherically isotropic noise. It is shown that our approach includes the delay-and-sum beamformer and a pure phase-mode beamformer as special cases, which leads to very flexible designs. Results of simulations and experimental data processing show good performance of the proposed array pattern synthesis approach. To simplify the analysis, the assumption of equidistant spatial sampling of the wavefield by microphones on a spherical surface is used and the aliasing effects due to noncontinuous spatial sampling are neglected.
Forecasting Pedestrian Trajectory with Machine-Annotated Training Data

Reliable anticipation of pedestrian trajectory is imperative for the operation of autonomous vehicles and can significantly enhance the functionality of advanced driver assistance systems. While significant progress has been made in the field of pedestrian detection, forecasting pedestrian trajectories remains a challenging problem due to the unpredictable nature of pedestrians and the huge space of potentially useful features. In this work, we present a deep learning approach for pedestrian trajectory forecasting using a single vehicle-mounted camera. Deep learning models that have revolutionized other areas in computer vision have seen limited application to trajectory forecasting, in part due to the lack of richly annotated training data. We address the lack of training data by introducing a scalable machine annotation scheme that enables our model to be trained using a large dataset without human annotation. In addition, we propose Dynamic Trajectory Predictor (DTP), a model for forecasting pedestrian trajectory up to one second into the future. DTP is trained using both human and machine-annotated data, and anticipates dynamic motion that is not captured by linear models. Experimental evaluation confirms the benefits of the proposed model.
Results on health-related quality of life and functionality of a patient-centered self-management program in hospitalized COPD: a randomized control trial

Abstract Objective: The main objective of this study was to evaluate the results of an in-hospital Self-Management program in addition to physiotherapy in severe patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) compared to a physiotherapy program. Methods: In this randomized clinical trial, 66 acute exacerbation COPD patients were included and were randomly divided into three groups. The Control group received standard medical treatment. The Physical therapy group received Control Group intervention plus a Physical Therapy intervention, consisting of neuromuscular stimulation therapy on the quadriceps muscle accompanied by lower limb exercises. The Self-management group received Physical Therapy group intervention plus a Self-Management program, which included educational information complemented with a problem-based session, breathing exercises and relaxation exercises. The main outcomes measured were the health-related quality of life and functionality. Results: All treated groups show improvements in all outcomes, being significant in the case of all total scores of health-related quality of life and functionality(p < 0.05) between Physical Therapy group and Self-Management group. At 3 months, health-related quality of life shows reductions in all subscores in Control Group and Physical Therapy groups, while Self-Management group shows minimal maintenance of the values. Conclusion: An individualized Self-Management program added to a physiotherapy program administered once a day improves health-related quality of life and functionality compared to a Physical Therapy and to a Control Group in hospitalized severe COPD patients. Implications for rehabilitation Self-management is the most challenging area of chronic diseases improving patient self- efficacy and reducing cost. A self-management program improves health-related quality of life and functionality compared to a physical therapy treatment in severe Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease hospitalized patients.
Habitat Type Influences Danaus plexippus (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) Oviposition and Egg Survival on Asclepias syriaca (Gentianales: Apocynaceae)

Abstract As agricultural practices intensify, species once common in agricultural landscapes are declining in abundance. One such species is the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus L.), whose eastern North American population has decreased approximately 80% during the past 20 yr. One hypothesis explaining the monarch's decline is reduced breeding habitat via loss of common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca L.) from agricultural landscapes in the north central United States due to the adoption of herbicide-tolerant row crops. Current efforts to enhance monarch breeding habitat primarily involve restoring milkweed in perennial grasslands. However, prior surveys found fewer monarch eggs on common milkweed in grassland versus crop habitats, indicating potential preference for oviposition in row crop habitats, or alternatively, greater egg loss to predation in grasslands. We tested these alternative mechanisms by measuring oviposition and egg predation on potted A. syriaca host plants. Our study revealed that habitat context influences both monarch oviposition preference and egg predation rates and that these patterns vary by year. We found higher monarch egg predation rates during the first 24 h after exposure and that much of the predation occurs at night. Overall, we documented up to 90% egg mortality over 72 h in perennial grasslands, while predation rates in corn were lower (10–30% mortality) and more consistent between years. These findings demonstrate that weekly monarch egg surveys are too infrequent to distinguish oviposition habitat preferences from losses due to egg predation and suggest that monarch restoration efforts need to provide both attractive and safe habitats for monarch reproduction.
Using Eurowordnet in a Concept-Based Approach to Cross-Language Text Retrieval

We present an approach to cross-language text retrieval based on the EuroWordNet (EWN) multilingual semantic database. EuroWordNet is a multilingual, WordNet-like database with basic semantic relations between words for several European languages (English, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, German, French, Czech, and Estonian). In addition to the relations in WordNet 1.5, EWN includes domain labels, cross-language, and cross-part-of-speech relations, which are directly useful for multilingual information retrieval. In our approach, documents in any language covered by EuroWordNet are indexed in a space of language-independent concepts (the EuroWordNet Inter Lingual Index), thus turning term weighting and query/document matching into language-independent tasks. We report on the results of a number of experiments that measure the potential benefits of the approach and its tolerance to word sense disambiguation errors. In our monolingual experiments, the classical, vector space model for text retrieval is shown to giv.
Far-Flung Filaments of Ejecta in the Young Supernova Remnant G292.0+1.8

New optical images of the young supernova remnant (SNR) G292.0+1.8, obtained from the 0.9 m telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, show a more extensive network of filaments than had been known previously. Filaments emitting in [O III] are distributed throughout much of the 8′ diameter shell seen in X-ray and radio images, including a few at the very outermost shell limits. In addition to the extensive [O III] filaments, we have detected four small complexes of filaments that show [S II] emission along with the oxygen lines. In a single long-slit spectrum we find variations of almost an order of magnitude in the relative strengths of oxygen and sulfur lines, which must result from abundance variations. None of the filaments, with or without [S II], shows any evidence for hydrogen, so all appear to be fragments of pure supernova ejecta. The [S II] filaments provide the first evidence for undiluted products of oxygen burning in the ejecta from the supernova that gave rise to G292.0+1.8. Some oxygen burning, either hydrostatic or explosive, must have occurred, but the paucity of [S II]-emitting filaments suggests that either the oxygen burning was not extensive or that most of its products have yet to be excited. Most of the outer filaments exhibit radial, pencil-like morphologies that suggest an origin as Rayleigh-Taylor fingers of ejecta, perhaps formed during the explosion. Simulations of core-collapse supernovae predict the development of such fingers, but these have never before been so clearly observed in a young SNR. Following careful subtraction of the stars in the field, we have measured the total flux in [O III] λ5007 as 5.4 × 10-12 ergs cm-2 s-1. Using a distance of 6 kpc and an extinction correction corresponding to E(B - V) = 0.6 mag (lower than previous values but more consistent both with our data and with X-ray and radio measurements of the hydrogen column density) leads to a luminosity of 1.6 × 1035 ergs s-1 in the 5007 Å line.
The evolution of peafowl and other taxa with ocelli (eyespots): a phylogenomic approach

The most striking feature of peafowl (Pavo) is the males' elaborate train, which exhibits ocelli (ornamental eyespots) that are under sexual selection. Two additional genera within the Phasianidae (Polyplectron and Argusianus) exhibit ocelli, but the appearance and location of these ornamental eyespots exhibit substantial variation among these genera, raising the question of whether ocelli are homologous. Within Polyplectron, ocelli are ancestral, suggesting ocelli may have evolved even earlier, prior to the divergence among genera. However, it remains unclear whether Pavo, Polyplectron and Argusianus form a monophyletic clade in which ocelli evolved once. We estimated the phylogeny of the ocellated species using sequences from 1966 ultraconserved elements (UCEs) and three mitochondrial regions. The three ocellated genera did form a strongly supported clade, but each ocellated genus was sister to at least one genus without ocelli. Indeed, Polyplectron and Galloperdix, a genus not previously suggested to be related to any ocellated taxon, were sister genera. The close relationship between taxa with and without ocelli suggests multiple gains or losses. Independent gains, possibly reflecting a pre-existing bias for eye-like structures among females and/or the existence of a simple mutational pathway for the origin of ocelli, appears to be the most likely explanation.
Towards a similarity-based web service discovery through soft constraint satisfaction problems

In this paper, we focus on the discovery process of Web Services (WSs) by basing the search on the similarities among the service requirements and candidate search results, in order to cope with over-constrained queries or to find satisfactory alternatives for user requirements. This discovery process needs to involve the so-called Soft Constraint Satisfaction Problems (SCSPs). First we represent both WSs and the search query of the user as Rooted Trees, i.e., a particular form of Conceptual Graphs. Then, we find a homomorphism between these two trees as a solution of an SCSP. The main contribution of this paper is the enhanced expressiveness offered by this "softness": in over-constrained scenarios, when a user query cannot be satisfied, classical crisp constraints (i.e., CSP) are not expressive enough to find "close" solutions to meet the users' needs.
A Dual-Band Wireless Power Transmission System for Evaluating mm-Sized Implants

Distributed neural interfaces made of many mm-sized implantable medical devices (IMDs) are poised to play a key role in future brain-computer interfaces because of less damage to the surrounding tissue. Evaluating them wirelessly at preclinical stage (e.g., in a rodent model), however, is a major challenge due to weak coupling and significant losses, resulting in limited power delivery to the IMD within a nominal experimental arena, like a homecage, without surpassing the specific absorption rate limit. To address this problem, we present a dual-band EnerCage system with two multi-coil inductive links, which first deliver power at 13.56 MHz from the EnerCage (46 × 24 × 20 cm3) to a headstage (18 × 18 × 15 mm3, 4.8 g) that is carried by the animal via a 4-coil inductive link. Then, a 60 MHz 3-coil inductive link from the headstage powers up the small IMD (2.5 × 2.5 × 1.5 mm3, 15 mg), which in this case is a free floating, wirelessly powered, implantable optical stimulator (FF-WIOS). The power transfer efficiency and power delivered to the load (PDL) from EnerCage to the headstage at 7 cm height were 14.9%–22.7% and 122 mW; and from headstage to FF-WIOS at 5 mm depth were 18% and 2.7 mW, respectively. Bidirectional data connectivity between EnerCage-headstage was established via bluetooth low energy. Between headstage and FF-WIOS, on–off keying and load-shift-keying were used for downlink and uplink data, respectively. Moreover, a closed-loop power controller stabilized PDL to both the headstage and the FF-WIOS against misalignments.